The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for many organisations in realising the benefits that it can bring to their business while ensuring a better work-life balance for their employees, says Yash Mehta, an IoT and Big Data Science specialist.
Work from home (WFH) has now become the new normal with the help of advanced and revolutionised technology. Technology plays a major part in making the job easier even while working remotely.
There are a lot of technological tools and hacks available to make your work remotely just as functional as your actual office. By using available websites and software, you can stay fully connected to your employers/employees, clients and colleagues and also be productive while working from home.
“Approximately 70% of the employees will be working at least five days a month by 2025” according to Forbes research.
Below are 3 useful productivity hacks every WFH employee must have in order to maintain productivity.
1) Access vital data and files with remote desktop
Remote desktop technology has become a requirement for the pandemic-era workforce. It has made it possible for businesses to continue to work remotely by letting employees work from home to easily access their office computers. Revolutionising how people work, can significantly boost productivity with a secure and convenient way to access the data. However, all of the data remains secure on the on-premise computer.
There are many instances where a remote desktop comes in handy. For certain tasks, remote access software is more efficient and flexible. For example, it lets you take over an individual computer from anywhere, fix problems in real-time, and many more. This keeps productivity levels high. It boasts better collaboration which lets the flexibility to work over a document.
Employing a remote desktop while working from home can be a great helper to work with ease without compromising on vital data and files.
2) Make the most of cloud storage
Working from home involves the collection and manipulation of massive amounts of data on one’s computer. And that is where cloud storage comes in handy. Using cloud storage and following best practices in adopting this technology offer many perks to WFH employees. These benefits comprise better performance, larger data storage availability, enhanced security, and in-built compliance with important regulatory requirements.
Messaging and collaboration applications, integration with SaaS productivity tools and other cloud-based applications are a few benefits of cloud storage. With cloud storage, you can save your work files safely on the cloud and easily retrieve them anytime, anywhere in the world.
WFH employees can use cloud storage to share documents safely within their team or fellow employees for easy and quick collaboration. Additionally, the feature to save and update work in real-time ensures that everyone on the team is always working on the most recent version of the file. Buying a hard disk can be expensive but good cloud storage can save money in the long run by serving as an automated backup for your work.
3) Stay productive and efficient using the tools
Irrespective of the place and role of work, workload management can be mundane if done alone. There are many tools available that can be used to get the most out of working remotely by precisely managing the tasks. This as a result will have a major advantage in improving productivity.
Here is a list of few tools you can use to make your job easier while working from home.
Project management
Project management tools help you track project progress in real-time using online dashboards. You can stay organised and productive while knowing what projects or tasks are assigned to you and the status of other project tasks.
A project management tool is a great way to associate, collaborate, integrate and organise all tasks of a team with ease. PM tools/applications can also be employed to follow production workflow, organise upcoming projects, manage the development schedule, monitor content, marketing campaign and much more.
Converter tool
PDFs are an important part of modern business operations. Nowadays the majority of companies are going green. In simple terms, companies these days rely on paperless billing and record-keeping. Invoices are emailed to clients in PDF format. Employees working from home can share project data quickly using PDFs. PDF converter tools such as Adobe and GetLua make it easier and convenient to perform everyday operations profitably. These applications also enable merging multiple PDFs into one and share them quickly, safely, and compactly.
Organisation apps
There are many organisation and productivity apps such as Google Calendar for organising the schedule and important events. Microsoft’s To-Do is used to manage to-do lists and stay productive. LastPass for storing all passwords safely in one place. StayFocusd to block certain websites during office hours to avoid any distractions while working and Evernote to pen down notes while in a video meeting or training, etc…
Real-time communication apps
There are many real-time communication tools such as Google Hangouts, Slack, etc.. these tools allow teams to communicate in real-time. Whereas Zoom, Skype, and Meet can be used for training, video meetings, interviewing, presentations, etc.
Though working from home offers enough flexibility to do your tasks the way you want, this amenity can often turn into a missed opportunity if failed using the right tools! Shifting to work from home or remote working can be challenging but finding the right tools can make work from home life easy and productive.
The author is Yash Mehta, an IoT and Big Data Science specialist.
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