COVID-19:se Digital Tools Can Ensure Productivity During Work From HomeWork from home has always been a tricky situation for companies as well for employees. With a change in work environment, there are a lot of issues that one has to solve

Sitting at home, we all are witnessing the world coming together to fight against the deadly COVID-19 which is affecting the human race physically, mentally, and financially. The COVID-19, popularly known as "coronavirus', is a new illness that can affect our lungs and breathing mechanism. It is a new strain of the virus caused by "coronavirus SARS-CoV-2' and was not been identified to affect humans so far.

With every passing day, there is an increase in the number of positive cases and death. Obviously, this is no more an epidemic now but a pandemic; the World Health Organization (WHO) recently changed their classification of COVID-19 from a public health emergency of international concern to a pandemic.

The severe effect of this pandemic can be seen in most of the countries starting from China, the country which is believed to be the origin of the virus, to Italywhich has the second-highest cases. Other countries from around Asia, Europe and Middle East are also fighting against the deadly COVID-19 taking extreme measures right from offices and companies being shut, curfews to a complete country lockdown.

If not controlled quickly, this will have a severe effect on jobs and business which will result in a big loss to the global economy. Hence, not only the governments but also companies are taking extreme measures and precautions to curb the spread of COVID-19 simultaneously keeping people's safety as their top priority.

Even in India, COVID-19 is growing exponentially and the Indian government is forced to take some extreme measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 such as implementing section 144 and complete lockdown of cities and states. We as responsible citizens can take a few necessary steps to avoid and break the chain. Definitely, we all are aware regarding the basic precautions, i.e. to stay at home, avoid travel and crowd, wash hands thoroughly and sanitize. As mentioned earlier, companies such as us are also supporting the government in this crisis and have thereby rolled out mandatory work-from-home policies in order to protect the employees from falling sick.

Also, in the current situation, I strongly feel this will be the way forward to continue business for companies till we find a cure. But the challenge is to get back the same productivity rate. Work from home has always been a tricky situation for companies as well for employees. With a change in the work environment, there are a lot of issues that one has to solve. Not much can be done for that but by streamlining the process and using few tools, both employee and management can still keep the work productivity high.

Frequent and clear communication with team members is very important during work from home. An internal team video communication is a good practice to kickstart the day. Such calls definitely help employees and management to brainstorm and discuss daily tasks in regards to the company's workflow. Additionally, this helps keep everyone on the same page in regards to daily tasks hence lowering any chance of miscommunication. Till date, Web-based video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Skype, Google Hangout and many more have proved to be an extremely tool for team and business calls. Recently due to COVID-19 outbreak and increase demand Zoom, Microsoft and Google have also offered their software for free.

Internal communication tools are other ones that help to increase productivity by maintaining a continuous flow of communication. Popular tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams are just like our daily chat apps but helps to keep the team together. Not only does it ensure that workers can stay up to date with all of the business that they need to take care of, but it's vital for the kind of social conversations for the workplace.

For creative and design teams, one can host drawing sessions on own computer and invite other users using free drawing programme software tools for news ideas, creative thoughts, post designs, etc. These tools such as Drawpile are easy to explain things, track ideas with the team just like on an office whiteboard.

Time management tools such as Time Doctor helps individuals and organizations be more productive by managing and running project effectively with regular breaks. This cloud-based tool also provides you a report on the daily work so that you can divide time accordingly for the next day.

During this tough time, all these tools will help in increasing your work productivity but you cannot lose hope and have to stay motivated as working in crisis period can be unsettling, and especially working from home creates a stressful environment. This is a fight against COVID 19 and we all are in this together.