Working from Home the New Normal

Working from home (WFH) has become the norm for a major portion of the workforce after the transformative events of the COVID-19 pandemic. More employees have found that they can save money and time related to their daily commute, spend more time with their families, and take up hobbies and interests they would never have been given the chance to before WFH. 

While employees have been advocates of WFH for a long time, most employers have been reluctant to allow WFH as they assume that their employees are less productive when not in an office environment. While there is scant evidence that this fear is justified, entrepreneurs – especially female entrepreneurs – have thrived in this kind of environment, as WFH provides several major benefits, as below:

1. No Office Rentals: Modern entrepreneurs do not need to worry about renting an expensive office space in a large city to attract investors, partners, and clients. 
2. Reduced Equipment Costs: Employees will often use their own computers, furniture, and utilities (Electricity, water, Internet, telephone, etc.)
3. Relaxed and happy workforce: Employees will not be stressed about their morning and evening commutes, where they will either have to drive in traffic or take public transportation in office attire. 

Have your Pick of Tools

Several online tools have been created to help with work-from-home organization and time management, which can be particularly beneficial for busy female entrepreneurs. Some of these tools include:

Project Management Tools: Project management tools such as Trello, Asana, and Monday.com can help entrepreneurs stay organized by allowing them to create and manage projects, set deadlines, assign tasks, and collaborate with team members in real-time. These tools provide a visual overview of tasks and deadlines, helping entrepreneurs prioritize and manage their workload effectively.

Calendar and Scheduling Tools: Calendar and scheduling tools such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Calendly can help entrepreneurs manage their appointments, meetings, and deadlines. These tools allow entrepreneurs to schedule and organize their work commitments, set reminders, and share calendars with team members or clients to coordinate meetings and events efficiently.

Time Tracking Tools: Time-tracking tools such as Toggl, Harvest, and RescueTime can help entrepreneurs track how they spend their time, measure productivity, and identify areas where they can optimize their workflow. These tools can be used to provide insights into time-consuming tasks and help entrepreneurs allocate their time effectively to prioritize important activities.

Communication And Collaboration Tools: Communication and collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace can help entrepreneurs stay connected with their team members, clients, and partners, even when working remotely. These tools provide channels for real-time messaging, file sharing, and video conferencing, enabling efficient communication and collaboration.

Note-Taking and Documentation Tools: Note-taking and documentation tools such as Evernote, Google Docs, and Notion can help entrepreneurs stay organized by allowing them to capture and store important information, create to-do lists, and collaborate on documents with team members. These tools provide a centralized location for storing and accessing important documents, ideas, and notes, making it easy to stay organized and productive.

Note that EquityMatch is in no way affiliated to the companies creating the tools listed above and that we do not get paid to advertise either of these brands.

You may notice that some tools listed above provide more than one service to their users. Selecting the right set of tools is up to individuals and businesses. The main characteristics of the tools that you select should be:

• Fitness for purpose: Each tool should be carefully selected so that it suits your business purposes. A shiny new online tool might be tempting to use, but if it does not provide what you want, you are better off looking for an alternative.

• Compatibility with each other: There are some tools that are compatible with each other and can communicate seamlessly between each other with minimal effort on the part of the users. Incompatibilities between the different tools may cause a drop in productivity.

• Ease of use for you and your team: A tool is only as good as the service it provides to the user, who is in this case, you. If you do not find it convenient to use a tool or if the members of your team find it cumbersome or unproductive, it is better to forego it altogether. An alternative would be to find a tool that fits the purpose and provide online training in the form of tutorials and one-on-one training sessions for all employees who will be using this tool on a day-to-day basis.

• Costs: Software comes with a few costs – purchase, licencing, helpdesk, training, additional features, etc. If you are a smaller business running on a shoe-string budget, these costs would constitute a not-so-insignificant portion of your overall costs. There might be free alternatives to online tools that might be an amazing fit for your company in terms of serving the purpose, being user-friendly, and having high compatibility. When it comes to software, the more expensive it is generally does not translate to how good it is, but rather the price-point that the software producer thinks the software is worth. 

In comparison to the past few decades, we now have better and faster communication and more software tools in terms of availability, affordability, and function. In this environment, we can no longer say we are in an increasingly online world, but rather we are now in a world that is almost entirely online. The COVID-19 pandemic of the early years of the 2020s provided just the opportunity to show the world what humans are capable of and how work and business can change to being more online than ever before. The tools we mentioned above and their properties are by no means a comprehensive list. We invite you to talk to an EquityMatch advisor today and get your start in your online business. We will guide you towards business success, as we have the tools to provide you the tools to get you where you want to be.