COVID-19, known as the novel coronavirus, has had an impact on employees around the world as companies make emergency adjustments to the way that they do business. Millions are now working remotely, urged to stay at home in an attempt to “flatten the curve” and speed up society’s recovery from the virus and its impact.
Our team at SeedSpark has now been working remotely for over two weeks, staying connected and collaborating through Microsoft Teams and other apps included in the Microsoft 365 program suite. With everyone finally defining their new routine and getting into the swing of things, we took the opportunity to send out a company-wide survey in an attempt to better understand our team’s work-from-home experience.
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Benefits of Working from Home
No Traffic
The SeedSpark team is made up of employees from the greater Charlotte area – and we really mean greater. Commutes range anywhere from 10 to 90 minutes one way, but avoiding even a 20-minute roundtrip can make a large impact on someone’s lifestyle by saving both time and money.
Fewer Interruptions 
We’ve all had it – the sudden “pop in” from a co-worker. Whether it’s a project update, a “quick” question, or someone simply wanting to chat, these small little updates can take up a lot more time throughout the day than you may realize. While it’s often nice to catch up in person and share a laugh with someone around the office, working from home minimizes interruptions and provides the opportunity to put your full, unbridled attention on a project until it’s finished.
Flexibility
Daily routines are often set in stone, followed hour-by-hour to make your meetings on time and check off your to-do list. Working remotely frees up an incredible amount of time, allowing people to start earlier, work later, and take breaks at their leisure. While providing a team with this responsibility takes plenty of trust from company leadership, a more fluid schedule can do wonders for employee satisfaction and overall happiness.
Detriments of Working Remotely
Distractions
For many without a home office, there is plenty of potential for distraction. Pets, kids, significant others – these are all potential sources of distraction that could derail your daily workflow. For those without dedicated home offices, working from the living room with TVs and gaming consoles sitting a few feet away can be a dangerous threat to productivity.
Communication Breakdown 
SeedSpark stays connected through Microsoft Teams, a comprehensive chat and collaboration platform created by Microsoft and included in Microsoft 365. While chat rooms and virtual meetings are great ways to help get work done, it’s difficult for technology to fully replace in-person meetings and conversations. Body language and facial cues play a bigger part in business communication than many realize and these important elements are somewhat lost in a Teams call or presentation.
Less Social Interaction
You might not realize just how much socializing you do on a daily basis. From having lunch with co-workers to waving to someone in the hallway, working in an office can be an incredibly fulfilling part of our social lives. Our team has kept the good times rolling with group chats and Teams calls, but replacing that sense of friendship and camaraderie that’s built by working together is much more difficult to build online as compared to in-person.
Technical Difficulties
Connecting to our office wi-fi connects everyone to the same network, meaning that basic reliability of internet service itself is provided for the entire team. At home, every person is relying on their own internet connection – if their internet goes out, there’s no in-house tech to address the problem.
For our in-house development team, not having access to the normal array of monitors and hardware has proven to be a challenge – it’s much easier to code on three large monitors as compared to one 15” laptop.
While working from home is a large departure from the norm, the SeedSpark team has adapted quickly, modified routines, and provided our clients with uninterrupted, unhindered service throughout the entire transition. Teams across the country are continuing to adjust, finding new ways to socialize, connect, and collaborate from the comfort, convenience, and safety of their homes.
No workflow is perfect, in the office or otherwise. However, as time passes and employees learn to better leverage technology in their daily lives, the productivity and effectiveness of working remotely will continue to improve.
