Working From Home and Managing Digital Teams Webinar

WFH means Working from Home. The worker is working from home. The home is the workplace. The worker does not work out of a common work area or office. And are physically separated from other team members. They now work remotely or virtually, as part of a digital team.

Most Malaysian companies did not practise WFH much. Since the Movement Control Order (MCO) was issued, most employees have to stay at home, and thus work from home. This means workers have to use the telephone and internet connections to do work. Workers have to use digital devices like laptops and smartphones to get work done. Fax machines, although obsolete in most workplaces, may still be needed to enable digitally unsavvy workers to sign off documents and get work done.

The Malaysian broadband services is provided to the public by fixed line and cellular telcos. It is best to use fixed line broadband as it is the most reliable form of connectivity. There will be minimal interference from wireless signals. Cellular broadband is erratic, depending on location and time of day. This is because of the internet traffic load management policies set by telcos for the telco towers in the vicinity of the location. Those residents who complained a lot about telco towers and forced those towers to be taken down, will face the worst mobile internet connection, due to lack of towers to share the load.

The best internet connection at home will be a LAN connection. LAN is a internal fixed line connection within the home that has minimal interference and has the most consistent connection. WIFI is prone to interference as its an open spectrum, used by almost every device in the vicinity. Even the usage of the microwave oven will interfere with the WIFI signals. WIFI also has blank spots due to structures in the environment. Wireless connections usually give rise to inconsistent performance.

You can easily setup a LAN network at home by powerline networking. This means you use the electric wiring in the house to carry your internet traffic. This is done by using powerline routers.

Microsoft Teams is becoming the most popular application for working from home with digital teams. It has video, screen sharing, collaboration interactivity and task tracking features. Plus the security and assurance of Microsoft. The other app would be Google Meet, another powerful collaboration tool from Google.

While the Malaysian government is giving financial support to help in working from home, some telcos have yet to drop prices. They provide additional free internet instead. Tenaga has dropped prices to support the WFH activities. It will be upto businesses how they will support the WFH workplace in the worker’s home. As the massive office air-conditioning electricity bills have dropped during this MCO period.