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The idea of remote work is seemingly becoming popular among skilled professionals around the world. While apparently, it may seem to be an easy alternative to a personal presence in the office, working remotely has its challenges. However, those challenges are not tough to handle. Just a little perseverance leveraging the upcoming tools and technologies will lead to success. One important success factor for remote working is your home office set up, driving your productivity and efficiency. This article will guide you in creating the best home office set up for remote work.

Let us discuss some of the key preferred home office upgrades for remote workers, followed by companies worldwide.

Here’s a list of things that will help you set up a perfect home office

1. An organized desk space
2. An ergonomic chair and desk
3. Music
4. Gadgets to backup your data
5. Good lighting arrangement
6. Strong and steady internet connectivity
7. A whiteboard
8. A good laptop or desktop
9. Relaxing & motivational elements
10. Quick charging points

1. A Well Organized and Elegant Desk Space

Designing a separate workspace at your home is the first step to create the best home office set up for remote work. You can either utilize an entire room space for your work or select a corner in a room as your desk space. Your work from home desk must consist of multiple cabinets and cupboards for the storage of documents and different accessories. Since you will be dealing with sensitive information from your customers, it is very essential to ensure that your work from home desk is secure and safe.

Remote work demands constant interaction with the team, peers, supervisors, stakeholders, and customers. Therefore it is essential to maintain an elegant décor in your room and near the desk space. It may not be an elaborate one with pictures and posters, but impart a professional look to your workspace.

Also read: Remote Work: Global Trends; Employee Best Practices

2. An Ergonomic Chair and Desk Set up

A common health symptom among individuals spending long hours sitting on chairs is backache which may aggregate to acute spondylitis or arthritis. Remote professionals need to spend much amount of their time at their desks, often leading to an apprehension of being prone to pains and aches. A key question is how to minimize these occurrences?

Well, the answer is, if you want to create the best home office set up for remote work then do not overlook your work chair and desk. You should focus on selecting an ergonomic chair and desk. The chair must comfortably support your lumbar and back, protecting your spinal cord from stress. Your posture will remain perfect. Several online e-commerce sites provide comfortable ergonomic chairs for work from home set up as per your posture requirements. Select one of them for your home office. 

While an ergonomic chair is essential for your body posture, a well-equipped desk is also important while setting up a home office for remote work. The placement of the mouse, keyboard, laptop, and desk height are some of the key elements of an ergonomic desk.

An important fact to remember: You must try and test the chair and the desk before the purchase to ensure they suit your body height, weight, and shape.

3. Music to soothe your mind

Remote work devoids you of occasional chit chats or tea and coffee breaks with your colleagues. You need to self-motivate yourself in completing your assignments on time. And just to reiterate you have to do it every day and every single moment. Hence to achieve the best home office set up for remote work, it is recommended to utilize the benefits of music. 

Music possesses the immense capacity to keep you relaxed and energized throughout the day. It impacts our efficiency and productivity immensely. So to keep your mood ongoing and to activate your mind, install speakers at your desk space. Lightening up your workspace with music is considered as one of the best practices in the list of home office upgrades for remote workers. It rejuvenates your mood and motivates you to continue your work with zeal and enthusiasm. The work quality is bound to improve, in turn benefitting the company and its goals.

Read: How to work from home successfully?

4. Prevent data loss, ensure backups

Losing your work data is a serious risk while working remotely. Since you are not gaining access to any backup server at the office, it is important to ensure you back up your work every day. One of the common measures adopted for the best office set up for remote work is to store data in Cloud. Several product vendors provide huge cloud storage capacity for a small amount of yearly or monthly fees.

Though the Cloud storage is handled by the vendor, yet you must remember it is your data and information which is stored. In case of any technical snags, your documents will get lost. You need to be cautious of the mentioned fact while planning and organizing your remote office set up. It is advisable to store your documents and data into external hard disks and pen drives too in addition to the Cloud storage, especially the key ones. You must perform a frequent check of the information stored in the Cloud to ensure data is not lost.

