Due to the prevailing coronavirus pandemic, work from home has become the new norm now. With schools across the globe opting for online classes, work from home parents find it hard to juggle workload and parenting. Working from home and taking care of kids at the same time is never an easy task. However, most parent employees have to face this unavoidable demanding situation due to the prolonged pandemic crisis.
Shift in Dynamics
As daycares and schools remain closed, parents who work from home have to take on the extra duty of being a caretaker and teacher to their kids. In most houses, parents tend to split their childcare responsibilities with their partners who are also working remotely. But when it comes to single parents, they may find it hard to watch over their school-going toddlers and handle workload effectively.
Under such circumstances, the support systems that enable a person to be a loving parent and productive employee in a single day have slowly disappeared. The parenting and workload demands have completely intermingled, requiring the attention of the working parents around the clock. To tackle this tidal wave that’s sweeping the country, you will come across numerous resources, and automation tools that help work from home employees adjust their time with their kids.
Keep scrolling to find out the challenges parents working remotely face and what automation tools and methods can make their life easier and enhance productivity.
Common Challenges Work From Home Parents Face And Deal With Effectively
With the second wave of COVID-19 hitting the countries, most companies opted to have their employees to work from home to curb the pandemic. Parents who work remotely find it challenging to manage their infants and children who have started remote learnings programs.
The pandemic has severely affected the woman employees. Many left their jobs to take care of their kids or reduced the working hours altogether. Some have opted for extended layoffs to avoid burnouts. These changes in situations have resulted in added stress for working families. The sudden shift causes many challenges for parent employees, which includes:
Juggling kid’s online learning schedules and work
When both parents are working remotely, there won’t be anyone to supervise – if your child is paying attention to the teacher during the online class sessions. Similarly, single parents may find it hard to monitor their children throughout the day while getting occupied with work-related issues.
The best way to handle this is by taking turns to monitor your kid’s learning process. Each parent must dedicate a few hours while the other is busy to attend to your little one’s needs. Single parents need to fix a time schedule and allocate a specific time to assist in the child’s schooling program.
Your child falls sick
When your child falls ill or wakes up under the weather, you may find it hard to take care of your child and work remotely at the same time. Especially when it comes to infants and toddlers who require more attention and care, you may have to take a day off to take care of them.
During such times, parents have to divide and take leaves to avoid facing issues with leaves and replacements at work. Decide who will step in and be available for childcare without causing any imbalance at the workplace.
Worried about distractions and background noise during work meetings
Even though working remotely offers a great deal of flexibility, it comes with a lot of distractions. Putting up with the noise of children screaming in the background or sneaking up while you do an online presence can affect your work productivity.
To tackle this, you need to place your workstation in a distraction-free or lesser noise environment if possible. If your kids happen to be of understandable age, instruct them on the necessity to remain silent while you do video conferencing or presentations.
However, these challenges can be tackled to a certain extent with the help of automated tools and methods to make workloads easier and productive.
Automation Tools For Digital Nomad Parents
With the rapid increase of Internet usage, parents working remotely will come across a wide variety of automation tools that will help maximize productivity. Some of these incredible automation tools are:
Google Calendar:
Using Google calendar not only improves your professional schedule but also helps you to keep up with your personal life requirements. It enables you to keep up with the meetings at your workplace, and at the same time reminds you of your kid’s appointments with the doctor.
It helps you to integrate everything into your schedule and work consistently. It’s an all-around automation tool that helps you to maintain your sanity, as you struggle to cope with the added pressure of working remotely and taking care of kids.
Zoom:
Zoom allows remote workers to do audio and video conference calls and connect with their remote team. It has numerous features such as Conference call recording, screen sharing, enabling training sessions from any device, and uses a virtual whiteboard for sharing ideas. It allows you to enjoy a smooth calling experience and can host up to a thousand participants.
All you need to do is to schedule and join the meeting by simply clicking on the invitation link. You can also share all the necessary documents with your team in advance using Zoom for better engagements.
WiFi Map:
Any remote worker will understand the need for a reliable Internet connection to remain productive during working hours. Using a Wi-Fi map, you can save data roaming charges and use the access free Wi-Fi it indicates, wherever you are. Use the crowdsourcing tools that show millions of free hotspots across the globe along with the downloading speed and passwords.
In this manner, irrespective of wherever you are working from, you need not worry about losing your Internet connectivity in between your presentations. The other features include a VPN secure connection, interactive maps, and Wi-Fi speed test.
MURAL:
MURAL offers a visual workspace that enables remote workers to collaborate on a project in real-time without sharing any physical space. Considered an online whiteboard, it’s a secure way of sharing designs, ideas, team collaboration, and project management details. With a strong Wi-Fi connection, you will be able to brainstorm with your team irrespective of where your HRC logged in.
The incredible features of this tool are: Slack integration, Dropbox integration, deleted content recovery, and built-in timer got syncing team members.
SignRequest:
Irrespective of where you are located, SignRequest allows employees working remotely to sign confidential documents securely. Using this tool, you can sign job offers, tax forms, contracts, and much more.
The best part of using sign request is it’s available in 13 languages, and you can store and manage these documents safely. It also allows you to customize your documents using your company name and logo, making it beneficial for businesses working remotely.
Final Thoughts
Working dads and moms are aware that balancing professional responsibilities with parenting duties is not easy. With few complications and emergencies along the way, the balancing act becomes even trickier. The best way to handle these delicate circumstances is to be proactive and realize that things won’t remain the same forever.
Using the best automation tools and methods available, you will be able to juggle work and parenting with ease over time. This will not only release stress and make life easier but also enable you to give your best at your workplace as well.
Do you have any tips or tools that proved effective while working remotely with kids at home? Feel free to share your valuable insight with us in the common section below
About the Author
Jane is a web blogger with over 7 years of experience in the content management field. She loves to write about relevant topics that make life easier for her readers.
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