Three in five US employees believe—and are confident—that they can do their job remotely. And one in two people thinks they’ll be equally productive at home as in their normal work location, according to research from Glassdoor.

But even for those of us who are used to working from home, adjusting to how rapidly our workplaces have transformed during the COVID-19 crisis is challenging.

Today, most of our work requires collaboration with various team members and being able to share and learn from one another. Whether it’s HR onboarding a new colleague or developers launching an app—almost all work is teamwork. But now, in a world where many of us are working from home, teams and businesses are looking for ways to stay connected, aligned and productive.

The prospect of an extended period of remote working can make staying connected with your colleagues feel daunting. It’s natural to have a sense of being off-balance by the amount of change, after all, many workplaces were not prepared for such a significant shift so quickly.

Messaging apps and video conferencing tools have quickly become the new normal for many companies. But with a variety of new apps, new ways of working and home-life distractions to navigate, finding the best ways to balance productivity and workload can be difficult.

Finding the right know-how, identifying the right experts and sourcing the right skills is essential to remain productive and successfully manage this period of transition.

With this in mind, there are four simple steps you can take to keep connected and productive:

• Save time by centralizing information: searching for information—going through G-Drive, sifting through email threads—can take up several hours a week. That’s time that could be better spent on more important work. By centralizing the most relevant information, employees can easily access what they need, whenever and from wherever they’re working from. Starmind makes it easy to access accurate and current intel across the company, know-how that can’t be found as part of company collaboration tools.
• Reduce digital distractions by setting boundaries: whatever way you communicate with co-workers, be it on email or through a collaboration app, it will take up more time while working entirely from home. But don’t let a boost in pings disrupt deep thinking or essential tasks. Use your calendar to block out time for key work. Feel empowered to snooze notifications to minimize distractions.
• Embrace the fact that remote working is going to be different: this is an unprecedented time and most teams and businesses need to refine processes to adapt to this new working environment. Give yourself and colleagues time to adjust to this new world. Remind yourself to take regular breaks, manage your screen time and encourage your team to do the same. This is also an opportunity to assess where else you can add value to your team. Starmind can help bridge skill gaps across your company by identifying hidden expertise and experts.
• Share your knowledge, don’t duplicate work: millions of messages are being sent daily, and often, the same questions are asked. This duplication of work can feel repetitive and demoralizing. Be mindful of how you can reduce back and forth with colleagues and fast track responses. Technology can help too—Starmind’s solution, for example, identifies and connects experts within an organization so that you can access accurate intel, rapidly.

Asking a co-worker for assistance is second nature in the office, and it should be just as seamless at home. Starmind can unlock intelligence across your company and make it accessible to you. This knowledge can be used to answer questions remotely, in real-time and help you find experts to solve problems faster.

Through understanding who knows what, Starmind helps employees find the best experts on any given subject, and provides every worker a voice: a chance to share their skills, their talent and help others grow.

In these uncertain times, we all must efficiently share our intelligence and expertise to be productive. Everyone has a role to play and skills that can help others. But this doesn’t need to be extra work for you—Starmind’s human-inspired AI can help you navigate this new world by enabling expert identification, access to know-how beyond documented work flows and procedures and skill mapping to address skill gaps.

To schedule a conversation with one of our experts and learn how Starmind can help supercharge productivity and collaboration within your company, while empowering you to find critical skills required to overcome current challenges, please fill in the contact form. A Starmind expert will be in touch with you shortly after.