How to remain productivity working from home

 

What exactly is the workplace?

Historically, a workplace was a physical location where a group of people, contractually bound, assembled to perform a set of tasks in return for something. Like a factory, a tannery, a wood cutting mill, etc Workplaces also had or provided tools, resources, machinery, and instruments that would be required to perform the tasks. Then came the digital era, or the start of computers and the internet. In this era, a new wave of jobs was created which redefined the workplace as we knew from the previous era. Instead of physical labor and the use of huge complex machinery, work began to be accomplished behind desks and desktops, laptops. Moore’s law captured this evolution very well. As electronic devices became smaller and yet more effective, digitalization revolutionized every aspect of our lives. Workplace as well.

The workplace was always defined as essential for getting things done. It enforced accountability, helped in focussing, made essentials for working available, and all in all enabled productivity. But as we saw above, the evolution of the workforce, made organizations rethink this policy of enforcing workplace as the only way or rather place of working

Remote Working is a mode of working which allows the professional to work from any location. Usually, flexible timings for work are closely associated with remote working. There are variations of remote working as well such as working from home. And the definition of a remote worker may change depending on their employment status. i.e Are they a full-time employee or contractual employee. And irrespective of what kind of employee they are, how can a remote worker ensure the same level of productivity.

Let’s find out…

COVID and the New Normal

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely altered the meaning of the workplace. Particularly in the information technology sector which is almost 100% digitized. Earlier where companies would allow and authorize remote working in varying degrees, based on factors like requirements, logistics, security, etc, companies are now forced to come up with frameworks for allowing remote working as much as possible to keep the wheels moving. It is also becoming apparent that this is going to be the new normal for a long time and hence remote working and work from home is no longer going to be an employee privilege but rather a way of life

Remote Working vs Work from Home

Remote working is a working system where an employee is not mandated by contract to be present in a physical, authorized location of the employer. The reason for such an arrangement could be many. E.g. A global workforce. An employer in India hires a consultant in the US. In the internet age, proximity and information is just a click away.

Work from Home can be considered as an arrangement where an employee is entitled to work from home subject to certain restrictions and rules. Work from Home makes an exception to the requirement that an employee should be physically present as and when required under certain circumstances.

Drivers of Remote Working

Let’s explore what are the drivers of remote working.

Why does somebody work remotely in the first place?

• Happier Employee — More Productivity
• Technology
• Current Norm
• Reduced Cost
• Social Benefits

Happier Employee — More Productivity

Allowing an employee to work in a location where he is more comfortable i.e his home or any other preferred location, puts him in a happier and calmer mindset. This invariably leads to a more productive employee. Plus the support extended by the organisation to the employee in letting him work from home or remotely builds loyalty in the minds of the employee toward the organisation

Technology

Employees work from home; simply because they can! Technology is a great enabler and distances and physical presence no longer matter in many sectors. This offers the additional benefit to the employer of having access to the employee, company data at any point of time. Video discussions, conference calls are already used in organisations which have teams spread across the globe. Remote working/Work from home simply extends those technologies locally

Current Norm

Companies around the globe are always trying to improve their employee engagement program to make them more productive. With modern lifestyle, the pressures of work can affect the work-life balance. Hence to provide some balance to the employee when it comes to their personal lives, companies have accepted WFH or remote working as a norm

Reduced Cost

Having an employee working remotely or working from home, has measurable financial benefits for the company. Such as savings on office space, physical infrastructure, transportation, conveyance allowance etc

Social Benefits

In addition to the benefits to both the employee and employer, there are lots of social benefits associated with remote working and working from home. Reduced traffic, reduced noise, reduced environmental impact associated with pollution generation, reduced spending in commute, etc

Remote working best practice

Now that we have a good idea about what remote working is and we have seen the benefits of the same, let’s have a look at how we can maximise our productivity working from home