5. A Cozy Lighting arrangement for your Desk Space

Professionals working out in offices do not need to worry about lights and ACs in their workspace. Those are controlled and maintained centrally for a comfortable feeling. But remote professionals need to hack their brains on the infrastructure facilities as well while designing the best home office set up for remote work. 

Two important factors need to be considered while arranging the lighting for work from home offices. First and foremost it must not affect your eyes and second is it must impart a soft and cozy feeling to the entire work environment. Too much bright light or too dim light have their repercussions. Allow natural light to enter and brighten up your room. Open the curtains and blinds during the day to welcome the sun rays. Your eyes are subjected to less stress and strain. Never work in a dimly lit workspace as it negatively impacts your eyes. Proper lighting is an important factor for remote office set up and must never be overlooked.

6. Seamless Communication

The best home office set up for remote workers necessitates the establishment of a robust communication system. Remote professionals frequently need to interact with their peers, team members, and customers via audio and video conferences. In the absence of efficient communication tools, work from home offices is extremely difficult to operate. You will find it tough to clarify your queries, share details on your work progress, attend regular meetings and training sessions, etc.

Try and test your audio and video systems before installing the same in your remote workspace. Purchase devices from reliable vendors after proper research and reading through product reviews. Other than the audio and video sets, the next important factor to institutionalize an effective communication system for work from home set up is the internet connectivity, internet service provider and the mobile service provider. Compare the plans and effectivity of the different service providers in your locality and select the best.

Read: Synchronous & Asynchronous Communication For Remote Work

7. Maintain a Whiteboard

One of the important criteria to establish the best home office set up for remote work is to ensure you are on track with your daily to-do activities. Missing deadlines is not a boon for remote professionals since that would break the trust and confidence of them. Maintaining a whiteboard in front of the desk space to list down the daily activities, pending work, penning down ideas and writing down the goals is a great way to be on track. It also increases your productivity and efficiency.

The idea of placing a whiteboard in a remote workspace may seem to be a meagre option for many remote professionals. To them, the notepad, spreadsheets, documents in their computers and laptops and their notebooks are reliable means to list out their daily activities. But little do they realize the advantages of visual effects in supporting their work. The whiteboard assists remote professionals in visually present the ideas in front of them stimulating the brains to think efficiently. Also, the daily activities written in front constantly remind them of their priorities and to stay focused. Hence it is advisable to put a comfortably sized whiteboard right in front of your desk while setting up a home office for remote work.

8. A Fast Computer or Laptop with desired features

Remote professionals are always on the look-out of a computer or laptop well equipped to handle their day to day operations catering to their requirements. Most realize that the best home office set up for remote work can only be established by a computer or laptop operating at a super-fast feed along with a large storage capacity. 

You may be a marketing professional or a graphic designer or a programmer. Each skill has different needs of applications and tools to operate in a remote environment. Hence to function efficiently in a work from home set up, remote professionals must ensure their computer or laptop has the latest operating system installed and all the necessary software and hardware.

Also read: How To Build And Sustain Trust In Remote Teams

9. A Therapeutic Feel

It is said that flowers and plants boost up our energy level and refresh our minds and hearts. So why not use their amazing benefits while designing the best home office setup for remote work. Place a small indoor plant near your desk space or set up a flower vase on your desk adorned with daily fresh flowers. Both are sure to create an amazing effect during your entire duration of work. 

Since remote professionals operate in a lonely environment the need the additional stress relief mechanism to brighten up their day. The majority of work from home offices nowadays have understood the benefit of plants in rejuvenating human brains. It is a brilliant method of inducing motivation and self-morale among remote professionals.

Tips: Plant succulents that are easy to maintain and grow. Small seasonal plants can also be used for their brightly colored flowers.

10. Quick and smart charging facilities

One of the essential aspects of remote working is availability. Within the stipulated office hours, it is very important to maintain quick and smart charging facilities for all the devices being used for work. Normally all individuals use smartphones, wireless routers, wireless mouse, smart watch and of course the computers or laptops. They cannot afford the devices to be out of charge as that may lead to loss of connectivity and even miss out on certain meetings and discussions.

