WFH Transition: How Your Team Can Pivot & Work From Home Like Pros (Free Templates)

WFH Transition: How Your Team Can Pivot & Work From Home Like Pros (Free Templates) process.st/wfh-transition May 27, 2020

Thom James Carter May 27, 2020

Unequipped. Unprepared. Uncertain.

34% of people believe their organization isn’t properly prepared for employees to be working from home.

Speaking of which, has your organization recently – and rather hastily – transitioned from office working to working from home?

If the answer is “Yes“, no sweat. Process Street has you covered.

This post will guide you through the basics of working from home (WFH), the positives of it, the potential problems you could run into, on top of offering you our (free!) checklist templates that’ll ensure a safe and smooth WFH transition.

Read through the following sections to get completely clued up: Or, if all you want is the checklists, get them here: Let’s dive into all things WFH, ASAP. 1/10

What does WFH mean?

(Source)

The acronym WFH stands for work from home and working from home . People who work from home are also known as WFH employees, remote workers, teleworkers, and telecommuters.

Many companies allow employees to work from home on a part-time basis; thanks to the proliferation of business software that enables workers to communicate and go about their recurring tasks effectively, employees can work just as well outside the office as inside of it.

To boot, many companies such as Automattic, Buffer, and Process Street are operating on a completely remote basis. This means all their employees are distributed and are using apps like Slack and Zoom to communicate, and tools like Trello and Process Street to make sure they’re doing good, solid work at home.

The advantages of working from home

2/10

(Source)

Countless studies and articles have proven that working from home is not only beneficial for the employee, but also the employer, too.

Vinay Patankar, CEO of Process Street, explains from an employer’s perspective in the post What You Need to Know About Remote Working From Our CEO:

“I’d already seen how effective [remote work] could be. As a startup, you face a series of challenges and those challenges appear harder when you’re bootstrapping. Being remote allowed us to avoid the obvious overheads of office space, but also increased our talent pool dramatically; enabling us to bring together the right skills quickly.” – Vinay Patankar, What You Need to Know About Remote Working From Our CEO Let’s dig into those mutually-beneficial positives a little deeper, starting with the rewards reaped by employers.

Advantages of working from home for employers Increased employee engagement It may come as a surprise to some, but people who work from home are actually more engaged than those working in an office! As Gallup states, this is due to employees reacting positively to remote work’s flexibility.

Decreased office costs If your company is transitioning to being completely remote, that means you won’t have to shell out for office space (and, being honest here, expensive office space).

Even if only a fraction of your employees are transitioning from working in the office to home — let’s say 20% — that still means a reduction in office space needed, and therefore reduced costs.

3/10

Higher rates of productivity Put it down to what you will – a more comfortable working environment, the increased flexibility, the better work-life balance – but people who work from home aren’t just more engaged, but they’re also more productive. In fact, research conducted by Stanford shows there’s a 13% increase in productivity.

Now it’s time to turn our attention to the WFH advantages for the employees.

Advantages of working from home for employees Flexible work schedule Depending on your chronotype, you’re more productive at certain times. This could be very early in the morning, or late at night. When working from home, you’re largely able to work when it suits you.

No commuting Speaking of a flexible working schedule, one of the best parts of working from home is the lack of commute. No overcrowded trains, no late buses, no traffic jams while in the car. That extra time can be spent sleeping, doing yoga, making a great breakfast, or maybe even working on a personal project.

Saved money It’s not only the employer who manages to save money — it’s also the employee.

For example, instead of buying a not-so-reasonably-priced lunch at the canteen or from a shop that’s local to work, you can make a quick, healthy lunch with the ingredients in your fridge. By not commuting, you’re also saving money by not journeying into an office!

That’s a pretty impressive list for both parties, no?

But for these positives to come to the fore, employees and businesses alike have to transition to working from home without succumbing to the struggles that occur.

You may already be aware of these notorious struggles concerning the WFH transition.

But the good news, though, is that you can overcome them.

Just watch this webinar hosted by Process Street’s Blake Bailey and Leverage‘s Nick Sonnenberg and read through the rest of the post to learn how!

WFH transition struggles

4/10

(Source)

Here’s a portrait of the archetypal business.

From Monday to Friday, the large bulk of the work takes place inside an office. Sure, an email or two may be sent while at home, but for the most part, work is office-based.

When a meeting is about to start, the relevant colleagues migrate to a separate room.

When a new employee joins, the employee is shown the ropes by another employee, most likely one they’re sitting next to or at least nearby. When an employee has a question — let’s say the product manager needs something clarified by the marketing team – the product manager can simply walk over and ask.

What happens when a group of employees — or even a whole business – transitions to working from home is simple.

People get confused.

They aren’t sure how to go about these processes while at home.

How is a meeting conducted? What’s the etiquette for using Zoom? Should webcams be on or off? And what about day-to-day tasks; how can employees show line managers that they’re getting their work done and on time?

This is an inkling into the minds of employees who’ve transitioned into working from home without the right groundwork.

By ‘groundwork’, I’m talking about documentation. Without documenting processes that inform and guide employees on how to work while at home, there’s confusion, frustration, and annoyance – not to mention it stifles employee productivity. This isn’t what any business wants.

The solution?

5/10

BPM software.

BPM software allows businesses to document integral processes for recurring tasks and activities. This means employees can then go in, see how the processes work, and follow the processes properly.