Reachability

Set up the environment

Proactive with potential Distractions

Take Scheduled Breaks

Call Over Chat

Solicit Feedback

1. Reachability

When an employee works from home, the most important thing is his reachability. It is the responsibility of the employee to inform his team, subordinates, superiors when is he available, when is he on break and when will he log off. Do not make colleagues ping you multiple times waiting for your response while you have switched off. Stick to the normal work hours. Be available on the authorized communication channels

2. Set up the environment

An employee must set up an environment which is similar to his work environment. This is not limited to tools and technology.It extends to mundane things like tables, chairs, settings etc. Ensure that all the authorised, required tools, permissions, configurations, provisioning certificates are available and working on your system before you start. Similarly have a physical environment similar to your office setup. Dress for the occasion, have the same environment and desk setup so you will be focussed on the work like the workplace

3. Proactive with potential distractions

Working from home has more potential for distractions. It might be amusing and cute to see your cat dart across the keyboard, but when you are in the middle of a serious discussion over a video call, it can appear awkward. Home delivery, a family member popping in to ask something, kids throwing tantrums and a million and one awkward scenarios like that. Avoid all this by defining a boundary. Time and space wise. Let your family know you are unavailable between these timings. Keep the door shut if you will. Do whatever is required based on your home setup, but ensure that personal distractions don’t impede your work

4. Take scheduled breaks

It is easy to be “always-on” when you are working from home. But just like the way someone takes regular breaks in their workplace, schedule breaks when you are working at home as well.

Just ensure that your team members are aware. A simple status update on your communication channel which indicates that you are away would be a good example. Similarly, ensure non-work tasks are scheduled at a fixed time and it does not interfere with your working hours.

5. Calls over chat

In a working environment, help or clarification or answer to problems is just a desk away. You might swing by your colleague’s desk to get some clarification. But when you are working remotely and you are connected with your colleagues virtually, discussions and clarifications might get difficult over chats. Do not hesitate to reach out to your team to discuss any contentious issue over the phone when you find yourself going round in circles with chat-based discussions

6. Solicit feedback

Periodically talk to your team. Your subordinates, your superiors about how they are finding your current setup.

Are you easily accessible?

Are you properly audible?

Do they have any suggestions on how you can be more productive when working from home?

This goes a long way in enforcing your commitment and professionalism when it comes to working from home

What to avoid

Casual Nature

Non-Adherence to Time

Not Informing in Advance

Not Being Prepared

1. Casual nature

Remote working or work from home is a privilege or a grant to accomplish your work better while balancing other priorities. The time you are working from home is accountable to the employee for the work you are supposed to deliver. Often, the comfortable and familiar environment of homes can induce a sense of casualness in an employee. Work from home is nothing but simply working from home. Maintain the same level of professionalism as in the workplace

2. Non-adherence to time

Adherence to time is mandatory when it comes to working from home. Since an employee is not physically present, it becomes imperative that the same person maintains time when it comes to meetings, calls, discussion, etc.

3. Not informing in advance

In the event of an employee being dragged into some personal work, it is necessary to intimate the team members about any nonavailability. If the user is stepping out for a while, he/she should notify their subordinates, superiors about the same. Similarly, if someone is on leave, ensure that the connected people are informed in advance

4. Not being prepared

Do not show up to a meeting with a faulty microphone or webcam and fix things during call. Do dry runs of every interaction to make sure everything works as expected. Being prepared with no logistical issues is necessary because its professional, and respectful of others time

Challenges of Remote Working

Tech Availability

More Prone to Distraction

Difficulty in Switching off

Need to over-communicate and Reachability

Tech availability

A workplace is equipped with the latest and the required tools, hardware, and software to perform one’s work effectively. Having access to the same kind of setup might be difficult in a remote location. This leads to ineffective substitute which might lead to lower productivity depending on the substitute

More prone to distraction

A work culture that is centered around focus helps an employee to work efficiently in the office. But at home or remotely an employees attention is more prone to get distracted with mundane tasks not directly related to work

Difficulty in switching off

Work from home creates an “Alway On” expectation. People take it for granted that since someone is working from home they are going to be always available. It is essential to take regular breaks and draw a definite boundary between personal and professional time.

