Doers Hired – Best practices for working at home

The Doers Hired Summer Camp hosted by Business Career Services in June was the first of its kind. This virtual event “focused on helping you thrive in the new normal” brought together students, staff, and faculty through relevant and impactful breakout sessions on conquering the virtual work environment. 

One of the breakout rooms was titled “Best Practices for Working at Home.” This is a situation most of us find ourselves in now, and we ask ourselves questions like, “How can I stay motivated and productive?” or “How do I continue to build my network in this virtual space?” Career Coaches Marcella Kirschbaum and Jacob Newman led an insightful session that tackled the ins and outs of these questions and more.

Managing emotional health

The first tip for working at home was to manage your emotional health effectively. This can be accomplished by doing things like setting clear boundaries for your work-life balance. Marcella noted that she will shut down her work notifications at the end of every day so she doesn’t stay up all night worrying and responding to work-related messages and emails. She also mentioned that creating a task list each day can be extremely valuable to individuals who love that “check off the list” feeling. 

Managing physical health

Next, Jacob walked participants through some ways to manage their physical health, doing things like creating a healthy habit of exercising throughout the day and taking a lunch break. Many physical fitness companies are offering free workout sessions through different platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. On top of this, the Student Life Center has many different complimentary physical fitness classes that are free to students. “It is important to remember that when working from home, it is OK to get up and walk around every so often,” Newman said. 

Building your personal network

Finally, Marcella and Jacob walked the participants through building a personal network in the virtual environment. While it is more challenging than the preferred face-to-face method, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool to help individuals connect and meet with professionals. The speakers shared different ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile and created message templates to help the participants easily reach out to new people. A couple of ways to do this is to add a professional profile picture and a relevant “about you” section on your profile that describes who you are and your skills and interests. 

Overall, the session was full of extremely relevant information and was well received by audience members, specifically one who commented in the chat, “Thank you so much for walking us through this today, I hadn’t been doing many of these practical tips, and am looking forward to creating healthier work from home habits!”

Summer Camp sessions are archived and available at Eccles.link/summercamp.

Your premier Eccles Experience. Business Career Services (BCS) offers comprehensive career coaching and resources to students at the David Eccles School of Business. Paired with a dedicated corporate outreach team, BCS also allows students to gain real-world experience through job and internship opportunities with top employers. For more information, visit Eccles.link/BCS.