Working from home FOR YOUR bread-earner During COVID-19

Although I’m an employee myself, I feel there is a need to talk about everyone in business during this though time. There is no doubt, employees depend on their employers for compensation and benefits for themselves and their loves ones, it should however not be forgotten that employers also depend on employees to get the work done they get money from. Surviving though times is only possible through a two-pronged strategy where we operate in a mutual-care environment and understand the constraints our employers have and the duty that is levied on our shoulders to support our employers walk successfully through this calamity. This is not an infinite vacations time, a time to facebook, tweeter and Instagram, it is the time to work with responsibility, care, diligence and precision for your employers making sure you deliver what is expected from you to ensure your employers manage revenues they need to pay you.

Following points may not be new or unique, these points can however serve as a reinforcement to your work from home routine to ensuring productivity:

• Waking up at home, signing in to work from your mobile or laptop beside you may lead you to a bad routine, for a productive work-day, set a strict routine for yourself. Apply self-discipline and work on the designated work-hours.
  
• Miscommunication or lack of communication within team members causes loss of productivity, so communicate often. There are a number of free online communication tools out there to help you communicate including Zoom, Skype and Whatsapp. Schedule a team-meeting everyday to remain in touch with your co-workers and stay focused.
• Apply self-audit and self-check and stay away from addiction of checking social networking pages too often. When no one watches, you can get carried away and get lost into the ocean of distraction these platforms have on offer.
• Set daily and weekly targets for your self and your team if applicable and ensure to meet these targets. It is good to communicate these targets to your line management, this forces or even motivates you to meet them.
• This virus is Allah’s test upon us, checking statistics, news, updates, memes, who-is-doing-what, every hour will not help ease the situation. Stay away from excessive news, this will not only help you stay focused at work, but will also keep you away from undue mental stress.

There are other tips but to avoid lengthening this post more than necessary I’m stopping here for now. We need to stay focused and do our part of job and leave the rest to Allah ! He is all hearing and knowing and will insha Allah help us come out victorious from this though time. Insha Allah

May Allah bless you and your employer during this calamity ! Aameen. Sum Aameen !