Home office work! Understand the benefits for the company and employees and the tools that can be your great allies.
With the advancement of technology, the way people search for information, communicate and perform daily tasks is changing. This not only affects personal lives, but also the way professionals work.
One of the biggest transformations in this aspect is home office, also known as teleworking. This means that, for many people, the routine of waking up and leaving for work is no longer a reality, being replaced by the office located inside the worker’s own home.
Do you want to know how it works and what are the best tools for working from home? So, keep reading and find out!
What is Home Office Work and how does it work?
Home office is basically work carried out inside the home. He may or may not have a formal link with companies, that is, there are individual entrepreneurs who carry out their activities within the residence. However, what draws the most attention are the professionals who are linked to a company and use the home environment to work.
It is worth highlighting that working from home does not mean fewer activities to be carried out or a lack of control on the part of managers and the company. In fact, although there is flexibility in working hours in some cases, it is common for workers to need to be active during business hours (between 8am and 6pm).
Control of hours worked and goals is also carried out by the company. In fact, it is quite common for employees to need to hold online meetings, record time remotely or use monitoring applications on their computers.
What are the benefits of Home Office Work?
Working from home offers a series of advantages for both workers and companies. It is no surprise that this is one of the most desired benefits by Brazilian professionals. Find out below which are the main ones!
Saving time with Home Office Work
Imagine a professional who lives in São Paulo and needs to cross the city every day to get to and from work. He probably wastes many hours a day on public transport or in his own car, not to mention the stress and physical and mental exhaustion that such a routine can generate.
This is one of the great benefits of working from home. When professionals can work from their own home, they save time commuting and can invest in themselves. Furthermore, it avoids all the wear and tear that big city traffic generates.
In a big city, the savings can be huge. For example, if you spend 1 hour going to work and 1 hour returning home, working from home 3x a week would save 6 hours of time per week. It’s enough time to do gymnastics or improve in any area. And let’s remember that in large cities, the total travel time is usually much longer than 1 hour…
Cost reduction caused by Home Office Work
Imagine a company with 100 employees, all working at the organization’s headquarters. It is necessary to rent a large space to accommodate the entire team, paying the bills for the maintenance of the place. Furthermore, it is necessary to invest in furniture and equipment for everyone.
These costs are drastically reduced when working from home. This is because there is no need for such a large physical structure to accommodate the entire team. The company can provide vouchers for employees to purchase their own furniture and equipment, which still generates less expense compared to purchasing equipment for the business.
Less stress and more safety and sustainability
Nowadays, commuting in big cities is always a source of stress and worry. Congestion, crowded public transport at peak times, bad sidewalks, fear of violence are part of everyday life. In this way, reducing travel can greatly reduce stress levels and reduce accidents. Fewer trips also reduce fuel consumption, favoring sustainability.
Improving quality of life at Home Office Work
Ensuring the quality of life of business employees is essential and even an ethical commitment that your business assumes with the professionals who are part of it. In this aspect, the home office can be a great ally.
This is because this type of work allows employees to carry out their activities at home, that is, in a place where they feel comfortable. The professional can access all of their personal resources during the day, being able to prepare their own meal at lunch time, for example.
The main factor that generates quality of life is the reduction in travel time. After all, with more free time, you can take care of your health and personal development, in addition to spending more quality time with your family.
Increased motivation and productivity
With the comfort and quality of life, the company’s employees start the day with more excitement and motivation to carry out their activities. Furthermore, they feel valued by the organization, as they become part of a privileged group of people who work within their own home.
In this way, the team’s motivation and engagement increase, both in relation to the activities to be developed and the company as a whole. The consequence is also an increase in the team’s productivity, which starts to generate more and better results for the business.
Also imagine how many customers you can interact with online or in person in one morning. The difference in productivity can be brutal.
Gain in mobility
Have you ever thought about having collaborators spread across Brazil and even the world? This would eliminate geographic barriers to hiring excellent professionals in your company, after all, you could find talent anywhere in the world.
Home office makes this condition possible. After all, if the worker doesn’t have to travel to the company’s headquarters, he also doesn’t need to live in the same city. Furthermore, when you implement this modality, you allow employees to travel for work without having to interrupt their activities.
What are the problems with Home Office Work?
Like everything in life, nothing is perfect. Of course, there are downsides to remote work.
Some articles show that remote work, although it can increase productivity, can decrease creativity, innovative thinking and the ability to work as a team.
Therefore, it is important to find a balance between working in the office and at home, as well as remembering that people have different thoughts and needs. It is essential to respect this.
Using tools that support collaboration, communication and management can also help a lot when working remotely.
How to be productive working from home?
As you can see, working from home brings great benefits for everyone. But not everything is rosy in this sense: it is possible that, with the change, the professional will find it difficult to concentrate and maintain productivity in the home environment.
After all, there are more external stimuli, such as family and leisure activities available 24 hours a day. It may also happen that family members do not respect the employee’s working hours and, as a result, cause several interruptions throughout the day.
The good news is that avoiding a drop in productivity is a matter of habit. Therefore, there are strategies that allow a professional to be productive in a home office. Discover the main ones below:
- have a well-established routine;
- avoid working in pajamas;
- separate a specific environment for work;
- tell family members that you are working and cannot be interrupted;
- eat well and avoid eating in front of the computer;
- have moments of relaxation;
- take care of your posture;
- Know when to stop working and avoid compromising your leisure time.
What are the most useful tools for the home office?
In addition to behavioral strategies, there are still a series of tools that are great allies when working from home. They can be essential for the delivery of daily activities. See some below!
