Tips for working remotely during COVID-19

By Lorelei Yang, Countable News

COVID-caused changes

As COVID-19 spreads throughout the U.S., employers are increasingly asking their employees to work from home.

This is an important step toward enacting social distancing, but it’s also a new frontier for many workers who have never worked remotely.

If you’ve been asked to work remotely, but don’t know where - or how - to begin, here are a few tips for working remotely and apps to help ease the transition.

Tips for working remotely

• Maintain your typical working hours (and don’t allow work to bleed into your typically non-work hours)
• Dress for work even though you’re at home
• Avoid the temptation to multitask with television or Netflix on in the background
• Designate an area of your home to serve as your home office
• Stay in touch with your team to ensure everyone’s on the same page
• Ensure that you have the technology setup (such as internet and a well-maintained computer) you need to effectively work from home and ask your employer for help in obtaining these items if needed

Apps for remote work

• Videoconferencing apps: Google Hangouts, Zoom, and WebEx are great options for holding videoconferences, as they all support calls with video, screensharing, and webinars.
• File-sharing tools: Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and SharePoint are all good ways for teams to save files in central locations that are accessible to everyone
• Task-tracking tools: Trello, Basecamp, Asana and similar project-tracking apps support task assignment across teams. They're helpful tools for keeping teams on track even when they don’t share a physical office space
• Team chats: Slack or Microsoft Teams are good desktop messaging apps (and phone apps) that help eliminate emails and move internal communication into a chat platform. Being less formal than email, these apps feel more like talking in person