Hello OIP,
By now, you have all probably settled in your home offices and grown accustomed to your new remote reality. However, it doesn’t hurt to share a few tips on the challenges of working in the same place where you sleep. Therefore, here are some more tips to follow in order to acclimate yourself better:
- How to prevent burnout in the remote workplace?
Prevention is a team sport. Leaders must work to establish a workplace culture that empowers rather than restricts, managers must be proactive in sensing the signs of mental strain, and team members must feel comfortable surfacing issues while they are still manageable. Below are several recommendations for avoiding and preventing burnout.
- Set clear boundaries between work and home stuff
- Take a “mental health” day to lower your stress (spend time doing what you enjoy in, get some exercise, watch a movie, read a book)
- Know when to take a break
- Put a break reminder on your computer
- Switch off when you’re away from work
- Don’t suffer in silence – if you feel burned out, isolated, anxious, share it and talk with your peers and supervisor
- Don’t go straight to your computer after you wake up
- Keep each other accountable. When you notice someone should be asleep while they are still working, tell them
- Use your Hangouts Chat status to share a message with the team that you are unavailable
- Schedule random coffee breaks
- Roll with the changes
Remember that transitioning to remote, even if temporary, is a process. You can’t just copy an in-office environment and paste it into a remote one and expect everyone to function as usual.
It’s important to communicate with your team as you adjust. Speak up about issues, offer solutions for communication gaps, seek advice on how others have set up their dedicated places of work within their home, look for an opportunity in the midst of what will probably feel like a chaotic and destabilized situation. Remote is a chance to rethink how you live and work, and though it may sound counterintuitive, unleashing your imagination to take advantage of your new working reality may lead to long-term efficiencies.
- Remember, you can always hop on a call
A lot of important nonverbal communication happens when people are sharing a physical office space. If a thread or a chat discussion is becoming increasingly unclear, emotions are escalating or the right people aren’t being looped into the conversation, feel free to call a “timeout” on the conversation, ask for a call and have it face to face. Drop any shame or embarrassment as everyone is in the same boat — a forced work-from-home arrangement with no preparation. Feel welcome to let your pets and family find their way into calls on occasion. It humanizes the experience and reminds everyone that we’re people first. Also, make sure to connect with your family and friends. Working from home gives you an opportunity to spend time with a different set of people than just your coworkers. Look for opportunities to build bonds with family and friends, which may have been impossible or limited when you had a commute to and from work every day.
Take care, stay safe and healthy and take a photo, we will all be laughing at this one day!