Working Hard Or Hardly Working From Home?

By Author: Suzanne Harp
Total Articles: 33
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Working from home is the only means of productivity during this pandemic, with scores of employees around the world putting their home offices, kitchen tables, and reading nooks to use. However, most companies and employees are also raising the question: is the work from home arrangement actually productive?

A survey by Airtasker says “yes”. Many business owners and employees alike have been working from home for many years using the technology that’s already been developed to make remote work possible. Researchers surveyed 1,004 full-time employees throughout the United States of America about their work productivity, their commutes, and other factors in their lives – among which were 505 who worked remotely. The study found that employees that worked from home not only eliminated the time lost with their daily commutes but also increased productivity and lead to a healthier lifestyle.

It’s a win-win situation where workers relish flexibility. But often at the cost of the work-life balance.

The line between work and personal life can blur more when working from home as well, which is reflected ...
... in the percentage of employees who claim to have difficulty finding a balance between work and home life, with 29% of remote workers having difficulty versus only 23% of office workers. In addition, anxiety and stress were more prevalent in remote workers with 54% of remote workers saying they felt “overly stressed during the workday,” versus only 49% of office workers. 45% of remote workers “experienced high levels of anxiety during the workday” versus 42% of office workers.

Remote workers with young school-aged children may have additional challenges facing them, balancing work and home responsibilities while making sure their children and also focused and engaged with their remote learning programs.

One of the key areas to focus on with your remote workers is helping your teams stay focused and productive while also combating stress and maintaining work-life balance.

Working from home means you are truly independent. It’s much more than just the benefit of being able to work in your pajamas. Working from home means you need to learn to rely on concentration, self-motivation, self-discipline, and focus. It also means you have the opportunity to get more work done and bring in more sales.

Like you, most of your prospects are working from home during the pandemic as well and it’s undoubtedly a prime time to reach out to them as they are a captive audience, in more than one sense of the word. Most of your prospects are spending more of their free time surfing social media or watching videos on the internet. With a data tracker, your target prospect’s interests can be easily analyzed to help you make a connection. When their needs and interests are a known quantity, you can better target them with the right buyer enablement strategy and prospects can be easily nurtured and brought into the sales pipeline. Keep them posted on updates or invite them to attend an online webinar where you can increase enthusiasm for your product or service.

Under normal circumstances, every time a sales call is made most prospects don’t bother to pick the call. Under quarantine, however, with many prospects working from home it possibly makes it the right time to reach out to them.

However, you can only cast a wider net if your prospect database is accurate. With the economy drastically winding down, many of your prospects may have switched or lost their jobs. Without tracking that data, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to successfully make a connection. This is a time where people will look more into making business deals, especially to compensate for losses during the lockdown, so make sure you’re using accurate data to pitch to the right prospects.

For the time being, without being able to set up a quick meeting in the boardroom, you now have to get up to speed on what communication tools are available that allow you to interface with your clients and prospects. From texting, skyping, emailing, web meetings — out of necessity for your sales you’re going to need to become very savvy in all of these.