Kalyan: I would like to share my experience working from home to be effective during the Coronavirus infection

I am a member of Open Development Cambodia who working as a Data research and GIS coordinator. Generally, you all can see the maps and plenty of data via opendevcam.net. Right now, in the world we are in a fight of our lives against the Coronavirus (COVID-19). It has affected many people including myself and my organization. I’m now at home every day and it really is affecting me socially. Not being able to speak to friends and see people I see on a regular basis is hard for me. I am not used to being at home all the time and working on the computer but from now on I need to adapt to the new environment of working from home. This will be a new experience for me that I want to share it as some people may have known and met this experience as well.

In order to working from home in proper way. I need a laptop, a good internet connection, a regular schedule and a dedicated work space. Firstly, I want to share my experience how I setting up my home office. It is not really different from others who used to work remotely but this time it is called home office. All I need is a proper space and quiet place to avoid any disturbance but make sure it is best suit for me to focus on my tasks. I have chosen my own bed room as my home office. Do you know why I choose this place? I will tell you my answer shortly because I have no choice. Correctly, it is located at my backyard and I just lock my door I will not hear any voice or noisy from other people on the street since my house is nearby Phsar Deurm Kor market where is strongly congests of selling the vegetable. Every day, I setup my time to get up a bit early in the morning to clean up myself, having a breakfast and be ready for the working on my daily task to update the dataset of COVID-19 case in Cambodia where everyone can see its tracking in ODC’s website from the notification of the Ministry of Health and check other data if have any update available in the morning. In the afternoon after lunch, I continue to working on my ongoing tasks and set the schedule to discuss with my team on the priority tasks. By the way, we always have a weekly meeting on Tuesday and reporting every Thursday via Skype call and email…etc. Being working from home, I start by looking at the advantages that I don’t face with traffic congestion and I don’t spend all day in the office and that is why I can’t spend time with my family. When I working from home, I can manage time. As an example, I can keep work-life balance and therefore spend time with the family or take time to work. Working remotely allows me to be at work or at home at any time. In addition, working from home is safer than working at the office since the COVID-19 can spreading to local community that we cannot see so it’s good to be at home and prevent it as much we can regard to the advises from the Ministry of Health and WHO.  On the other hand, working at home separates me from my office environment where I used to see my colleagues and gathering to together both hard time and happy time. Moreover, In the office I can have time to speak with my team directly and have more chances of getting up in career comparatively with working from home. During this pandemic situation, I feel thankful to my organization that always support and thoughtful leadership to allow and encourage all employees to work from home, now more than ever as all of us will need to be back home and some need to take care of children and/or elderly loved ones during this pandemic time. In addition, the organization has plan and follow up what is the priority tasks for the team to adapt the new world of working from home.

To sum up, working from home have its pros and cons. In facts remotely working avoids me from the spreading of Coronavirus (COVID-19). To keep remind, even though the number of infected of COVID-19 in Cambodia is still low compare to other countries in the globe. Yet, we all still in dangerous situation while other countries around the world are still facing this pandemic situation. It’s a better way to work from home if we can, be protect yourself and others around you by knowing the facts and taking appropriate precautions by follow the advises provided by our local public health agency. Thank for reading my blog.

Blog written by: Mr. LOCH Kalyan, ODC Data Research and GIS Coordinator.