How to Increase Work From Home Productivity When Employees are Working Remotely

Are Remote Workers More Productive?

Work from home productivity is an issue that once had more skeptics than believers. But as the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged remote working, more and more businesses had to transition to this work setup, and work from home productivity studies became more prominent, showcasing whether or not it is indeed a good work strategy. 

Workers begin seeing and gaining first-hand experiences on the benefits of remote work. Suddenly, long hours of commute are no longer a problem, and saving on expenses became easier. People can spend more time with families, and in pursuing hobbies and activities outside of work. 

The benefits of remote work for employees and employers alike are well-documented, but does working from home actually increase productivity? The answer lies in how well employers and employees help each other out in establishing and maintaining effective work from home policies and procedures. While a lot of studies do show that employees show a significant increase in productivity, and showcase overall wellbeing, when not approached the right way, it still opens to the possibility of burnout and stress.

The flexibility and satisfaction that remote working brings to employees is a major factor in the boost of their morale and productivity. Meanwhile, leaders become wary that with lesser supervision due to a lack of physical environment and interaction, workers would slack off and showcase a lack of discipline for work. As such, it is just as important to also understand how to create a strong workplace culture, even in a remote work environment.

Best Practices to Ensure Work from Home Productivity

To harness the full productivity potential of remote working, here are a few work from home hacks for employees who truly want to shine in a remote environment.  

From an employer standpoint, be mindful of the fact that the average employee will not be so proactive in readying themselves for new ways of working; SCG strongly encourages organizations to enroll end-users in a comprehensive training program to prepare for success as a remote workers.

Create an Effective Work From Home Office

There is a high tendency for everyday chores to overlap with office work when staying at home. There is also the constant temptation to work on your bed or while watching TV since all these things are accessible. This makes it important to have a dedicated office space at home.

In doing so, an atmosphere that reminds you of your work is created. This also helps in keeping your work files organized and separated, so that it does not interchange with your other personal chores and other activities. Simply put, having an office at home will draw the line between your job and being at home, making things easier to navigate, thus doing away from distractions and increasing productivity.

Build a Routine that Includes Proper Breaks

When working from home, there is a higher chance that you will not be in sync with your co-workers when it comes to the time you prefer to work.

This is because some people will be living in different situations, making productivity hours vary for everyone. As such, it is important to establish your schedule and be strict in following it. 

While remote workers are often given flexibility in their work schedules, it is important to create a time-in and time-out habit. This way, you will be reminded that you can still do other things outside of your job. This stops an employee from experiencing work stress and burnout. 

Having a routine will not only help you be reminded to work, but it should also signal when you should take a break. 

Employees working at home should not be made to feel guilty about taking breaks, as they are critical for mental well-being–especially when physically isolated outside of the office. There will be times when working from home would feel like the work becomes endless since there is no other place to go, and new assignments or team communication seems to be coming in at all times. Your routine will ensure that you take enough breaks in between tasks so your brain is kept at optimum and will enable you to stay productive.

Communicate Even When Working from Home

There often comes a point when a remote employee feels all he or she does is focus on producing one work output after another, all the while forgetting to get into conversations with supervisors and coworkers. This should not be the case as it will only increase the idea of feeling like an outsider. There is still a need to establish a strong work culture even for remote workers, and communicating with coworkers, even informally, is one sure way to create and maintain it.

It can be as simple as sending an update to your leaders of the accomplished tasks and things on the way, or as casual as checking on teammates on how they are doing and offering to help out in any way you can. 

Communicating might seem difficult when done remotely, but this is no longer the case, especially with the many communication tools available that go beyond emails and video calls. This also means that knowing how, where, and when to communicate using the proper channels, will effectively help remote teams create a balanced and productive work synergy, even when working miles apart from each other.

Keep Track of Your Productivity

To be able to judge your productivity can only happen if you can track it. This is also the only way to know how, where, and what to improve to reach the productivity level that you can be truly satisfied and proud of. 

