Teleworking: everything you need to know

By now we are used to teleworking, but do you really know the keywords that define it?

Teleworking not only entails the fact of carrying out professional activity outside the offices of the company, it is a new “mindset”, a new way of understanding work with new scenarios and good practices. Do not miss our glossary with the most important words related to this new paradigm, so you can get to know it and get the most out of it!

To

Adaptation

Teleworking is a new paradigm and model of working and therefore requires a total adaptation, from the most personal part to the most technical and organizational part. Therefore, most of the processes must be reviewed to make a progressive and effective implementation.

Agenda

Having an updated agenda with all meetings is necessary to have organized daily work. But it is not only important for one’s work but also to give visibility of our availability to others (if our mail system allows it). Not only can we schedule our meetings, but also the periods of time in which we need to be focused.

Asana

Work management tool focused on teams so that they can manage their goals, initiatives and daily tasks.

B

Burnout

We talk about the syndrome of being burned out, with an accumulation of situations that have made us not be comfortable in our workplace. Typically, performing more hours than they should, unmet expectations, non-recognition from our colleagues and / or superiors, etc. And they usually make us feel bad and even have physical symptoms (fatigue, lack of sleep, nervousness …). In the field of teleworking, we must be careful because bad practices can lead us to this situation.

Well-being (mental and physical)

State in which we are in tune with our life and all its areas. Performing physical practices (exercise) and mental practices (meditation, focusing, mindfuldness…), as well as being emotionally balanced helps to achieve this state.

C

Communication

In a teleworking environment and therefore physical encounters are more limited, communication is key. And, therefore, communicative actions must be included and include the appropriate tools in the work processes of all teams including managers and management.

Collaboration

It is clear that the spirit of collaboration must always be present in a professional, whatever position and responsibility, but this is even more critical in remote work mode since interactions can tend to be less. Therefore, the workflows of organizations and their members must include practices and tools that support and promote it.

Conciliation

In remote work it is easier to carry out the long-awaited family reconciliation since travel times are avoided. The worker can make their working hours more flexible according to their personal and family needs, thus resulting in an improvement in their productivity and attachment to the company.

Coworking

Term to define the possibility of working in a face-to-face environment but that is shared with other companies and professionals. It can complement teleworking for those people who do not have adequate space to work at home. Many companies provide these spaces so that their workers can go to work centers closer to their residences and thus optimize their facilities.

D

Address

The management of any company must bet on the adoption of teleworking where applicable since it brings improvements in the welfare of workers, but also provides associated cost savings. There must be a progressive change of mentality in this, to move from a face-to-face model to another model based on objectives.

Rest

Vital in the remote model, since in the face-to-face model it was easier to have small breaks to disconnect the mind (coffees with colleagues, hallway talks, etc.), at home, this is not present and we can fall into the error of being in front of the screen all the time, which negatively affects our concentration and performance. Actions such as stopping for a drink, having talks with other colleagues, taking a short walk, performing neck and back stretches make us better able to face our tasks.

Digitalization

Obviously, the adoption of teleworking requires a complete digitalization of the company since each worker’s house acts as a small office, so it is no longer possible to have as many physical media as we have in the face-to-face mode (printers, files …), so it is imperative to have digitized all its structure that passes from the corporate documentation (billing, billing, offers, processes), working documents of all departments or teams to the infrastructure itself (servers and tools) and its security. Workers must be able to perform their tasks digitally so that information flows and is shared in the corporation.

And

Equipment

Remote work has made it increasingly necessary to collaborate and coordinate in the performance of the company’s tasks. For this, the distribution in work teams that share and collaborate is more effective than having departments. Teams introduce practices and workflows that increase their collaboration and effectiveness. For this, it is a good idea to use tools and ways of working that encourage it, such as agile methodologies.

Workspace

It is highly recommended that each worker has a specific workspace in their home to be able to carry out their professional activity. This space should be different from any public space (dining room, living room, kitchen …) since this would make it difficult to change the context between personal and professional life. This space must be adequate and must have all the appropriate tools for the worker to carry out their work (table, comfortable chair, screen and computer situation, tranquility …).

F

Focusing

It is important that, in teleworking mode, workers have the ability to focus. That is, that they have clear objectives, both in the short, medium and long term. In this way they will be able to better understand, in an environment in which personal relationships decrease, what is expected of them and where they can add value as well as express needs or opinions about it.

