Key Skills for Working from Home

2 years ago

Working from home is a true blessing. There are so many real and tangible benefits to working remotely. So here are some key skills that can help you find success in a remote working environment:

Communication:

Communication and keeping in touch with your team members and your boss will be absolutely crucial when you're working remotely. They will still not see you when you work, and they will not see the outcomes of your work if you don't reflect it and don't communicate it effectively to your team members and your employer. You need to be a good communicator and be comfortable communicating on video and phone calls, And be able to get what you want to get across and communicate well in text messaging. We highly recommend that you download either Slack, Zoom or Google meet because you will be using those tools to communicate, please do download them and spend some time communicating with family and friends using those tools so you can become more knowledgeable and experienced using them before. we talk all about it in our article about remote work communication

Digital Literacy

This is actually connected to the previous one which is communication, since your work is virtual you need to be able to use all the online collaboration tools and communication tools very effectively, and the more knowledgeable and skillful you are around these tools the better for you. Your life will just simply be easier. As mentioned you will be reflecting your work through these platforms whether they're project management tools or simply communication tools, you will be using these on a daily basis very actively. You need to know the capabilities of these programs and how you should be using them effectively to reflect your own work and share the outcomes of your work. So having some technical skills being familiar with the operating system that you are using on your computer is a really good idea. Another reason to be tech-savvy is that you need to know how to back up your files and documents if those were lost you could lose hours if not days of work.

Discipline, Organization, & Self-Motivation

Some people find it very challenging to keep themselves motivated, keep their high energy and excitement towards their work, there are so many distractions around the home you have a TV, Netflix and gaming consoles, you have family and friends just disrupting you. so it's really important that you are self-disciplined and you have a work routine so that you can get work done, and have that space where you can focus on work.

Something that helps with this, is if you're someone who enjoys routines and already has a structured schedule of their days planned, then this is probably going to be much easier for you because you will need to have a daily routine. You will need to fulfill those 40 hours or sometimes even more per week so will need to plan out your days accordingly and effectively.

Being Time Conscious

This sounds like a no-brainer and very simple but it's very important to be aware because you will be potentially working with people that are in different time zones, different cities, at different countries, so this will become an important part of your life. So when you are arranging meetings, and sending them a message or giving them a phone call you, will need to be aware of their time zone and when they are working and when they're not working.