Taking the lead in empowering the private sector during COVID-19, the Chamber Academy of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with FITIS and LK Domain Registry, hosted a webinar for over a hundred participants, on how to successfully work from home (WFH).

The webinar covered an introduction to working from home, and the communication aspects of it by Professor Gihan Dias, CEO of LK Domain Registry; Collaboration and Workflow Aspects by Mr. Wellignton Perera, Director/ CEO of Enhanzer (Pvt) Ltd; and Security aspects by Mr. Sujit Christy, a Governance, Risk, Compliance, and Cybersecurity Professional. The event was moderated by Mr. Aruna Alwis, CEO of FITIS.

The importance of making an investment for home-offices was stressed by Professor Dias.

“If we spend about Rs. 10,000 per employee at office, we might need to spend a bit more on their home office – for network charges and everything, and creating a pleasant work environment similar to that in the office,” he said. “For Work at Home, you need to know what your employees are doing daily, and what they have completed in terms of work.”

Similarly, employees should be trained on how to use technology to WFH, and be given tech assistance, socialisation, and other forms of support that is usually given at an office.

Speaking about collaboration and workflow aspects, Mr. Perera spoke about following a structure for meetings and updates, which enables running a business smoothly.

“It’s very important to take breaks in between, because you’re glued to the computer the whole time.”

Reiterating what Professor Dias said, Mr. Perera encouraged having a regular working setup and space to work effectively. Microsoft To Do, Wunderlist, Monday.com, Trello, and Microsoft Planner were all good tools to utilise, he said. Another point of importance was that people should not feel confined when working from home.

“We were asked how employers could keep track of their employees, and there are tools for that – but I personally wouldn’t recommend this; people are already confined to their homes and should not feel more confined. Working from home is already a challenging task. I think what we should do is, assign tasks and ensure that they are delivered within a specific deadline,” he pointed out.

Speaking about safety and security, Mr. Christy told the attendees to be conscious of their passwords and not use the same one for all applications.

“Enable multifactor authentication, as this prevents account impersonation attacks and hostile takeovers,” he said.

Keeping track of bandwidth usage, having a secure WiFi connection, having headphones and microphones for privacy, and a good commercial, and updated antivirus are also important.

The webinar is the first of many that will be hosted by the Ceylon Chamber, as it continues its journey towards digital transformation. To learn more about how to effectively work remotely, check wfh.lk for guidance and home solutions, from the Federation of IT Industry Sri Lanka.