Right now, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who managed to nail down working from home, and those who still struggle with it.
Let’s face it.
Working from home has been imposed on most of us with a vengeance. During this pandemic period, it is mandatory to flatten the curve. And we must all cooperate with the best of our abilities to help the world heal faster.
Remote work is just one way of it. In fact, the interest in the search term ‘remote work’ has tripled during the past three months.
Source: Google Trends
Unfortunately, there are several challenges that remote work brings along with it. If you don’t put a lid on these challenges at the earliest, your productivity is going to plummet and your boss might assume that you are slacking at home.
Let’s not make situations so worse.
In this short blog post, I am going to discuss the five most prominent remote work challenges and what you can do to overcome them.
Also Read: How I built a business across three countries with only remote workers
Distractions
If you are someone like me, most probably the kitchen counter would be your work desk. And it will have an abundant supply of snacks which acts as a constant distraction from the pile of work that keeps growing.
If you are living with your family and children, there is also the constant noise and interruptions that you will have prey too.
Well, that is our first challenge to tackle — distractions.
Easy fix
You could be an intern who has just got into your first job or a CEO who has decades-long experience. It doesn’t matter which level of the corporate ladder you are at when you are working remotely; you need a proper workspace.
An ideal workspace for remote work is one where you have minimal distractions, has comfortable seating and a surface to put your work equipment on.
The kitchen counter is definitely not that, neither is the couch or the bed. You need a table and a chair to be productive while working remotely. Of course, you can keep carrying your work to the kitchen counter, couch or bed. Just don’t make them your workspace.
A dedicated workspace helps you prepare psychologically for work. It also helps set a boundary between personal life and work, although both are under the same roof now.
Also Read: (Infographics) Advantages and disadvantages of remote working
Cybersecurity
At work, our IT team would have set up the state-of-the-art IT security systems that would have protected your hardware, software or data from being threatened by cybersecurity criminals.
But, when working from home, especially when you connect to the internet using a private broadband connection, you may not enjoy the same level of cybersecurity.
As per the Techrepublic report, there has been a 667 per cent massive spike in COVID-19 related scams, phishing emails and so on. It is easy for even a seasoned internet user to fall prey to them.
Furthermore, Zoom, which rose to stardom as the go-to tools for virtual conferencing, has also become a hotspot for hackers. A Mashable report suggests that a Zoom security bug can let attackers steal your Windows passwords.
From a personal level and also from an organisational level, these are tough cybersecurity challenges of remote work that should be addressed on priority.
Easy fix
A virtual private network (VPN) is a trusted form of connecting to the internet wherein your device’s internet connection will be routed through a trusted VPN private server then the server provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP).
It ensures that all the data you send and receive online is not eavesdropped or manipulated by hackers or any unauthorised personnel. In fact, most organisations have been assigning dedicated IP to their employees to thwart cybersecurity threats.
There are also other benefits of using a dedicated IP.
You will be automatically added to your employer’s whitelist. That solves the problem of user authentication for specific tools, databases or such confidential information that you could be trying to access from your home network.
In short, VPN solves the dual problem of cybersecurity as well as improves your access to organisational data.
Also Read: Why you shouldn’t resist collaboration and remote work
Collaboration
Like or hate it, collaboration takes a hit when you are working home.
There is some X factor to face-to-face communication that makes collaboration so easier. Be it fetching a file from a colleague or giving knowledge transfer to a new project — things are more natural when there is face-to-face communication.
One of the toughest (and most prominent) challenges of remote work is the lack of direct interaction. You have to use virtual communication channels like chat, email, voice calls or video calls with fake backgrounds to communicate.
Even with all of these, your message may not get appropriately conveyed since you are not physically present.
How can this challenge be tackled?
Easy fix
The only resort to stay on the same page with a team while working remotely is to use project management tools. There are tons of such tools available online (both free and paid). Some of the best ones in the market are Trello, Basecamp, Slack, Evernote, etc.
Also read: Why remote working is the future for startups
Most of these tools are web-based and thus spare you from the need to download any software or configure them. The only difficulty would be to add team members and make them habitual to using it regularly.
Productivity
Given the many distractions that a home has — the comfy couch, the easily accessible bedroom, the hobbies and crafts that you did not have time to attend to earlier and so on, it is bound that you will get distracted.
When distractions intervene, productivity falls off the cliff into a deep pit. Also, while working remotely, you do not have the sight of your employees as well. This gives some sort of freedom to slack around in your own way.
Easy fix
Maintaining productivity while working from home is not a difficult task. All you need is a bit of preparation.
At the office, the flow of events and the environment might have made your stock of things-to-do and keep going like a well-oiled machine. While at home, you might need a proper plan, perhaps your own to-do list for the day to get things done.
Don’t mind putting pen to paper and writing it down. It has some magical way of ensuring you stack on track.
If that doesn’t work, go for digital alternatives like Google keep, Papier, Microsoft To-do, Trello, Wunderlist and the likes.
Also Read: The future of remote work is happening now, here’s how to make it work for you
Personal well-being
Remote working has several overlooked downsides to it.
Some of them are loneliness caused due to isolation, the need to be always available and for some, even a nagging feeling of insecurity.
These personal well-being issues might seem trivial at first. But, if they are contained at the earliest, they can grow in monstrous proportions causing your entire life — both personal and professional along with it to tumble down.
Easy fix
Having a support system of friends, colleagues and family can help tide over the isolation-caused well-being issues.
To begin with, use the time to get in touch with your near and dear ones with whom you have gotten far due to work and the routine of life.
In fact, the internet is strewn with images of video calls that are bringing together entire families and co-workers who are geographically scattered.
Final Thoughts
Remote work is going to stay, at least for a while. The world as a whole needs some time to heal.
While you are working remotely, you will be bombarded with distractions. You will face cybersecurity issues that you never knew existed. You might even find it difficult to rein in work from colleagues who were easy to work with earlier.
All these challenges cannot be solved in one shot. You have to address them separately, one at a time. Once you have conquered these challenges, you will be able to improve your work productivity, maybe even better than while at work.
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