In fact, 37% of the employees are ready to accept even a 10% pay cut to continue to follow a work from home policy. The employers couldn’t be more ready to make this happen as reports suggest that more than a third of full-time workers are expected to work remotely in ten years.

But, as any employer would invariably agree, setting up regulations for remote work is remarkably different from having rules and standards for the office.

So, before setting up the work from home policy in 2020 for your business, take a look at the top 7 features of the policy. Then follows, why you should follow a work from home policy in 2020.

Availability of employees

Do you want your employees to have the opportunity to work from anywhere during or beyond the pandemic crisis?

If so, then you need to state your availability expectations in the policy in order to save it from any kind of breach in the near future.

You can make it absolutely mandatory for them to be present from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Or you can let your employees have a flexible work schedule. Ensure sure that you outline the clause in the policy.

Setting availability requirements right from the beginning in your work from home policy will eliminate the probability of misunderstanding between your employees in the future.

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Requirements for work positions

Not every job position is suitable to go for remote working and some organizations might not have any position for remote jobs at all.

In such scenarios, it is important for every organization to mention each and every clause from the beginning about the possibilities of availability of a work position. This will eliminate any future inquiries, requests, or indifferences about working from home.

However, if you’re in a position to let a section of your employees work remotely, state that in your employment contract as well. Carefully analyze your operating model and decide on the work that can be done outside the office. Setting rules before is better than regretting tomorrow.

Measurement of Productivity

The work from home policy in 2020 needs to specify the way you will measure the productivity of the employees. The way we used to work is going to be different after the pandemic.

You have a couple of ways to measure their productivity. You can take into account the number of projects handled, time spent on particular projects, the number of client exchanges, and so on. The important thing here is to focus on the outcome of your work from home policy, and not the number of hours spent.

Responsiveness of employees

When we work remotely, responsiveness can turn out to be a major issue if the expectations regarding communication are not clarified from the onset.

So, lay down the ground rules for response time and modes of communication. It will lead to a healthy relationship between the supervisors and employees as nobody will have issues about being left in the dark or productivity concerns.

Tech Support

On-site tech support is offered in almost all companies, but remote tech support is something that most companies are yet to address. It will be helpful if you can offer tech support even remotely and outline what the employees should do when they have technical difficulties.

Technical glitches can occur anytime, but it is important to have a plan of action to ensure that the work goes on smoothly without a halt.

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Necessary equipment

An important part of your work from home policy 2020 in the times of pandemic should be stating the tools you are willing to offer the employees to help in completing their work.

Ask yourself:

• Are the employees expected to have their personal laptops or computers? Point it out in the contract.
• Do they need to have an internet service that meets a particular speed requirement?
• What are the video conferencing apps or other tools that need to be present on their computers? List it all out.

It is your responsibility to make sure that there is no ambiguity regarding the equipment they need to work remotely for your company. Specify everything in the work from home policy.

Physical Environment

Many organizations have an issue about where the employees are working from when they are working remotely. Of course, that is completely understandable because you might have safety concerns for the employees and also your own database.

When employees are working from the office, you could generally assume that it’s a safe environment. After all, there are systems in place to monitor CO₂ levels and proper protocols to detect a break-in or a fire. In fact, you also have all the cybersecurity measures taken to protect the critical data for your company.

But, suppose an employee is working from the nearest café to his place using the Wi-Fi of that place. You can’t really be sure about the safety of the connection. Specify, if your employees are allowed to work from anywhere and what could be possible scenarios where they can do that.

So, there has to be a clear mention of the physical environment where you want your employees to work.

Client Confidentiality

Lastly, you need to address the matter of maintaining client confidentiality in the policy, as well. There is no denying the fact that it is easier to keep the information confidential in the protected workspace.

So, for instance, your employee is having a client call sitting in a café. It should be the responsibility of the employee to make sure that no sensitive information is discussed out loud in such a public setting.

However, you cannot simply rely on your employees to ensure that this never happens. They can make that client call from anywhere they want if it isn’t stated otherwise in the policy.

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Summing up

A work from the home policy can be highly attractive to job seekers or employees looking to maintain a work-life balance. Employers aiming to extend their workforce beyond regional boundaries are also actively looking forward to it. Moreover, it enhances productivity, reduces employee attrition, and brings down the overall operating cost of the business. However, to gain all these benefits from your remote working policy, you have to make sure that it ticks all the boxes mentioned above.

In the times of pandemic, COVID-19, it has become a challenge to work from home due to countless problems that one can face at home. How to maintain a balanced work from home culture is something, we all need to learn.

If work from home culture is not a solution, how the post-coronavirus world is going to be, is a universal question.

Connect with us for all your queries at hello@seocontentstudio.com or drop down your comment below. Until then, let’s stay safe and avoid even the smallest social gathering. We all are together in this.

The post 7 Features to Have In a Successful Work from Home Policy appeared first on SEO Content Studio.

When it all started, most of us were a little relaxed spending time with our family and working from home. Everyone had thoughts about saving their traveling time and little savings for a few months. There were countless plans for conceptualizing the long-pending strategies, starting a blog, designing the small business logo, or reading the book that is still lying on the shelf of your bedroom.