Need to over-communicate and reachability

No matter how much technology simplifies communication and accessibility, nothing beats a personal touch when it comes to discussing, collaborating, and communicating. In a connected world, due to lack of understanding, time difference, cultural differences, etc, remote working or work from home might necessitate over communication to simplify matters

Conclusion

Remote working is a system that was an effective, additional way to do work before the COVID pandemic. But life as we know has completely changed. What was a good thing previously is now a necessity and might become the way of life in the future. If performed in the right manner with diligence and care, working from home and remote working is as effective as working at the workplace; if not better. Hence each person must follow a certain code, a certain personal ethic, and professionalism to make this successful and to handle a part of this crisis.

Happy Working

 

Protocol oriented programming

Protocol oriented programming(POP) is a paradigm that has come into the limelight with the advent of Swift. Different languages over different periods have had some flavor of POP in them, but there are some traits unique in the POP central to Swift, which gives them a measurable advantage over OOP. That is not to say that OOP is flawed and or POP is the knight in the shining armor. POP simply extends OOP with a few new additions that help in writing better code ergo, better systems

Contents

a. Existing system example

b. Problem with Inheritance

c. Enter protocols

d. Protocol Extensions

e. Protocols & Value types

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1. Existing system example

Let’s take a simple example to see how OOP and POP work on the same problem. Consider that we are contracted to build a vehicle that can be driven. The requirement is we will be asked to build many vehicles that will have different colors, number of wheels, different engine capacity, etc. Coming from the OOP world, the core of the solution would be something like this

Everything works fine. SmallCar, RaceCar both can be driven. They also can have their unique traits.(noOfSeats(), nitroBoosterCapacity() etc). No paradigm maps the real world as efficiently as OOP, and hence we can apply principles of real-world like inheritance in object modeling. That’s the beauty of it.

However, the real world is far from perfect, and that seeps into its derivative like OOP. Consider the same example above. The customer has now contracted you to build the ability to have wipers for the existing category of vehicles. So now Vehicle can be modified to have the ability to wipe

Courtesy, inheritance, all the categories of vehicles created hitherto can wipe its screen. RaceCar or SmallCar can simply call wipe() and startDriving() safely in the rains! The customer is now happy and since you are so awesome in building systems he now asks for introducing a new class of vehicle, A two-wheeler known as a motorcycle. The first reaction would be to subclass Motorcycle from Vehicle. In this case, Vehicle would not be useful. Why? Semantically a motorcycle is a vehicle so we should be able to use the Vehicle class. But the problem is if a Motorcycle inherits from Vehicle it would also inherit the ability to wipe(). Needless and absurd as well! So if we don’t extend Motorcycle from Vehicle, all the complex logic and business rules which are available through Vehicle namely in startDriving() will not be available to a Motorcycle. We could simply argue that ignore the ability to wipe() in a Motorcycle, but that’s knowingly introducing an association in the system which is not required. So what’s wrong with our design?

OOPs, OOP has done it again!

A subclass may not need all the features from its parent class. A child who has a rich, alcoholic father will happily choose to inherit his wealth but would keep his distance from his father's drinking vice(hopefully!). Similarly, a subclass may not require all the traits of its superclass. Since most of the languages do not support multiple inheritances we cannot break the superclass features into multiple smaller classes and have the subclasses inherit from the required ones.

OOP does not do a great job when it comes to this.

2. Problem with Inheritance

Inheritance is a great mechanism to reuse code and build software, but it is not particularly great when it comes to a selective association. The class that gets inherited is imbibed in the DNA of the subclass whether it likes it or not. It’s like a mobile data plan which comes with a host of great features that you are interested in but also with a few meh! features which you would have rather not wanted if sold individually. But since it’s part of the package you can’t escape it.

