Tomorrow, 31st March, marks two weeks since the announcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) – an announcement that saw Malaysia make the shift to remote working in an effort to maintain business continuity whilst preventing the spread of COVID-19.
In these two weeks, Microsoft has shared several tips on how to stay productive while working from home, how to conduct online meetings or events as well as cybersecurity best practices for CISOs.
In his recent blog, Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 takes a look back at some of the key learnings about working remotely from the past two weeks, summarising it into 5 easy to follow tips for you to make your work from home experience more enjoyable and productive:
Share work from home guidance. Just like how most offices have training manuals on navigating the office environment, guidance for working from home is equally as important to help employees understand how to take breaks, manage meetings and other challenges that may not be seen in an office setting.
Manage back-to-back meetings. Meetings in offices have natural pauses between them. But when working from home, these pauses are not so clear and it is encouraged for meetings to conclude five minutes before the end of the hour or half hour, to avoid getting burnt out.
Creating space for people to disconnect. Disconnecting from work helps us unwind and ready ourselves for the next day. One way this can be achieved while working from is to have virtual mediation sessions after work.
Continue to drive team culture. From all-hands meetings to celebrating small milestones, healthy team cultures depend on frequent get-togethers. This should continue to take place virtually, whenever possible.
Practice key management skills. Employees rely on their managers to check in, coach them through changes, and show curiosity to help them problem-solve and create. As managers, it is important to try to understand and react to their individual needs, checking in with them and reinforcing inclusion as much as possible.
We do hope you found these learnings useful to you and your organisation as we continue to work remotely during these challenging times.