Work From Home – Accountability and Work Ethics

Five ways to meet the Challenges of Working from Home while balancing your Home Responsibilities.

Covid-19 pandemic has pushed millions of employees around the globe into an overnight transition: working remotely out of their home space.  The situation is unusual and challenging. It calls for accountability and work ethics as working in office environ. An average employee is feeling the pressure of proving their loyalty to their companies by working from home for more hours than usual whilst trying to balance their responsibilities at home.

Work from Home (WFH), also known as Telecommuting, is not a new concept in business world. However this substantial change in the lives of an average employee around the world has created a life which nobody was ever prepared for.

As organizations have slipped into the new normal in these unprecedented times, this change has arrived with a heavy price tag for their employees: blurring of the lines between work and home.

In the Covid Era, employees are still struggling to adapt to this new style of working. Without leaving their home, employees are expected to deliver the same, and, sometimes more, productivity and quality results for their employers and their companies while bearing full accountability and maintaining work ethics.

Here are top 5 recommendations through which WFH workers can produce quality results whilst demonstrating a great work ethic and accountability for their employers :

1.Prioritize Projects

In her article, Laura Quiambao writes that according to a recent survey conducted in March 2020, 49% of the workers said that they never work from home. This puts an average worker under a lot of pressure.

It is especially important for the newly initiated remote worker to understand their work goals and prioritize their day to day office assignments and projects. Identify and acknowledge that not everything needs to be done right away. Choose work goals based on urgency and importance. Prioritize projects. This would enable the WFH employee to stay calmer and better aligned with their organisational values. It would also take off some pressure from their pressing demands at home front

2.Choose Relevant Technology

Work from home can easily put a worker in the danger of social isolation, unless the technology is wisely chosen to enable them to connect and collaborate seamlessly. There are many options available to do so. Stephen Wright  writes about various technologies for a remote worker from choosing the correct Mobile Hardware Tools such as laptop, smartphone and adequate internet access to Virtual Collaboration and Communication tools such as Slack Chat to Video Conferencing Tools like WebEx and GoToMeeting, along with Project Management Tools like Microsoft Teams and Asana with Performance Engagement Tools like Trackstarto Best Employee Engagement Tools and importantly Remote Cyber Security Must -Haves.

Take the help of the office IT team to setup the work spaces at home and then learn to master these technologies to derive maximum benefit for an increased productivity.

Remember, a seamless setup of work space at home in accordance with the guidelines of the organisation, can go a long way into creating accountability and a comfortable work environment from home.

3. Design Your Work space

Many WFH employees often are not able to focus during their work hours at home because they are unable to tune out their home related distractions. It is important to learn to set boundaries and design a professional work space at home. It helps to establish some ground rules to make the day productive both work-wise as well home-wise.

Devasish Chakravarty writes that for employees working from home it is important to design a clutter free work space and organise the desk just as you would do it in office. Simple planning such as noise cancelling headphones, tidying up the desk and working out regular home routines can be a key to deliver better results both at work and home.

4. Setting up Accountability

For any WFH employee, temptation can come easy. For instance that urge to juggle between doing the daily laundry and attending meetings simultaneously to save time and trying to be over productive. But just because one can do this doesn’t mean that one should.

According to an article published in Medium.com, it is easy even for an employee with great work ethic to get swayed when they know that there are no sets of eyes watching them working from home.

But every WFH employee must hold their own selves accountable and, therefore, responsible for themselves. This includes setting up clear goals, maintaining daily checklists, setting timers, sending regular updates to employers, rewarding one self and reviewing the work.  Transparency in communicating to the employers and staying visible online with regular updates builds trust.

 In the presence of trust, the employee feels motivated and it leads to quality productivity and a happier home environment.

5. Wellness Routine

The Mindtools content team writes about how WFH employees can easily feel challenged both physically and mentally during their work day. According to them it is very easy for an average WFH employee giving in to the urge of starting early and finishing later. But this can be hindrance in the long run . The desire to finish early can make the employee cut corners in their work assignments and this can result in breach of trust between the employer and the employee. This can further spiral into a negative environment at home.

A disciplined approach such as enough sleep, eating on regular times and taking short breaks in between, can keep the WFH employee feel energized and focussed. Apart from this, ensuring a comfortable chair to prevent backaches and rewarding oneself by staying hydrated during the work day can help the remote workers to maintain a healthy routine.

Given above are few recommendations that can help the WFH employee create better work productivity, demonstrate accountability and maintain work ethics in the new Covid Era work-cum-home spaces.

There are many more methods and ways in which this can be achieved. Ultimately, it is up to each WFH worker to decide which approach is best suited for fulfilling their duties and responsibilities towards their work goals as well as home commitments. It is apparent that the age of the WFH worker is here to stay for a long time. This calls for a definitive and a planned approach for working from home.