The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred worldwide changes with social distancing, quarantine and remote work as the new norm. With firms adapting Work From Home (WFH), the global workforce is carrying out their office operations from the comfort of their homes. This transcendence from conventional workspaces to remote places has obligated workers to adapt to the new etiquette and codes of work to keep the corporate culture alive.
Remote work necessitates the adoption of novel ways to communicate and present your branding strategies through virtual communication. Every remote worker should structure their ideas in an engaging PowerPoint presentation. Leverage Google Slides Templates, SlideModel Templates and others to craft an enticing presentation to present in your virtual conference. Apart from forging presentations, working remotely stipulates other sets of skills to be productive.
What other skills do you need to be a quintessential remote worker? Let’s find out!
Manage Your Time
With no commute time, organized lunch breaks and vigilant eyes of the supervisors, it is easy for remote workers to slip into an overly lax schedule. Time management skills are imperative to enhance productivity and efficiency. Plan and stick to a meticulous work schedule. Use time management tools like Toggl or Harvest to track your time. Dedicate focus hours to your tasks one at a time. Avoid getting sidetracked with unimportant notifications and take short breaks.
Tech Savvy
Operational flexibility with the knowledge of technology is a requisite for a remote worker to implement it to reach brand goals. Level up your IT skills with the working of SaaS tools for project management, presentation design, collaboration and communication. Adopt platforms like Asana and Trello for task management, Slack for communication, Dropbox for file management, GSuite for Google applications, etc. Acquiring skills to work online is crucial for a booming business.
Communication Prowess
The communication routine of a 9-to-5 office is not cut out for the remote work world. With no conference rooms to attend meetings or face-to-face interaction, remote workers rely on virtual modes of communications. WFH mandates the use of emails, audio-video calls, texts or online chat. Train yourself with intuitive software to contact your teammates. Use Zoom, Google Meet, Skype etc. to discuss ideas and share presentations. Employ top-notch communication by keeping your messages clear, grammatically accurate and concise.
Collaboration Ready
To function competently from remote work, you need to realize the importance of collaborative teamwork. Without a physical space to gather, teamwork can prove to be a task. To accomplish shared goals and visions of your organization, fulfill your duties on time, be accountable for your team and coordinate via virtual communication. Make yourself adept at harnessing applications for real-time presentation building, project management, shared documents and virtual conferences.
Be Proactive
As a remote worker, you will often find yourself working on your own without any teammates to turn to for a quick consult. Cultivate the skill of working independently and be self-sufficient to work from home. Devise fresh ideas and develop critical thinking skills. Contemplate the problems objectively to come up with the best solutions. Learn new knowledge from courses offered online to hone your professional skills. Analyze the plans strategically with smart solutions to subsequent problems to amplify performance and output.
Work-Life Balance
While remote working, it is easy to get carried away with less or more work or get distracted by the activities happening in your home. For a stable life, it is integral for a remote employee to find that sweet spot between working and running errands. Set up a fixed routine and define clear-cut boundaries between your work and personal life. Foster discipline by drafting a to-do list, choose a comfortable working space in your home and get ready for work just like you would do for going to the office. Have a healthy after-work life with your friends and family.
Adaptability
While flexibility is a benefit of remote working, WFH demands one to be skilled in inventive and intuitive ways of working, sporadic changes and unexpected situations. Time zone differences, meeting schedules, task deadlines, language barriers, unstable internet connections and other unexpected challenges might pop up and overwhelm you. Prepare yourself for these situations and formulate a contingency and backup plan in case anything goes wrong. Polish your creative problem-solving skills to adapt to unforeseen situations.
To adapt to change is always tricky. With remote work as a new phenomenon for millions of employees, prepare yourself and your teams to manage the work from home easily with these skills. These seven skills form an indispensable part of remote work culture for professionals to thrive in the virtual environment. Remote workers should develop these skills to put their company on the pathway of success and personal development.