Has Covid 19 changed how you will do business? What you need to know about Working From Home arrangements.
Just a few months ago, life as we know it was thrown into chaos. All of a sudden businesses were forced to work out how they would continue to trade, keep employees and in a lot of cases our work environments moved from functional, lively offices to finding a space in the family home to set up a desk and keep working.
Many businesses may adopt this new norm as an opportunity to not only reduce office rent costs and related expenses but as a result of listening to their employees on what is important to them. Many employees have embraced the working from home culture with the full understanding that productivity is still vitally important but the pay off is that no longer will they face the dreaded commute but saving the time on travel means more quality time at home.
For business owners, if you still have employees working from home due to restrictions in place or you have decided to adopt this new way of working please see below a few tips to ensure you and your business are protected;
- Working From Home Policy and Safety Checklist – Make sure you have these in place, particularly from a WHS perspective. Under WHS legislation home will now become classified as a workplace so make sure you have done your due-diligence to ensure the workplace is a safe one.
- Protecting your data – Consult with an IT professional to ensure you are well set up with the right systems to protect your data no matter where your employees are located.
- People Management – Now that you are not seeing your employees on a day to day basis, work out how you will best check in with the team and manage their performance. There are plenty of great apps and software that make managing workloads and assigning tasks.
- Mental Health Check – Adjusting to the new norm has been stressful for many people with disruptions to life as we knew it. Make sure you put some creative ideas in place to keep your team connected such as virtual coffees, lunch dates or after work drinks on Zoom or Skype. There are countless ways, just ask your team I’m sure they will tell you. Also be sure to promote services such as Beyond Blue, Lifeline or even invest in an EAP service employees can utilise at any time.
These are just a few tips to get you started and if you need any further assistance in this space, reach out to the team at Employment Toolkits we can tailor anything to your business requirements.
Take a look at our short video on remote working for a few extra tips.
Remote Working In The Modern Age | Sharon Howard | DisruptHR Talks