Communication
Efficient communication is essential for a remote work team to carry out their work. Discover below which tools are most suitable in this regard.
Microsoft Teams
Teams is an application created by Microsoft, integrated with Office 365. It allows the company to organize all work groups in one place, with fluid and direct communication.
The difference is the integration with the Office cloud. This makes it possible for everyone to edit and share documents among other members of the company.
Slack
Another useful tool for internal communication in a home office team is Slack. It is a platform that can be used on a computer or cell phone and works in a similar way to a social network, but entirely aimed at work teams.
This way, company employees can create groups among themselves, in order to separate conversations in each area. It is also allowed to share documents, regardless of the form they are in.
Video conference
Your team needs to meet periodically to discuss solutions and results, for example. Understand which tools make it possible to hold video conferences between employees!
Hangout Meet
If your company uses Gmail to communicate via email, Hangouts Meet may be the best tool. It allows you to hold video conferences directly through the Gmail page, and you can even share files during the meeting and computer screens. There is even a chat that can be used.
Zoom Meetings
Zoom Meetings is software that allows you to hold meetings of up to 100 people for a maximum of 40 minutes. It is ideal for small teams and agile model meetings. Furthermore, it is still possible to record the meeting to view later or send to employees who were unable to participate.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the ideal option if you use Office 365. It has advanced security and privacy features, allows you to hold online audio and video meetings, record and generate transcripts, facilitating the generation of minutes, send instant messages and hold online events with up to 10 thousand participants.
Task organization
When talking about remote work, it is essential to be able to control and monitor the team’s activities and results, following the workflow of the activities carried out. We have separated the tools you can use below. Check out!
Microsoft Planner
Planner is a service offered by Microsoft that allows you to plan agile projects in a virtual Kanban, delegate tasks and share files within a work group. It is integrated with the professional’s email, who receives notifications through this means of communication and can also integrate with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Project.
Trello
Trello works like a virtual Kanban, in which you can enter the activities to be carried out in columns with the status of each one. Collaborators can edit the platform collectively to track the status of project stages.
Asana
Asana is a tool that works like a shared to-do list. In it, you can add the activities that must be carried out and the employee responsible for each of them. When the team member completes the task, they must mark it as completed in the software.
Digital signature of documents
There are documents that need to be signed by more than one team member, in a legally valid manner. To avoid postal delays in remote teams, it is possible to adopt one of the following digital signature tools.
DocuSign
DocuSign eSignature is an application that allows you to digitally sign documents. It is the pioneering solution for electronic signatures and one of the most used tools in the world.
Clicksign
With Clicksign, you are able to insert legally valid digital signatures into documents. The free package allows you to perform this task five times a month.
File sharing
Working from home also requires professionals to exchange documents and even make edits collectively. Below, find out which tools help in this aspect.
Google Drive
Google Drive makes it possible to store almost any file type on a single cloud platform. Several people can edit files simultaneously and all changes are automatically saved by the system. It can also be synchronized with your computer or cell phone.
We Transfer
We Transfer allows you to send emails with files larger than normally allowed. It is possible to send to up to 20 contacts simultaneously, using your cell phone or computer.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud file sharing platform that works similar to organizing files on your computer. It is allowed to include up to 2 GB of files in the free version, and you even have the option of synchronizing it with the employee’s cell phone or computer.
Microsoft One Drive
One Drive is the cloud file sharing service offered by Microsoft. Its operation is similar to previous services, but with the difference of allowing up to 5 GB of storage in the free version. Some versions of Office 365 also include OneDrive, with 5 TB of capacity.
The OneDrive app for Windows lets you sync Sharepoint folders or libraries to your computer and work the way you’re used to, using Windows File Explorer to manage files.
CRM and customer service
Do your employees need to contact customers and work on sales or customer service processes? Some tools are essential in this aspect, allowing team integration and execution of the proposed work.
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 lets you integrate the entire process of marketing, sales, project planning and execution, customer service, and field services in one place. In it, it is possible to automate marketing activities, such as lead qualification work and email marketing, sales, as well as managing contracts, preparing proposals and a series of other features related to customer service.
The cool thing is that it has several integrations with Microsoft 365, which makes the team’s day-to-day life much easier.
Salesforce
It is a connection system between companies and their customers through the management of this relationship, from the first contact to post-sales. It is, therefore, a CRM that combines marketing, sales and service in one place.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a CRM for sales that presents all stages of the customer relationship through a virtual Kanban. It allows the automation of tasks, management of leads and opportunities, as well as monitoring the entire contact and customer service process.
Productivity
Finally, it is necessary to have a selection of resources that allow employees to carry out their tasks efficiently. Discover the main productivity tools available now!
G-Suite
It is a package of Google tools that includes email, creating and editing documents and spreadsheets, shared calendar, cloud file storage (Google Drive) and conferencing (Hangouts Meet).
Microsoft 365 (Office 365)
Microsoft 365 is a Microsoft service that offers, in addition to Planner and Teams, the entire famous Office suite in the cloud. This way, just access your email to use text editors, spreadsheets and presentations.
Conclusion
As you can see, working from home offers a series of benefits, but also some challenges. Managing employee results and maintaining team productivity are two of the main ones.
Therefore, it is essential that you find the best tools for your team and implement them in your company. This will ensure that employees have access to everything they need to generate the best results.
Smart Consulting can be your greatest ally at this moment. More than supporting customers on this journey, we have been embracing mobility and flexibility for several years, moving the applications we use to the cloud.
Contact us right now and discover all the tools we can offer for your business!