Hence to establish the best home office set up for remote work, the desk space must be equipped with the latest charging accessories. Many innovative products are now available for the continuous charging of devices. They can be purchased after proper investigation of their features and benefits in the market.

Tips: If you are keen on maintaining the best home office setup, It is advisable to buy charging accessories that can cater to multiple devices.

The above suggestions and recommendations are some of the key ones determining the success of remote work. If followed diligently you are sure to achieve your desired objective and goals.

Further Read: Best Practices For Remote Onboarding

With the increasing popularity of remote working, it is essential to understand the best practices for the successful execution of the new way of operations. 

Remote employees engage in a combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication as they operate out of their preferred locations. The main reasons behind adapting to this particular mode of communication attribute to the absence of real-time communication in a remote working environment and the growing advantages of asynchronous communication. In this article, we would discuss on asynchronous communication definition, its benefits and difference with synchronous communication. We will also learn about synchronous communication definition with examples and tools used.

Content Index

1. Asynchronous communication definition
2. Synchronous communication definition
3. Difference between asynchronous & synchronous communication
4. Examples for synchronous and asynchronous communication
5. Tools for synchronous and asynchronous communication
6. Benefits of asynchronous communication
7. How to instil effective asynchronous communication culture in remote teams?

What is Asynchronous Communication?

In simple terms, asynchronous communication can be defined as a communication that does not happen in real-time. It occurs when the sender sends a message and the receiver responds after a delay. Both the participants of the conversation are never online together in this form of communication. One easy asynchronous transmission example is emailing a person who responds after a certain interval of time. It does not mandate the receiver to send out a reply immediately.

In asynchronous communication, the sender and the receiver are not engaged in phone calls or video conference calls or web conferencing. Many times remote workers are placed in different time zones which necessitates them to engage in exchanging emails instead of working late nights to converse in chats, phone calls or any other real time communication medium. That may eventually lead to a lack of available bandwidth and reduction in productivity of remote professionals who stretch themselves to work overtime. 

Remember: Expecting your remote team to be constantly available on the phone and chats interrupts their flow of work which may delay the deadlines and efficiency of the team. Their concentration tends to get diverted from their regular activities and assignments.

Read: How to work from home successfully?

What is Synchronous Communication?

Synchronous communication can be defined as interactive real-time communication between two persons. The response is immediate between the individuals participating in the conversation. Through live audio and video conferencing facilities, the remote team connects easily despite being located at different places. They feel the essence of face to face meeting even sometimes sharing their personal interests and hobbies. This builds up a strong interpersonal relationship between the remote professionals which brings in comfort and confidence among the individuals. 

Synchronous communication allows the remote team to receive clarifications to their queries instantly. Many technical and functional questions can be answered through interactive discussions between the remote team members. That eventually positively impacts the work completion time. Any hurdles, blocks, and risks can be discussed instantly and resolved jointly.

Read: Meeting Minutes: What is it & how to write it effectively (step by step)

Difference between Synchronous & Asynchronous Communication

The key difference between synchronous communication & asynchronous communication is that it occurs in real-time whereas synchronous communication never operates in real-time mode. In real-time both the participants are expected to be online at the same moment, responding to each other almost immediately. To ensure the remote team is available in the online meetings for real-time communication, the calendars of all must be free at a specific time. It is important to sync the time between the remote team members and arrange for a meeting else it may lead to unnecessary discontent and miscommunication. The advantage is the comments and messages are transmitted instantly without any delay.

Whereas in asynchronous communication, you do not have to wait for a common time slot. You can use the communication medium for passing on the information to the recipients, allowing them to reply at their convenient time. This enables a person working remotely to invest in coming up with a constructive response or solution to a problem or assignment. It doesn’t mandate to provide a hasty resolution which may not be of good quality or lack proper analysis. But simultaneously the human factor is almost lost since it limits face to face conversations. It is tough to build personal relationships and rapport between the teams due to the absence of one to one meetings or group meetings.