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Present situation under lockdown

“Lockdown is sure going to cut me through my social life but there is my passion to pursue and a lot of other activities that I can do at home. I am not going to be bored!”

Most of you had this in your mind, right?

But well, there is something bad that we have discovered and you might want to read this out. We spoke to some of our clients and asked them how they are concentrating on work during the lockdown and here’s what we got.

• “I wake up at 8 AM and my daughter makes my morning coffee so that I can work because there is a team to handle. Everyone is working from home and it is been a long time now, it is getting on my nerves. I have to cook, do the dishes, clothes, and handle my team of 150 employees under me. I just want everything to end now.”  –  Sophia, Black Diamond
• “I felt a little happier when the officials announced a lockdown since I never got to spend time with my family but now, I believe it is a lot to take. I am helping my wife with the household chores and am doing meetings as well. Sometimes I am just staring at the walls because it is a lot of time that I haven’t seen anything new and staring at the wall feels better. Maybe I am going mad.”  – Jonas, Seattle
• “Whenever my mom calls me for help, I am working. I feel bad that I am unable to help here since I do not let my employees down as well. It feels so distracted at home. I hope we get rid of COVID-19 soon. AMEN”  – Jessica, Auburn

No matter what our mind processes about the lockdown, a question has stuck in our mind, “how to concentrate on work during the lockdown?”.

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We all are trying to tackle the situation considering it ‘normal’ but as the days are passing, we are facing a ‘new challenge’ with isolating us and feeling #quarantined. There is a lot of information out there to understand how to concentrate at work but when it comes to applying all these techniques, people usually fail to do that. So, we recently discovered a concept of colored noise to concentrate on work.

How to concentrate at work with colored noise?

This is not a situation that people have faced before so there are many who are struggling to cope up with the situation. But there is always a solution to every first-time-struggle.

This is article is not going to discuss the old and boring techniques of accepting reality and establishing healthy habits but there is something new we have today.

Have you ever heard about white noise? Here’s how it sounds like:

The concept of colored noise is not new and a study conducted in the year 1972 also supported the idea that white noise improves concentration and productivity.

How white noise helps in improving concentration?

Speaking of concentration, our brain is much focused on everything it hears to understand what helps in improving concentration. When you have to work from home and concentration becomes the biggest question, along with positivity, you need something concrete. Colored noise is the solution.

Every new notification in your phone, your baby laughing, crying, wife’s cooking, or any other distraction gives your brain an alert with a message:

This change in my surroundings needs my attention NOW!

This is where background noise helps you concentrate at work. Your brain is advanced and understands all the patterns that it takes. It recognizes every change and understands which one helps you concentrate better. White noise considers a random frequency of noise in the background which might be unpleasant to some.

As the pitch increases, it starts becoming more painful which might be the ultimate solution. Humans are made to appreciate pleasant sounds and white noise could be unpleasant to them. That said, white noise did not show much success in improving concentration at work.

Pink Noise vs. Brown Noise

As compared to the white noise, pink noise is more pleasant to the human mind. It creates a balance of frequencies that makes it possible for you to concentrate better.

Undoubtedly, with the COVID-19, came a lack of concentration, productivity, and people have started feeling bored at home even after having tons of work. This sounds oxymoronic (two opposites talked together like ‘a little more’), right?

Pink noise is made filtering the pleasant sound even if the pitch increases. If you consider a white noise as static, pink noise is more like the raindrops in the storm. Listen to it while you are working:

Countless people recorded that pink noise has helped them improve their concentration more than the white noise which is a little distorted. We highly recommend you to try listening to pink noise in your background and see if it improves your concentration at work.

While on the other hand, brown noise is more refined as compared to the pink noise. This noise was designed keeping in mind the humans adapting to a higher frequency. Brown noise has little or no high frequencies and gives us a clear and deep pleasant sound. You can consider it as the sound of waves when you are at a beach.

Turn on some brown noise and see if you can work.

How background noise impact productivity?

By now, you have three different types of background music or noise to improve your concentration on work. If you are now wondering if this can help improve your productivity, the answer is YES but only a certain type of music helps increase your productivity level.

Gentle music: Gentle music is the one with soft and soothing sounds that do not change very quickly and has no lyrics. A great example is a baroque music.

No Lyrics music: Music with no lyrics allows you to concentrate and improves the flow of your work. When your mind listens to lyrics, it expresses the desire to sing along, which is something most of us do. If you are doing creative work that requires your 100%, it is always recommended to turn on no lyrics music.

Final thoughts

Whether you are working on an important project or performing a household chore, the background music always helps in increasing your concentration, productivity, and creativity.

This is a time when we should get less frustrated and stay more positive and focused on the tasks at hand. Colored noise is an older and ignored concept. Our colleagues at SEO Content Studio have tried working with all the three colored noise and mentioned how they improved their concentration with pink and brown noise.

It is proven and can help anyone struggling to focus on working from home. We highly recommend our readers to try working with colored noise and see the results. Do let us know in the comment section below which colored noise helped you improving concentration.

For more queries, send us a message at hello@seocontentstudio.com.

The post How to Boost Concentration in Work During Lock-down with Colored Noise? appeared first on SEO Content Studio.