Office Job

How to Succeed in Your Office Job When There Is No Office

The coronavirus has many of us trying to be productive at home. Here are some tips for all of us, including our bosses.

Shift your mind-set. More than ever you will be measured on output, not how many hours you sat at your desk. “It’s a different way to approach work” and translates to more freedom to design your day,

Take the initiative. Don’t expect your higher-ups to have it all figured out. Almost every aspect of work is being reconsidered, so jump in with suggestions, big or small. Even figuring out new Zoom or Teams features and giving a quick lesson can be useful.

Speak up quickly if something isn’t working. “Raise a flag if something looks off,”

Re-create “in person.” If you do your best collaborating in the same room with a work partner, use technology and block a few hours to “share a room,

Find office allies. Brainstorm, review work together before submitting it or just check in. Crossing paths in the break room is a thing of the past

Remove distractions. Without the boss periodically peeking over your shoulder, it’s easy to take a quick break and realize an hour later you’re still on that unending Twitter or Instagram scroll. Take social media off your work machine. Leave your phone in another room.

Use what worked before. Take home with you the best habits you formed at the office. Setting priorities and communicating, for example, are still essential to effective work.

Don’t forget career advancement. Keep thinking and talking about the areas you want to improve, the parts of the company you want to explore and how you may get there

Over communicate. Provide additional context. Explain the “whys” of decisions and their possible effects to replace the information picked up organically in the office. Make sure to clarify goals, identify resources and explain where to find information

Make consistency a priority. Updates should come at predictable times and days. “It’s important to have a consistent cadence to communication,” especially when so many other things are uncertain

Meet differently. In phone calls and videoconferences, take extra time to encourage questions and engage those who haven’t chimed in

Rotate responsibilities. New ways of doing things offer new experiences.

• Repurpose your teams. Find new ways to meet old objectives.
• Keep Experimenting.
• “managers need to ask employees about their individual constraints like child-care hours,” he said, “and design around each person’s constraints.”
• Find ways to highlight your teams’ great work with higher-ups. Upper management may be physically out of sight
• Remember the extra stress. Employees aren’t just figuring out how to work from home. They are managing newly full households, and worrying about a potentially deadly virus as well as economic fallout and social justice issues. Part of understanding that is accepting messiness, and showing your team that you are not immune to it,
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