Is anyone noticing a reduction in productivity from suppliers and colleagues elsewhere in their organisation who are working from home? With some notable exceptions, there seem to be some project workstreams that are struggling to make progress despite all the tools etc being in place otherwise.
Naturally I have tried some polite escalations, but the managers are working from home and not answering the phone either!
Maybe if it rains things will improve.... Saving Changes...
Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Personally, my productivity increases yet I work less i.e. it provides the opportunity to work smarter and not harder (which you need to do in a disruptive office environment to get something done). My personal opinion is that you see a significant decrease in productivity from WFH activities when the company is struggling with orginazational maturity. Saving Changes...
Well, it actually depends. Not every professional is same. Best practice is to be task oriented rather than assuming to stick at seat like a robot. Make daily targets and then judge according to the percentage achieved. Moreover, for managing teams use task management tools like TaskQue to assign tasks, view performance and collaborate effectively.. Saving Changes...
Some great answers so far.Those will be very helpful. In all honesty I was expecting more people to comment about it being due to the current virus situation, which is bad here in UK, and perhaps I should not be expecting usual levels of progress. Indeed, someone else I know (not on here) said to me last night that "I was on a 2 hour conference call yesterday, and what with everything else going on, I just thought f*** it and put the call on mute and went into the garden and played with the kids instead". At times like this it is good to consider the pressures everyone may be facing beyond our own projects.
Also, one to consider, while tele/video conferencing is good for the transfer of information, the lack of non-verbal information can make it hard for people's feelings and attitudes to be communicated (anyone remember Mehrabian's research?).
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1 reply by Milena Ilieva
Apr 22, 2020 3:51 AM
Milena Ilieva
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Hi Tim,
What you shared with us about that person you know that muted the call and went to the garden - I have experienced this on may occasions, and has nothing to do with the current situation. It is the human nature from one side, and, my personal opinion, people sometimes get bored and not enough engaged in virtual calls, or when there are many online meetings - depends on the type of job.
I have worked for many years remote, and for 2 years - only remote with people spread across different countries and I have seen in many calls when people actually go on mute and appeared not to be present - this becomes evident when someone asked that person a question or comment and not getting reply. It was clear to everybody in the calls that this person went simply away from the call. And these people are not bad professionals and they are doing great job.
Remote work can be great, but it also brings an entirely new set of challenges. High-quality projects still need to be delivered on schedule, but coordinating work is difficult when teammates are spread across the world. Teams can't cram into a conference room, but they still need ways of collaborating in real time. Teammates need to build rapport and get along, but it's easy to feel out of the loop. If you want to improve your productivity while working remotely , you can check this https://www.projectcubicle.com/project-man...rking-remotely/ Saving Changes...
Milena IlievaProgram Manager Global accounts| VMWareVienna, Austria
Apr 16, 2020 9:31 AM
Replying to Tim PM
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Some great answers so far.Those will be very helpful. In all honesty I was expecting more people to comment about it being due to the current virus situation, which is bad here in UK, and perhaps I should not be expecting usual levels of progress. Indeed, someone else I know (not on here) said to me last night that "I was on a 2 hour conference call yesterday, and what with everything else going on, I just thought f*** it and put the call on mute and went into the garden and played with the kids instead". At times like this it is good to consider the pressures everyone may be facing beyond our own projects.
Also, one to consider, while tele/video conferencing is good for the transfer of information, the lack of non-verbal information can make it hard for people's feelings and attitudes to be communicated (anyone remember Mehrabian's research?).
Hi Tim,
What you shared with us about that person you know that muted the call and went to the garden - I have experienced this on may occasions, and has nothing to do with the current situation. It is the human nature from one side, and, my personal opinion, people sometimes get bored and not enough engaged in virtual calls, or when there are many online meetings - depends on the type of job.
I have worked for many years remote, and for 2 years - only remote with people spread across different countries and I have seen in many calls when people actually go on mute and appeared not to be present - this becomes evident when someone asked that person a question or comment and not getting reply. It was clear to everybody in the calls that this person went simply away from the call. And these people are not bad professionals and they are doing great job.
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1 reply by Peter Rapin
Apr 22, 2020 10:11 AM
Peter Rapin
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I would like to add a couple comments on the 'lack-of-focus issue raised here. I have worked in the office for most of my career but of late primarily from home. I have found that lack of focus is common to both on-line and face-to-face meetings. On-line a participant has the opportunity to actually go to the garden however with face-to-face I have seen the 'zoned-out look' where an attendee has gone to a 'virtual' garden - here-but not here.
This is a leadership issue. The zoned-out should not be held responsible for a boring meeting. In meetings I have held, in-line and face-to-face, I allow participants to excuse themselves if they are getting nothing from the meeting. Pretty good feedback on the effectiveness of your meeting.
Keep the meetings short, to the point, dynamic and few.
Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
Apr 22, 2020 3:51 AM
Replying to Milena Ilieva
...
Hi Tim,
What you shared with us about that person you know that muted the call and went to the garden - I have experienced this on may occasions, and has nothing to do with the current situation. It is the human nature from one side, and, my personal opinion, people sometimes get bored and not enough engaged in virtual calls, or when there are many online meetings - depends on the type of job.
I have worked for many years remote, and for 2 years - only remote with people spread across different countries and I have seen in many calls when people actually go on mute and appeared not to be present - this becomes evident when someone asked that person a question or comment and not getting reply. It was clear to everybody in the calls that this person went simply away from the call. And these people are not bad professionals and they are doing great job.
I would like to add a couple comments on the 'lack-of-focus issue raised here. I have worked in the office for most of my career but of late primarily from home. I have found that lack of focus is common to both on-line and face-to-face meetings. On-line a participant has the opportunity to actually go to the garden however with face-to-face I have seen the 'zoned-out look' where an attendee has gone to a 'virtual' garden - here-but not here.
This is a leadership issue. The zoned-out should not be held responsible for a boring meeting. In meetings I have held, in-line and face-to-face, I allow participants to excuse themselves if they are getting nothing from the meeting. Pretty good feedback on the effectiveness of your meeting.
Keep the meetings short, to the point, dynamic and few. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I find it more difficult to move things forward. You can't rely on the presence of an email in someone else's inbox to ensure they will follow-up. Saving Changes...
Personally I found that the first week was a little difficult for some team members to adapt to work from home.
After that, productivity and engagement increased. Example, in my case I observed as we are using the zoom with the camera on for the meetings, meetings are faster and more productive because people is really paying 100% attention and not reading the email or checking their phones. Saving Changes...
Personally, it was very difficult for the first few weeks because of the sudden shift in the workforce. we faced a lot of communication issues because of disrupted connectivity. When we lose this continuity we miss some important points to be noted in the meeting which has led to many misunderstandings between our team members.
We tried to make use of advanced technologies to make our meetings successful and productive.
The future of remote meetings appears to be promising, as holding virtual reality sessions continue to achieve robust, almost real-life experiences among participants. So it is better we be updated and meet out all the difficulties with ease by the technological advancement. For example, we started to use a note taker- Marsview Notes a meeting assistant for our Zoom Meetings to avoid misunderstandings between our team members. Saving Changes...
?Although there are several benefits to working from home, the downsides of the same cannot completely be ignored. We have to find ways to remain motivated and enhance productivity levels when working from home.
I'd love to share a blog that I came across related to WFH and productivity. (https://blogs.marsview.ai/has-work-from-ho...tivity-levels/) Saving Changes...