Must read: How To Build And Sustain Trust In Remote Teams

In real time communication, sometimes it is difficult to keep track of the notes since it demands constant attention and focus on the discussion topics. It often leads to loss of information in between the conversations which further hampers the overall functioning of the team and its performance. However real time communication enables remote professionals to interact with their supervisors to discuss any grievances or self-goals faster and comfortably. Asynchronous communications help to keep track of the communication history and record all conversations for future reference. The participants remain cautious and indulge in proper solutioning and reasoning. The remote workers, working in different time zones, find it extremely beneficial to engage in the asynchronous mode of communication. 

Tip: Companies must opt for a mix of synchronous and asynchronous communication methodologies to reap in the benefits of both.

In the next sections, we will try to understand synchronous and asynchronous transmission example, synchronous and asynchronous communication tools, and the benefits of synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Suggested read: Best note-taking apps in 2020

Examples of Asynchronous & synchronous communication 

1. Asynchronous Transmission Example

Asynchronous Communication can be performed in various ways. The two important modes of performing the same are Slack and Email, widely used by many organizations to communicate with their remote team. It is a common practice to publish important announcements and information in the internal websites and collaboration medium, inviting the employees to comments and provide feedback. 

A video recording of key messages or information about the company or the team is also one of the asynchronous transmission examples. Instead of scheduling a video recording call or conference demanding availability of the remote workers at a particular time, you can pre-record the video and sent it across to all. The remote professionals hence are presented with ample time to go through the video, understand the criticalities and the information conveyed and act accordingly with a conscience. The recordings can be sent through emails or uploaded into the company’s internal website for viewing by the employees working remotely.

Also read: Best Practices For Remote Onboarding

Rmember: Asynchronous Communication provides ample opportunities to thoroughly and critically understand the information imparted by the company or the team leader on important aspects of assignments. The remote professionals find it comfortable to digest the details and act judiciously.

2. Synchronous Communication Example

The popular synchronous communication example includes telephone calls, chats, instant messaging, video conferences, webinars. The participants’ login to the tools and applications at the same time and interact in real time mode with each other. They discuss the daily progress of their work and any risks anticipated to slip the assignment deadlines. The team analyzes the problems and try to support each other by providing constructive resolutions. They use devices such as web cameras, speakers and microphones for facilitating the real time discussion. 

The remote professionals can even speak with their supervisors about their performance, goals, and grievances easily almost instantly for a faster resolution. Even the supervisors can enquire about their remote team faster and can work on any issues faced by them effectively. Many problems can be mitigated then and there while interacting with the team. This facilitates the resolution process and in turn uplifts the team morale. The companies are gifted with an effective team, collaborating efficiently with each other. The relation between the lead and the team is also enhanced.

Asynchronous Transmission Tools

1. Google Drive

The excellent tool by Google provides support to exchange documents, pictures, video recordings, presentations and spreadsheets across remote teams. You can provide varied permissions to the team members to either edit or view the files shared through Google Drive. The members can provide comments or feedback too as required.

2. Slack

Slack is one of the popular asynchronous transmission tools. It is a messaging application by which you can connect with your remote team comfortably. You can open out different channels of communication segregating by teams or by specific topics. In each of these groups, you can leave any announcements or assignments or messages for the team to respond later as per their convenient time or a defined schedule.

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3. Asana

Though Asana is prominent as a project management tool for remote working, it can be used for asynchronous communication too. You can set up the project plan along with the activities, tasks, assigned person and the deadlines for each task or activity. There is a provision to mention additional comments in the tool. The remote team members can log in to Asana to check their assignments and act accordingly. They can update their progress on each task or activity with comments.

4. UnRemot

UnRemot is one of the sleekest tools for asynchronous communication among remote teams. The platform allows you to create virtual rooms for dedicated teams where team members can have group chats and one on one chats.

5. Slab

A slab is an important tool for asynchronous communication, serving as a knowledge repository for the company’s profile, organization structure, projects, teams, essential functional and technical information. The remote team members can search for relevant answers from Slab for their queries and engage in discussions on different topics. It eventually helps them to resolve any issues obstructing the progress of their work or support peers and the team in resolving their problems.

6. Loom

Loom allows you to record your screens and share the recording along with your messages for better understanding. Visual aids are very effective in communicating messages and information to remote professionals. Loom can integrate seamlessly with Slack thereby simplifying the method of conveying messages coupled with screen recordings.

