7 facts about Remote Work & Home Office

Lockdown for the second time and once again it's called: Off to the home office! Since 18.01.2021, this is now also mandatory for Swiss companies. This article shows what needs to be considered in particular and how work in the home office can be successful. Not only since Corona have companies increasingly used decentralized working from any location and at any time. The current situation, however, makes remote work, mobile working and home office now mandatory for many large companies, SMEs and organizations. What's new is that even industries for which this scenario was previously unthinkable are now affected. For example, contact-related service providers are now increasingly using digital communication options from home (therapists, educational institutions, etc.) These 7 facts will help your team to complete the work at hand in the usual quality.

1.) Motivated work in the home office

In order to keep your employees motivated in their home office, a good organization including rest periods and days off is necessary. With the right tools, such as Microsoft Teams, this can be easily implemented. All in all, working from home is a great relief, because no matter what project is being worked on, a physical presence at the workplace is not necessary.

2.) Device independent and device spanning

You and your team can carry out your work directly from different end devices, completely independent of time and location. Data can also be synchronized between the devices so that you can access them from anywhere and from any device.

3.) Which tasks can be done in the home office?

In principle, all things that can be digitized can be done from home. These are quite a few and we would like to give some examples here. For example, you can take care of these frequently occurring tasks:

• Collect and edit information
• Use of specialized applications (customer databases, ERP, financial accounting, HR)
• Organization and holding of meetings and workshops
• Collaborative work on content (presentations, statistics, reports)
• Collegial and informal exchange

4.) What exactly is needed in the home office for the individual employee?

To work in your home office, you need a working device (computer, laptop or tablet). A touch screen and a built-in camera are advantageous. So you can communicate with your team even better and work is more fun. For example, you can work out joint solutions in an online workshop or write on the endless whiteboard. Then you also need an Internet connection for easy access to central applications and data. And that's it. The tips in our article from March of this year show you how to work even more efficiently in your home office

5.) How do you keep your team together?

Teamwork requires above all a common understanding of the basic rules of virtual collaboration. If everyone is working on their own, even if they do their job very well, this does not necessarily mean that the entire project will be completed successfully. An experienced team leader, who sets the common strategy and also practises it again and again with the team, and who supports the team at any time when questions arise, is indispensable.

6.) Remotework with the SCRUM method

The Scrum method includes above all transparency, verification and adjustment. Scrum structures tasks into smaller and less complex components. Teams then each work on one segment.

With Scrum you can make your team's work easier and react better to changes. The following video explains Scrum in 2 minutes Conclusion: You need these and other methods to use qualified remote work in your company.

7.) Remote-Work as test run for larger companies

For companies with more than 100 employees, our recommendation is a team pilot project or a test run. Even if you have to set up your home offices very quickly, you should still focus on sustainability to ensure that everything works later. 

These things are primarily to stay productive with teams:

• Your employees have basic knowledge of Microsoft teams

• All basic settings in Microsoft Teams are set in advance

• Teams each have a leader, who moderates the teamwork and ensures optimal processes

• Communication and collaboration runs exclusively through Microsoft teams to avoid duplication and loss of time

As an award-winning Microsoft partner, we rely on Microsoft Teams as a solution and support you both in setting up and connecting Microsoft Teams in your company.