Flexibility

Teleworking can provide more flexibility when it comes to the worker better organizing their work, taking into account of course the collaboration with colleagues, but also their personal needs and rhythms. Therefore, the company can also make flexible schedules in teleworking mode.

G

Gamification

Marketing technique that can be used in companies to increase collaboration, communication and sense of belonging of workers. Very useful in remote work mode since it helps prevent workers from losing their pulse to the company (disaffection).

Google Drive

Cloud repository for users to save, share and access their documents and files.

H

Working Hours

In remote mode, it is important to establish a clear work schedule both from the point of view of the company, indicating the time slots in which the worker can perform his work, as well as indicating his availability using the communication and collaboration tools available.

Communication and collaboration tools

In a teleworking environment, having collaboration and communication tools is vital for the organization and its members to work effectively. Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Skype, Zoom, Google Tools are just a few examples of them.

I

Internationalization

In remote work adopted in a company on a regular basis allows some companies to perform actions that were previously more difficult to perform from a face-to-face perspective. There is beginning to be a culture in remote work that allows opening up to new markets, national and international, since the work no longer has to be done directly at the client’s home, since it already has its infrastructure prepared for remote access. On the other hand, talent management also changes, since companies can hire staff who work anywhere in the world and any candidate will be able to better develop their professional career regardless of where they live.

J

Picnic

Atlassian project management tool. It allows to easily establish the different initiatives and priorities of a company and measure the performance of teams and employees.

L

Leadership

From a distance, the paradigm has changed. In remote mode, teams must be led in a different way. It is no longer possible to carry out leadership based on face-to-face, on communicating directly with employees. Managers and middle managers need to use other complementary practices that allow them to communicate the objectives to the team and not lose personal contact.

Localization

The work can be done anywhere in the world, either from the point of view of the company or the worker. Teleworking has broken boundaries in how certain services can be sold and the policy of attracting talent.

Loomio

Tool for decentralized and remote decision making. Helps save hours of meetings.

M

Microsoft Teams

Collaboration tool par excellence from Microsoft. It allows the creation of teams, channels, group meetings and document sharing, as well as other management and collaboration tools.

Or

Objectives

A correct definition and communication of the objectives of a company and its departments are necessary, but even more so in an environment where workers may have adopted teleworking intensively or partially. Everyone must be clear about the objectives of the organization, those of their team and personal, and the organization must treat them in the most transparent way possible so that they are visible at any time.

Office 365

Office suite based on the Microsoft cloud. Apart from offering the typical tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, One Note …) it also provides other tools that promote collaboration between teams and the democratization of information, the most relevant: Teams as a collaboration and communication tool, Sharepoint as a corporate document platform, Power BI for report management, Stream to share corporate videos (meetings, training,…), Forms to create surveys and quizzes, and Power Automate to create cross-app workflows.

P

Data Protection

The company is responsible for providing the necessary measures and tools to ensure the security and protection of the data processed by the worker for the fulfillment of their tasks.

Face-to-face

It is the traditional work method, where the worker goes to the offices of his company to perform his usual functions and tasks. It carries positive aspects, such as affinity to the company and colleagues and collaboration. Although it can also lead to negative points such as the difficulty in reconciling personal and professional life, as well as the infrastructure costs required to house all workers.

R

Time Registration

Any worker performing their tasks remotely must be able to record their activity in the same way as one who is in person. To do this, the company must provide the necessary tools to carry out such registration.

S

Skype

Video call and virtual meetings tool.

Slack

Channel-oriented communication and teamwork tool. Designed to minimize the use of email.

T

Telework

Modality of work in which the worker can carry out his work activities from where to create opportune without being in person at the offices of the company that has hired him. A hybrid approach can be carried out, in which the worker alternates face-to-face work days in the offices and outside, and another approach of total teleworking in which the worker does not go to the offices and performs all his activities telematically. It has positive points such as family conciliation, optimization of infrastructure costs but can also lead to negative points such as disconnection of the worker with his company and colleagues.

Transparency

This concept is basic in teleworking mode because it allows all members of an organization to know how the rest of the colleagues / areas / initiatives of the company are doing, thus being able to collaborate more effectively and react more quickly to any change that needs to be made. For this, it is vital to use different tools that allow this transparency and collaboration.

Trello

Initiative management tool for Atlassian teams. It is based on the Kanban working method.

V

Videoconference

Action of holding a meeting with attendees distributed in different places.

Z

Zoom

Video call and virtual meetings tool.