Work from Home Checklist

More and more companies are encouraging workers to Work-from-Home (WFH) or remotely. As we continue to field more and more requests to assist in Work-from-Home capabilities for our clients, we wanted to make sure that you are prepared for the challenges that may be ahead of you. There are many reasons why companies might start allowing or even encouraging workers to be able to work from anywhere: 

• As is evident right now, in case of emergencies where workers have to stay in their house; 

• To retain top talent that may move; 

• To attract top talent that does not live in a city where your office is located; 

• In the case of a disaster (fire, flood, earthquake, etc.). 

Being proactive in making sure your workforce is able to work from any location sets your company up for success in the long run.  

When you can't work from home

Before we get into the Work-from-Home Checklist, we wanted to quickly touch on the front-line workers who can’t Work-from-Home for any reason. These types of workers include, but are not limited to, manual workers such as construction, first responders and healthcare workers such as paramedics and nurses, and servers and local brick-and-morter businesses.  

In the current case of COVID- 19, no matter what job you perform, if you have any symptoms, make sure to stay home. We also encourage you to do you due diligence into your company’s and country’s policies regarding paid sick leave. We know you’ve heard this before, but make sure to stay 6-10 feet away from others if you can, wash your hands, and practice social distancing.  

Work-from-Home Checklist 

• Technology: Make sure your teammates have the right technology to Work-from-Home. They should either have laptops that they can bring home or have access your company’s network from their home computer. You also want to make sure their internet can withstand the amount of work they have on a day-to-day basis.  

• Insurance: Make sure that any business equipment taken by your team out of the office will be covered by your insurance policy.  

• Non-E-Mail: In some cases, you may need to redirect your physical mail. Make sure to send it to someone who is able to receive and deliver any important mail so your company can stay on top of invoices.

• Internal Collaboration: When working remotely, you want to make sure your team has a messaging system. We use Microsoft Teams since it is integrated into Office 365 and is also located on the cloud, allowing you to access all your data from anywhere, but you can also use Slack or Google Hangouts. Make sure to also encourage people to turn on their camera when in online meetings. Having a more face-to-face conversation helps to ignite the team spirit. 

• Internal Communication: Make sure your company stays up to date on all communications by scheduling one-on-ones with managers and their direct reports, and company-wide or division-wide “huddles” so the team can have a heartbeat on what else is going on internally. This helps keep everyone involved and avoids creating silos of information.  How often and when these communications happen will depend on your company and how often people work remotely. 

• Phones: In the case that you have physical phones, you can opt into forwarding phone lines to cell phones. If, for whatever reason, you are unable to do that, you may consider a subsidy for users who have to use their phones when remote. You may also be interested in online phone services (like VoIP) or virtual voice solutions like Zoom or Microsoft Voice if possible.  

• Data: If you have not yet looked into changing up your physical servers for Cloud servers, now would be the time to do this. Cloud servers are easily accessible from anywhere in the world and are often much more secure in the case of a natural disaster or cyberattack than a physical one. Whether you look into private or public cloud options, make sure the choice is compliant with any regulations you need to follow (SOC2, HIPPA, etc.). 

• HR: We realize that as of right now, you may be scrambling to be able to allow workers to work remotely due to local circumstances, however, you should take time to create an HR document outlining the rules and regulations of working remotely for your workers moving forward.  This will allow for you to keep this process in place in the future, while also making sure work is getting done to a specific standard.  

Tips for your team to be productive while working from home

• Keep the same or similar schedule: Wake up at the same time, make your breakfast and lunch, and make sure to get dressed for the day. Staying in your pajamas does not allow your brain to go from rest to work as easily.  

• Actually, schedule your time even more: Schedule your time down to your breaks to make sure that you are sticking to the same workload that you would from the office. Whether you work in “sprints” (1-hour deep work followed by a 15-minute break) or have certain tasks with specific time periods, make sure to schedule your day and stick to your plan.  

• End your workday: People can find the lines between work and personal time hard to distinguish when working from home. Make sure to pick a time to end your day and actually stop working at that time. Often, your brain resets back to personal time on your commute home. Make sure to allow your brain this reset even if you have to stay at home. 

• Create a workspace in your house: You don’t need to have a “Home Office” to Work-from-Home. Create a space that is different from where you rest to set up your home office. When you enter this new space, your brain will realize it is work time and when you leave, it will revert back to personal time.   

Fully Managed has been performing over 95% of our support work remotely since our inception so we know a thing or two about working in non-traditional ways. You may know that our mantra is to help our customers by ‘Creating Peace of Mind’ - so if we can help in any way please don’t hesitate to reach out.