Process Street is state-of-the-art BPM software in the form of a nifty checklist app. Users can document their processes as templates, then checklists can be launched so all processes are followed to the T! However, we know it can seem daunting to create processes from scratch.

That’s why we have a free template library, full to the brim of useful, nifty templates our users can use straight away (after signing up for free)!

For the templates that’ll aid your business through the WFH transition, keep scrolling.

Process Street’s free WFH transition templates Time is of the essence, so I’ll waste no time introducing these checklist templates.

Work From Home Office Space Checklist There was a 159% increase in remote working from 2005 to 2017, and that figure continues to rise.

But to get good work done each day, a dedicated space for working is needed.

Thanks to variables, this checklist template enables new WFHers to set up a dedicated office space at home and then sustain it.

New users of the checklist will be shown how to plan out the space, buy the necessary items for it, and set it all up. Returning users are guided through steps to ensure the space remains tidy, clean, and optimized.

For employees working from home, this checklist template is an absolute staple.

Click here to get the Work From Home Office Space Checklist!

Remote Daily Work Schedule Template You may have heard some horror stories regarding people underworking or overworking while working from home.

If I was a betting man, I’d put good money on the fact that these people weren’t scheduling their day properly.

6/10

With this Remote Daily Work Schedule Template, that’s precisely what your employees can do — schedule their day the proper way.

For each working day, they’ll categorize their daily list into tasks that’ll be tackled in the morning, and the ones that’ll be addressed in the evening.

As they work through the tasks, they’ll review their progress.

Once the day is over, the manager will then approve (or reject) how the employee went about their day via the approval task. This is to ensure the employee is working well remotely. Additionally, it helps the employee’s state of mind by knowing that their manager doesn’t think they’re wiling the day away, not working.

With this checklist template, everyone’s a winner.

Click here to get the Remote Daily Work Schedule Template!

Virtual Meeting Checklist Video conferencing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams has become the de-facto for businesses that have transitioned to working from home.

But leading digital meeting calls can be tricky if you’re used to doing it in-person.

This checklist template is the definitive guide for ensuring meetings go without a hitch.

The meeting leader should launch a checklist from this template before every meeting.

The checklist will then help them with preliminary steps (ensuring a stable connection, etc) before the call starts. They’ll then be guided through the meeting’s discussion points and bringing up any relevant issues. When the call is over, notes are written up and a recording of the meeting is shared with the attendees.

Useful, right?

In fact, it’s so useful that following a meeting call process like this can reduce meeting time by 80%!

Click here to get the Virtual Meeting Checklist!

Onboarding Remote Employees Checklist The onboarding process is crucial.

Whether it happens in an office or remotely, going about onboarding properly can result in increasing employee retention by 82%. However, 88% of organizations don’t onboard employees well.

Don’t be a part of the 88%. Use this checklist template to get a hold of your remote 7/10

onboarding strategy.

Specifically catering to managers who are onboarding new team members, they’ll be guided through the steps of welcoming, checking-in with, and assigning tasks and projects to the new employee.

It’ll also ensure all relevant paperwork has been generated, signed, and submitted, and that the employee works with a mentor throughout the onboarding process.

Sound great?

That’s because this checklist template is great.

Click here to get the Onboarding Remote Employees Checklist!

Work From Home Policy Checklist Do your employees know what to do and what not to do when working from home?

So that WFH employees know the policies, processes, and procedures they should adhere to, there’s this Work From Home Policy Checklist.

A member of your company’s HR team will first have to replace the text in red boxes with information concerning your company’s own policies, processes, and procedures.

Once that’s been done, ask all WFH employees to go through the checklist every quarter.

It’ll help to keep them on top of everything and ensure they know how to WFH the right way.

Ready to dive in and edit the template?

Click here to get the Work From Home Policy Checklist!

Additional WFH templates On top of the 5 aforementioned templates, there are a bunch of other templates for you and your team to utilize.

From checklists that help employees to achieve a decent, sustainable work-life balance to ones that’ll help rid them of work anxiety, these checklists templates are necessary additions.

Achieving Work-Life Balance Checklist Click here to get the Achieving Work-Life Balance Checklist!

Work Anxiety Resolution Checklist 8/10

Click here to get the Work Anxiety Resolution Checklist!

Critical Incident Stress Management Checklist Click here to get the Critical Incident Stress Management Checklist!

There you have it.

A whole host of free checklist templates that’ll help your organization transition into working from home easily and effectively.

However, if you do want to document processes and procedures in Process Street from scratch, that’s completely doable, too.

Use Process Street for all recurring processes and tasks!

To recap, Process Street is superpowered checklists.

If you document workflows, business processes, and important procedures as templates, you and your team can then run checklists from those templates. These checklists keep human error at bay, and make sure everyone’s doing great work while at home!

For a visual explainer, check out the video below.

What makes Process Street checklists superpowered is its workflow automation features.

They include (but aren’t limited to): These features will help you and your teammates truly collaborate like pros.

Before adding them to the templates your business creates from scratch, watch the webinar below for a deep dive into some of these features.

More resources for the WFH transition and working from home Process Street account? Check.

WFH transition templates added to your dashboard? Check.

Valuable reading material concerning WFH, remote work, and remote office culture? That can’t be checked yet, but it’s coming right up!

This list is a collection of WFH and remote work-related posts from the content team at Process Street. Read through. Take note. Put what you learn into practice.

You’ve now got everything needed for a smooth, efficient, and effective WFH transition.

Good luck!

9/10

10/10