Synchronous Communication Tools

The common synchronous communication tools, companies can utilize are listed below:

1. Unremot

Unremot is one of the best remote working tools for distributed teams to connect synchronously. On this video based platform all the remote team members can have group and one-on-one calls, share their screens on single clicks, send messages and so on. To check out the com list of its features take a look at this post.

2. Skype

Through Skype, participants can log in to the application or the web version for live meetings. The remote team can share their screens or presentations and engage in video conversations. The tool is easy to download and can be used in desktops and mobile devices. You can chat and send instant messages too.

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3. Google Hangouts

The efficient video conferencing and chat tool from Google is an excellent medium to interact instantly. You can exchange documents, presentations, and images through this tool. It can be installed free and is user-friendly

4. WebEx Meetings

WebEx meetings from CISCO are very common in workplaces connecting remote teams. You can share your screen, engage in both audio and video conferencing and even record meetings.

5. Slack

Slack is also an efficient tool for synchronous communication. It is a messaging application by which you can connect with your remote team comfortably. You can chat instantly with the remote team, collaborating efficiently and at super-fast speed. 

6. HipChat

It is a chat application that offers instant collaboration between the remote teams through facilities such as chat rooms, file sharing, instant messaging, screen sharing and video conferencing. The application can be installed or you can use the web version of HipChat.

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Benefits of Asynchronous Communication

Maintaining asynchronous communication in a remote workplace has its benefits and advantages, realized by both the company and the remote professionals. Some of the key ones are:

1. Organized and planned days

Ability to maintain well-organized and planned workdays with no additional stress to respond in real time to requests during the work hours. Remote workers can concentrate on their assignments and focus on completing their work within the deadlines. They are not subjected to excessive pressure of replying to messages, chats and phone calls immediately which defocuses them from their original flow of work. Asynchronous communication equips them to stay tuned to their work schedule. 

2. Better communication in remote reams

Improves the quality of communication since the remote professionals are provided ample time to think and analyze before drafting their message. They invest adequate time in drawing a resolution to a particular problem or issue along with the probable pros and cons. Individuals strive to provide clear and concise messages to prevent the back and forth of emails or conversations.

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3. Improved overall efficiency

Enables efficient documentation of the communications and information exchanged between the remote employees by maintaining proper history and versions. It is easy to refer to any future conversations without any risk or apprehension of information loss. Since all data is recorded and maintained, it can be easily shared across the remote team workers.

4. Connecting remote employees across the world

Streamlines communication across remote professionals placed at different time zones. This enables companies to hire people of niche skills from different regions based on skill set and resource availability. 

Remember: Though asynchronous communication is preferred by many companies while collaborating with their remote team, in certain cases it is advised to use the synchronous method of communication. The main reason behind such a recommendation is offering real time collaboration, an increase in social presence and interpersonal relations, immediate response to conversations. The remote team members remain motivated and encouraged. 

Components of an Asynchronous Message

Crafting an efficient asynchronous message determines its success and effectiveness to a large extent:

• Think of the FAQs and probable questions that may creep in after conveying a certain message and information. Package all those clarifications and answers before sending out to the team.
• If a deadline needs to be specified, do not miss out on it. Emphasize on the target dates and the urgency or importance behind the same.
• Provide video recordings, screen recordings, images, and links wherever possible as visual aids for better imparting of messages
• Be clear on your ask from the individuals or the team. There must not be ambiguity as it may lead to delays and additional exchange of communication.

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Instill asynchronous culture within a team

Drifting between synchronous and asynchronous communication may sometimes lead to difficulties in adaption and comfort. Incomplete messages passed via asynchronous communication tools may force remote workers to switch on to real time mode of interaction. The actions which will assist in instilling an asynchronous culture within a team are highlighted here:

• Communicate in details on assignments, deadlines, information, training schedules, emergencies, urgent activities with proper visual aids, podcasts will eliminate the need to engage frequently 
• Ensure the team has access to all the documents and files required for the proper functioning of the projects
• To prevent frequent occurrences of meetings, it is advisable to start a prior discussion with the remote workers for their readiness and preparedness
• For absentees of a particular meeting or discussion, circulate Minutes of meetings or discussion threads or circulate recordings from the session
• Notifications from chatting and messaging applications must be turned off during specified work hours to avoid distractions

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Asynchronous communication is an art which if applied skillfully leads to huge benefits that companies must nurture for their advantages.