This will also help employees provide tangible data if your productivity is questioned — through presenting and showcasing the tasks accomplished and outputs served. This is most especially advantageous during a time when everyone is adjusting to the remote work setup, and even team leaders are trying to gauge how they can monitor and evaluate your performance. 

This can be achieved, at a very high level, by simply keeping track of your accomplishments through various tools and apps available for use. There are productivity management and tracking such as Toggl, Time Doctor, Trello, and plenty more. Keeping track will also help you with your schedule, as well as remind you of your responsibilities towards your coworkers, your employers, and the business.

Commit to a Goal and be Open to Improvement

As an employee gets used to working from home, the goals at the beginning may be to simply adapt and remain productive in the new setup. Of course, as time progresses, new goals must be set, to feel continuous growth and receive a sense of accomplishment. Having clear goals will help document the productivity of an individual, and fulfilling them will ultimately give the encouragement they need to keep setting higher goals. 

There is no right or wrong when it comes to setting a goal, just as long as you set them, follow-through, and do what you can to achieve it. 

These are just some of the many work from home productivity tips that employees can practice when working remotely. Of course, these should also be learned by employers, so that they can incorporate them into the programs that they implement for their remote teams. This way, workers will feel a sense of guidance from their leaders and will be more positive in dealing with this new workplace strategy.

Measuring Productivity of Remote Workers

Clients often ask Stegmeier Consulting Group (SCG) about measuring knowledge worker productivity, especially to determine the effect of a workplace change, and implementing remote work is no different.  When companies are making significant investments in real estate and/or altering how work gets done, there is a strong desire to ensure the change won’t negatively affect output.  This is particularly true when (typically larger) organizations take a phased approach to rolling out their workplace strategies, using each iteration as a test-and-learn experiment to inform future workplace changes.

SCG often conducts electronic surveys for employers who are rolling out a workplace change and we’ve found there are predominantly two reasons companies conduct these surveys: either to establish a baseline against which to measure after the change (pre-and post-occupancy assessment) or to determine the areas of resistance ahead that should be addressed with change management (pre-change assessment).

When it comes to a desire to measure productivity, especially of remote workers, corporate decision-makers should first ask why this is something they want to measure. Are you seeking to merely appease a key decision-maker who is skeptical of remote work (or whatever change is being considered) and whose buy-in needs to be secured to move forward?  Or is this rooted more in a desire to ensure your organization can learn from this iteration of your workplace strategy so that future initiatives or waves of employees going remote can benefit from it?

For those that do wish to move forward with a technical study of worker productivity, be prepared for a serious undertaking more akin to an academic research study than something you’d normally see in the corporate world. Measuring white-collar worker productivity is less straightforward than keeping tabs on the output of a factory worker.  

Knowledge workers often have nebulous and broad responsibilities, and for many office workers, each day is different from the last.  Even for those who essentially repeat the same process or tasks, the work performed may have some variables that differ each time, which makes a productivity study more challenging.

It is recommended to select individuals or job roles where there are clear and measurable KPIs for a remote worker productivity study.  A study of remote worker performance isn’t too meaningful in and of itself; plan to conduct a baseline data capture to compare the results to.  This can either be of employees in the office before they venture into a remote setting, or alternately, keeping tabs on daily output for hybrid employees–those who spend some days on-site and the rest of their workweek remote at home.

SCG is happy to speak with prospective clients regarding assessments of their remote workforce.  In the vast majority of cases, always trying to be mindful of our client’s budgets, we will seek to steer you towards a different service offering that would have a larger impact on the success of your remote work initiative, such as formalizing your remote strategy, educating employees on the changes ahead, or sharpening the skill set of those who’ve been remote for some time already.

Goal: Improving Remote Worker Performance for your Teams

In the quest to keep employees productive even in a remote work setup, employers should be equipped with the right tools and training to ensure that they lead remote teams towards successful working conditions and mentality. Employers should be able to shift towards performance recognition and productivity measures that guide employees to be their best. With your employees’ best interests in mind, connect with us and together we can build an approach to keeping your employees happy and productive when working remotely. Simply fill out the form below to get in touch with us.