Almost a year ago, the unfortunate shift from working from offices to a Work from Home (WFH) setup made a drastic shift in workplace culture. It has affected the daily routines of both employees, employers, and even entrepreneurs alike.

Given the recent announcement of having the National Capital Region (NCR) Bubble be under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) again, the majority of the workforce will be working remotely once more.

As for the new employees, it may be a more difficult road for you to walk than those employees who already experienced remote working.

By working remotely, a critical missing factor is being able to build better relationships with your colleagues, being able to align at any time, and having cohesive teamwork. Being able to brainstorm, argue or discuss a certain project is a crucial element that WFH employees are missing.

With that said, here are some important things to take note of while working from home during Lockdown 2021.

1. Managing your own and organizing your own projects.

One of the simplest tasks, yet at times the hardest, is to ensure that YOUR projects are properly identified, listed, and not forgotten. The most common way to do it is to use a pen and a notebook to list your daily/weekly tasks.

You can simply list down your tasks and check them off when you are done. This helps you to be aware of your remaining tasks. Listing them down is very important to avoid getting overwhelmed as this also helps identify the most urgent ones for you to know what to prioritize.

But most of the time, you cannot keep your work schedule to yourself. Your work schedule should be transparent with your colleagues, your managers, and team leaders for them to be aware of your tasks as well.

Writing your own schedule for yourself on a piece of paper and sharing it with your workmates through another work from home tracker will take so much time and effort.

2. Keeping tight coordination with your colleagues.

In a company setting, the projects assigned to you should be aligned and coordinated with your work team. You have to be on the same page for it to be a success.

One way in doing so is using the company’s chosen messaging platform of choice, be it Google Chat or others. It is a decent way to communicate properly but should be avoided.

Imagine being in a group of 5, you and one other member have been discussing privately the next steps you think are for the best. This may cause the other members to be left behind or you’ll end up wasting your time to rebrief the entire team.

You will need a work management system where you can list down your tasks and check where your colleagues are at with theirs. It helps you to work more efficiently by minimizing side communications by also keeping everyone updated at the same time. It is very crucial given that all of the team members are working remotely.

But what if you also need to update your manager? What if you are leading remote teams? It would take so much time to keep tracking employees working from home, while you also need to finish your own tasks. It would be wise not to spend your entire day checking up on your team.

3. Making sure the entire team is working smoothly

As a team manager, there is more to your time than simply tracking work from home productivity and checking up on your team. You may have meetings with other department leads, listing down action steps to improve remote work productivity, and on top of that, you have your own tasks.

Efficiency would be your best weapon to help you. A project management platform will be of great use to you.

As mentioned by Kathy Gurchiek of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), "Trust that if they're communicating clearly and meeting goals and deadlines, your employees are being productive and doing their jobs effectively." (https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/covid19-10-tips-for-successfully-managing-remote-workers-.aspx)

It will help you ensure that your teammates are doing well with their tasks. You would be able to know if they're doing well or even if anyone may need help from you.

If you see yourself in any of these scenarios, it may be the right time to be familiar with a task management platform that can help you. Monday.com has all the features that an individual, a group of colleagues, or even managers will need to manage and organize the tasks at hand.

Monday.com is a project management platform where you can list down your personal tasks, coordinate with your colleagues and even check up on them, see if everyone is doing well or even if some are stuck with theirs, and more. It helps work collaboration to become easier.

It is one platform to do all.

If you are still deciding whether to stick with your pen and paper or other less efficient team management solutions to help you out, feel free to reach out to us so you can learn more about monday.com