3. Enter protocols

Protocols have been in existence since OOP itself and it offers another way of designing and modeling classes. Let’s consider the above example of vehicles and how we could design the same using protocols

As we can see, with protocols we have been able to break the dependency enforced by Inheritance on the class Motorcycle when it inherited Vehicle. Now any new category of Vehicle which does not require wipers won’t be burdened with the same. It simply does not conform to it. Don’t need it, don’t ask for it and so not burdened with it! For e.g. a scooter. The protocol used in Swift generally is implemented as an abstraction (virtual class, interface so on and so forth) in many other languages. Nothing really new there. Readers would have noticed here that the need to define the logic of driving is now on the concrete class which implements Vehicle i.e both RaceCar and SmallCar now has to define how to startDriving(). This can lead to the repetition of code and logic. Besides if protocols have been available in many other languages what’s so special about POP in Swift? The answer is Protocol extensions.

4. Protocol Extensions

The cornerstone for POP is protocol extension. Swift (v2.0 onwards) allows a protocol to have a generic behavior that can be overridden as well. This generic behavior allows every implementation to “inherit” this by default. If they don’t like the generic behavior, well, simple, change it i.e., override it.

For e.g. the above example can now be written as

This is exactly like inheritance with the extra association of startWiper() now broken down to a need basis. Every implementation of Vehicle now has the complex startDriving() logic available by default i.e it has “inherited” the same from the protocol. Plus motorcycle does not have any association with Wipers. Thus protocol extensions help implementation to have the ability to “inherit” from a protocol and keep the dependency to an atomic level. i.e A protocol should contain only those contracts which an implementation or concrete object has to implement. Otherwise, it exhibits a fat interface problem. For e.g., Vehicle was a fat interface because it contained startWiper() which was not required for all subclasses.

5. Protocols & Value types

Swift advocates using value types over reference types wherever applicable. The use cases, benefits of both are well documented and won’t be covered here in this post. Value types like struct, enum can extend Protocols as well thus extending the benefits of designing using Protocols to even value types. This is one of the main reasons why Apple evangelizes using protocols over classes.

Bottom Line

POP extends OOP to provide another level of abstraction which helps a developer to write better code and design reusable components. Everything has its place under the sun and OOP is certainly not to be totally replaced with POP. Only where required. The decision to use POP or OOP can be context-specific

6 point design guide for Generation Z

The current generation or demography is known by many names iGeneration, Gen Wii, etc. In mainstream media, they are widely known as Generation Z, the one following Gen Y(surprise!) or millennials. Like the demography which preceded Gen Z, i.e. Gen Y, Gen X, etc., Gen Z has its unique traits, preferences, likes and dislikes, and behavioral patterns.

The millennials(Gen Y) were the first to consume digital products the way we see them today. With the advent of the Internet, the millennials adapted to services, tastes, sharing, brands favored, buying preferences, etc over the Internet in a digital platform. Whether it be booking movie tickets, ordering lunch, filing taxes, etc. digitalization is how the millennials made their lives easier.

The behavior of Gen Z

For Gen Z, the digital world is what is.

But For Gen Z, the Internet & the digital world was not about making lives easier. The digital world and its products were not luxury. They were born into this digital world where the Internet was a necessity. Experimenting and expressing with social channels & the digital world is how Gen Z communicates. As opposed to the traditional model of sales like brick and mortar setup, mom and pop stores, this is a generation that prefers buying online and learning about brands online.

How does Gen Z deal with brands

All most all brands and businesses eventually had to migrate to this digital platform to stay relevant since the purchasing power and ability of this demography is staggering. The traditional methods for branding, advertising, and sales have entirely turned on its head in the digital world. The pace of change in the digital world is fast, and brands have to adapt to keep themselves competitive. Physical channels of sales are superseded by digital channels. Methods of advertisement like flyers, print, television are rejected over likes & comments & reviews & feedback by existing users over social media. A “like” which a friend gives to a product is worth more than a plastic smile driven endorsement by a Taylor Swift or a Justin Bieber.

