Remote work is one of the biggest business trends this year. This also includes the challenges and the productivity benefits of working remotely.

As the coronavirus outbreak has spread globally, companies needed to shift their employees from working in the office to working remotely.

Now remote work is known for many more employees and was already implemented by millions of additional people.

Remote work brings many benefits to productivity.

While everyone always focuses on the benefits of remote work for employees, this on businesses is less discussed.

Giving employees the freedom to work from home means that they can be more productive, which means less hiring, and better work performances—leading to your customer satisfaction in many ways.

It also means better work and life balance for many employees who spend a lot of time daily, to transport in and out of the office.

Employees can also save money, and speaking of the savings; companies can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in many cases, allowing employees to work remotely and keeping the cash spent on the workplace and transportation compensations if there are any.

Startups can slowly take advantage of this to save their tight budgets for higher priority investments.

The benefits of allowing work from home extend from your employees to your company internally. Hiring remote workers can allow you to choose from the best talents for specific opportunities and positions. Having a much larger pool of hiring that includes anyone from around the world.

Top remote work productivity tips for your employees

1. Setting up professional, dedicated workspaces

Some people would prefer to work from the office than work from home, which is for clear reasons, the work environment. And while you can’t bring your colleagues home, you can make the situation more professional there.

The first thing you need to do with your workplace is to make it separated from anywhere else. The place where you work at home would better not be your living room, and it should be a separate room if possible, or part of your room dedicated to work.

Helping yourself with a place to continually use for working will help you concentrate when you sit there. Minimize distraction on this desk or this room and make it as comforting as possible to boost your productivity while working remotely.

2. Using schedules and tracking time

Creating a schedule of defined hours helps you stick to your work and become less distracted. Besides the routine of work hours, you also need to set precise daily tasks to keep focused on and avoid working without schedules or responsibilities.

Tracking time is also essential when it comes to working from home. Remote work productivity tools on phones and PCs can help you do it quickly.

Apps like RescueTime, Hubstaff and Time Doctor are a few of what you can find, with many advanced features to help you generate reports on your work and productivity.

3. Eliminating work distractions and setting boundaries

Whether you are distracted by TV, Facebook, or anything else, you should be avoiding these sources of distraction and eliminating them for good. Sitting away from the living room can help you become less distracted with things like TV and surrounding talks.

If you are distracted by your mobile phone and its notifications, some applications can help you stop everything from working at specific work hours you set for one time. Apps like this include AppBlock.

If you are distracted by your family, then you should set strict boundaries for dealing with you during work hours. Your family member should even know when to ask for help or start a specific conversation throughout each day.

4. Taking breaks and rewarding yourself

Working for straight hours/shift isn’t the best practice, whether at the office or home. Breaks are essential to refresh your mind and keep going with the same productivity level. When taking breaks, have a short walk, exercise lightly, or have a snack or a drink.

The best practice for breaks is to not distract yourself from surfing Facebook or Youtube or watching a series episode. You can also have a one hour break in the middle of the day to do so and break the day up.

Rewarding yourself with small things can also make a difference. Working remotely is very challenging and can sometimes make you feel demotivated and disengaged, and this is one way to help release some dopamine.

5. Keeping updated and communicating frequently

Sitting away from the office does not mean that you become an introvert. Keep communicating with your colleagues during the work, asking questions, providing updates, and sharing thoughts.

Collaboration and cooperation are essential for any work. You have to take advantage of them. Communicating through technology would never be like face to face communication, but you can still use voice and video meeting apps. This is to make remote meetings better than ever.

6. Project Management software can help you boost remote work productivity.

Workflow automation software is one of the well-known secrets of successful remote work. Some companies would find many processes becoming harder for employees, managers, and executives with remote work, but with workflow automation software, all changes.

A workflow automation software can help businesses manage projects, approvals, help employees collaborate and communicate, and much more, all in one place, saving much time and effort and making processes much more seamless and suitable for remote work.

Wrapping it Up!

You can learn more on how we are employing our agency’s employees remotely, and how we can help you achieve this with a unified software, through our free 30-minute consultation.