How to work from home effectively

How’s working from home going for those of you who are fortunate enough to remain employed during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you settling into a routine, or still trying to figure out a structure that works for you, your loved ones and your employer?

Today in The Conversation Canada, Jean-Nicolas Reyt of McGill University outlines three challenges and solutions regarding remote work. One that may resonate for all of us right now is his recommendation that supervisors and managers not monitor employees’ working hours. They may be struggling to juggle work and unique family obligations during the pandemic, and are having to put in hours on the weekends or nights to get their work done. Now’s the time for understanding, he writes.

One of my favourite stories today is from Paul Yachnin, also of McGill, who has a hopeful piece on William Shakespeare. He notes that the iconic playwright lived in the era of the Black Death, and created plays that often grew from an awareness about how precarious, and precious, life can be in the face of contagion – and imagined a better world.

Also today:

As always, stay safe this week and practise social distancing whenever you have to venture into public!

Lee-Anne Goodman

Politics, Business + Economics Editor

Today's Featured Articles

Remote work can be a difficult adjustment for teams accustomed to working in an office setting. Here are some tips. (Charles Deluvio/Unsplash)

Remote work amid the coronavirus pandemic: 3 solutions

Jean-Nicolas Reyt, McGill University

Working from home presents challenges that will take time to resolve, and misunderstandings are to be expected. So let's be forgiving of one another and focus on establishing effective new work norms.

Engraving from ‘The Fearefull Summer,’ a treatise published after the plague of 1625 and reprinted again in 1636, by John Taylor. (McGill Library/Paul Yachnin)

After the plague, Shakespeare imagined a world saved from poison, slander and the evil eye

Paul Yachnin, McGill University

Plague ravished England repeatedly during Shakespeare's lifetime. The playwright translated the experience of sickness and restoration in many ways on the stage.

Social distancing required to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has led to a sharp increase in the use of telemedicine. (Pixabay Unsplash)

Coronavirus has sped up Canada’s adoption of telemedicine. Let’s make that change permanent.

Inderveer Mahal, University of Toronto

Telemedicine has grown sluggishly in Canada, but COVID-19 has sped up the pace of adoption of online technology to deliver health care.

A sign in Texas in 1939, at the end of the Great Depression. (The New York Public Library/Unsplash)

Put your trust in taxes during the coronavirus pandemic recovery

Andrew Bauer, University of Waterloo

The Canadian federal government’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan includes tax-related measures. It's helpful to examine tax supports for individuals by considering the past, present and future.

Two health-care workers arrive at a walk-in COVID-19 test clinic in Montréal on March 23, 2020. Unionized nurses are among those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Coronavirus crisis poses risks and opportunities for unions

Larry Savage, Brock University; Simon Black, Brock University

Nurses, cleaners, grocery store clerks and other unionized workers have been on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. They should emerge from it with a greater level of respect.

La Conversation Canada

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