According to consulting firm Altitude, this new generation will account for 40% of consumers by 2020.

How to design for Gen Z

Before Gen Z, technology was used in society, but it was never as imbibed in everyday life as it is today. Consumption of services and goods was predominantly through offline modes. But thanks to technology, things have changed.

• Constant information
• Fluid
• Engagement
• Content
• Honest, fact-filled stories
• Options

1. Constant information

Gen Zers have grown up with constant connectivity. This is a generation that knew “swiping,” pinching, “liking,” zooming before they could walk. They search online for information that they need rather than relying on someone or something be it for education, entertainment or anything. A brand that wants to be appealing to this generation needs to have a presence that serves information about itself to Gen Zers all the time. Patience is not a virtue for this generation since there are too many things vying to catch their attention over multiple mediums. If your brand can’t provide information about itself when they require it, you are history. Designers thus need to realize that constant availability of information is not a “good to have,” but rather a “prerequisite” for the Gen Zer's attention. Build a design that is accessible all the time.

2. Fluid

Gen Zers use social media to share thoughts, ideas, and views. Geographical distances, gender specifics, location-based preferences are no longer applicable when it comes to a Gen Zers lifestyle. What is vogue in one corner of the world, is also a must-have in another part of the world. Traditional preferences based on different parameters are irrelevant to this generation. Gen Zers identify themselves as fluid when it comes to favorites, identity, likes, and dislikes. Designers need to rethink traditional concepts of branding based on geography, gender, and other variables.

3. How to engage with Gen Z

Traditional forms of marketing, like print media, television are one way. A potential customer is informed via text, songs, stories, etc. about a product, and that’s it. The way a user places his trust in the product is by trying it and then rejecting or accepting it. With the Gen Zers, feedback for a brand is available for a potential user even before he/she uses the product thanks to social media and other online channels. A review by a family user is considered more useful than a superstar who endorses the brand. Hence the designers have to continually engage with the Gen Zer and get their feedback.

• What is it about this product they like?
• What can be made better?

What should be removed? How can this be shipped faster? It’s mandatory to engage the Gen Zer in all of this. This reinforces their trust in the brand.

4. Content

Since branding is primarily done on digital channels, pixel-perfect designs are a no brainer. Relevant content with bright, bold colors, designs, and icons that convey the brand’s purpose should be used. Slow, lagging, delayed experiences will be swiftly rejected. Mobile-specific content catering to different sizes and screens are a must as well. In this age of information overload, the content should be loud enough to call out Gen Zer's attention while maintaining relevance.

5. Honest, fact-filled stories

Inthis digital age, when nothing is hidden from anybody, and everything is available online, brands have to be authentic and honest. Gen Zers can immediately determine when they hear corporate lies. They value honesty and reliability over everything since they were born in an age of recession, religious turmoils, terrorism, fake news, etc. This makes them value authenticity and honesty and reliability. Brands and designers have to appeal to the Gen Zer with an unmasked front. Designers have to showcase real-world use cases to connect with the sentiments of Gen Zers.

6. Options

Spoil them for choice. Period. Globalization has indeed arrived. What is locally produced is available everywhere and vice versa. Gen Zers are sticklers for what they want and like, considering their propensity for stability. Hence if your brand does not give them multiple options, it will be rejected. Options catering to their fluid interests should be made available.

Parting shot

Gen Z, in short, is a digital generation. This generation seeks, disseminates, share, express, observe, objects, likes, dislike in the digital world. Designers have to rethink traditional values, methods, techniques of branding to fit into the mobile, tablet world which is the primary mode of consumption in the digital world.