2020 was a year of massive change for the office. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many offices had no choice but to go remote. Many had never done so before. This led to all kinds of new experiences from getting the hang of tools like Microsoft Teams and becoming used to video conference calls on Zoom. We put out a series of articles last year that was meant to be a guide to this new working reality. We wanted to give everyone a refresher since now that many countries have locked-down again, that means remote working will continue to be the reality for the foreseeable future (for example, Blacknight is 100% remote temporarily).
We put together a handy PDF compiling all the articles, which you can download for free here.
Otherwise, here’s the summary of them all with links to read them.
10 Essential Business Tools and Tips For Remote Working
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about some tips on how to make the most out of working from home for the first time. Last week I wrote about Office 365 and how it can work for remote workers. This time I wanted to write about some other tools that can help smooth things over and keep you productive while you’re working from home. This list is based on my own personal experience as a remote worker, so it will focus on tools I use personally but also some tools that I use at Blacknight, that we also happen to offer to our customers.
Remote Working: 10 Tips For Working From Home for the First Time
With the global outbreak of Covid-19 (aka the Coronavirus), many people have the opportunity to work from home for the first time, though often not out of choice. Offices are being cautious, events are being cancelled, and the global economy is starting to show some strain. This is a fast-moving situation with things changing every day. No matter where you are, you might find yourself unexpectedly working from home. If you’ve not done it before, this can be jarring.
Tips for Separating Work from Home When You Work From Home
Before Covid-19, many of us had a clear separation of work and home. Work was a place we went to. The home was the place where we lived and were most comfortable. They rarely met unless you occasionally worked at home. Now, all of a sudden, millions that are able to are working from home. It’s a strange state of mind, working properly in your own home, the place which you generally think of as your escape from work. So, how do you separate the two when you never leave the place? As usual, we have tips!
Strategies for Working from Home If You Have Kids During the Covid-19 Lock-in Crisis
Working from home has a completely different dimension to it when you have kids, and they’re not in school. Which is the situation that many of us are finding ourselves in right now as we self-isolate from Covid-19. Many of us find ourselves being both the nursery/daycare, teacher, cook, cleaner on top of doing our actual jobs all the while trying to keep it together for the kids who don’t completely grasp what is going on. It can be a bit much for parents to handle. I’ve worked from home for almost ten years, and through that time, and when I started, I had a newborn baby. Now I have two kids, both school-aged and very much into the argument phase of their lives (which I suspect will never end!). When the children were younger, they were much more hands-on and required a lot more care during the day. Now that they’re school age and have their own interests, it’s easier to make working from home actually work.
12 Tips for Having a Successful Video Conference Call/Zoom/Office 365 Teams Meeting
As we all get used to the new reality of working from home, one thing we have to contend with is non-stop Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Skype, etc. video calls. In-person meetings have been replaced with virtual meetings. We’re getting a sneak peek into our co-workers home environments, and it can be fun. Some companies are holding Friday happy hours on Zoom. Others are holding company all-hands meetings (like Blacknight did on Zoom last week). Most are just having important calls with colleagues to get some work done. This has created a whole new social situation that not everyone has been completely prepared for. This is all so new – there aren’t exactly best practices in place for work video calls in many corporate policies. So, we thought it would be fun to put together a short list to help out. It’s meant to be serious, but we also want to be a bit fun as well.
5 Ways Office 365 Can Help You Make Remote Working a Success
Millions of employees all over the world are suddenly finding themselves working from home during the Covid-19 crisis. Remote working is a great way to work – I should know – I’ve been doing it for over a decade. That being said, there’s a ton of great tools out there to help you work and to manage remote workers. We’ll have an article about general tools later this week, but right now we wanted to focus on Office 365, which basically has a ‘remote working in a box’ solution for remote work and many may not realise that if they have an Office 365 subscription with Blacknight, they already have access to these tools. Here are some tips to make the most of those tools.
We put together a handy PDF compiling all the articles, which you can download for free here.