It might appear that Work From Home (WFH) is a necessity today, yet post the pandemic, remote working could be the new normal. To adhere and prepare ourselves with such scenarios, Satya Nadella lays down a well crafted roadmap before us.
To delve into more details, Nadella’s colleague at Microsoft, Jared Spataro, corporate VP for Microsoft 365, recorded a podcast on the same. He also penned down a piece, and shared it across to Nadella on social media.
Here’s a lowdown and the important points discussed and a snippet:
WFH Must Always Have Its Guidelines Set
Whenever there is a new recruit in the company, organisations have their own training protocols. However, during times as this when you are working remotely, new hires may be experiencing a bit of handholding. Popular questions pointed out by Spataro are. “How do you set up a space where you can focus? How do you stay connected when you can’t meet face-to-face? Why does it feel like it’s never the right moment to take a break?”
Also, working from home means working with kids and dependent family members for some, and it’s likely that some employees would be struggling, said Spataro.
Taking Care Of Back-To-Back Meetings
Spataro says that meetings in a workplace have natural pauses. He even mentions that those meetings that don’t offer breaks are not even registered as meetings. Walking for two minutes between meeting room A to meeting room B. Or maybe just sparing five minutes to catch up with your colleague before the boss walks in.
In this case, Spataro says that they are encouraging employees to schedule meetings to conclude five minutes before the end of half an hour. This would help in shortening time together for a little while, but it also goes a long while towards avoiding potential burnout from uninterrupted back-to-backs.
Disconnecting With People
Separating office and home often helps in creating physical barriers between the two worlds. This results in people’s ‘Me-Time’ being restricted to daily commute to work or sweating it out in the gym post work. However, now that you are working remotely, you may very well pause and breathe.
Microsoft is doing something similar, as they are arranging for a virtual meditation class for its employees. In order to do this, one needs to find a quiet place, when he wouldn’t be interrupted. The microphone needs to be set on mute, and finally the camera must be used to watch the session leader guide on breathing techniques. Spataro concludes by saying that once these are done, one can switch off their camera and fully focus on mind.