As per a survey conducted by Global Workforce Analytics, remote work global workforce has increased 210% – this is a significant growth in the direction of work culture going decentralised. Lately, between 2018 & 2019, the growth was highest – estimated at 34%! Going by these trends, 2 in every employee will adopt remote work, from home or elsewhere. The industries leading the trend includes the knowledge space, technology, research, consulting, data processing and travel & hospitality.

Key reasons for the increase in remote work culture

While the reasons for workforce choosing to work remotely is diverse, depending upon the geography and country, the research results summarise the below as key reasons,

1. Seeking flexibility to decide when to work
2. Increasing traffic in neo urban areas
3. Women employees seeking balance at work & home
4. Time with family
5. Luxury of being at home comfort

One of the key reasons for the rise of women leading the trend is also attributed to the increasing number of women leaders taking up board level positions in new age organisations. As per the latest data, over 20% of S&P 500 companies have women in leadership positions. This could be a spiral – more women as leaders, may also be a leading indicator of growing trend of remote work culture in new age organisations.

Remote Employees Best Practices

Working remotely isn’t an easy affair for both the management & employees. It takes significant bandwidth from the people’s team to put up processes and practices in place. As per a recent study conducted by Stanford spanning 9 weeks among US based workforce, there was a 13% improvement at individual level productivity, when they chose to go flexible with remote work, while also adopting some of the remote employees best practices for their team to follow as a standard. Some of them include the below,

1. Setup and follow the standard communication practices of the organisation
2. Adopt necessary technological tools that enables seamless remote work (refer https://unremot.com for more details)
3. Make self visible while at work – by using relevant connectivity platforms like UnRemote
4. Keep in touch with coworkers & avoid blackout periods without being in touch with the team
5. Organize daily/recurring calls/meetings to be in sync with the office events
6. Continue being part of the light weighted office gossips – this is one of the key social aspects of being physically present in office
7. Try and keep boundaries between work and life, if one is working out of home

Global Remote Work Statistics

The below is a summary of global remote work statistics, captured based on various researches done globally in the past 5 years,

1. As per a FlexJobs survey in 2019, 65% of employees opined that their productivity has boosted after having chosen remote work
2. As per a Gartner study in 2018, employee retention increased by 12% while offered remote work option
3. A Global Workplace Analytics report says that after deploying remote work, employees savings was at USD 2000 at entry-level jobs and up to USD 11000 for senior management profiles, annually. Further, organisations save up to USD 14000 per employee, annually after allowing their new work from home culture
4. A separate study conducted by GreenerPlaces, UK found that increased remote working trends will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tonnes and saving 640 million barrels of oil
5. An IWG study found that at least 52% of the workforce in US adopt some or other remote employees best practices while they chose to pick
6. 35% of the employees, as per Owl Labs says that they are having better employment opportunities while moving remote work.  

Challenges with remote work

All of it is not easy to come by, given the diverse challenges associated with remote work. As per a survey by Doist, some of the key challenges faced by employees, while at remote work are below,

1. 22% says plugging out of work after the work-time is one of their key struggles
2. 19% said they are suffering from loneliness while at home
3. 17% had problems with collaborating with the rest of the team members
4. 10% faced disruptions at work, due to domestic distractions at home
5. 8% had trouble being in a different time zone
6. 8% was facing challenges in keeping them motivated, being alone
7. 7% didn’t know how to take vacations, while being remote
8. 3% couldn’t find a reliable wifi, because they were also on the move

Broadly, the industry looks prospective for an emerging trend of remote work, as we progress further into the next decade. There are numerous technology-enabled enablers like UnRemot that will help the global workforce to effectively pursue remote work. It’s only a matter of few years and daring leadership to allow their team members to go global, while being flexible at remote work.