No way back — How to survive the here-to-stay homeworking situation

No news here: even if we have reached some success in fighting the covid19 virus, the homeworking habits are here to stay. A study from the UK last year did show that many respondents (78% !) affirmed that homeworking is part of what they acquired and that they wouldn’t want to go back to the office more than two days a week.

Working from home has changed our working habits, our rhythm, and had a tremendous impact on health…both physical and mental. As a matter a fact, the same study reported that some 40% indicated that their mental health had worsened after working from home. Isolation, fatigue from the constant virtual meetings, difficulty to turn off the computer once the working day is over are the most current elements that harm homeworking. However, just like for everything else, there is some good and some bad in this situation. We just have to find the right balance. At Optimy, we found ours. What about you?

Benefiting from homeworking

We might remember the time when staying home meant taking a day off or staying in bed because you woke up so sick you couldn’t get ready for work. Now working at home is something completely normal. Words like “remote”, “working from home”, “homeworking”, “Google Meet” are part of our general vocabulary, there is nothing weird with these words. It’s part of what we do. And even if it was very unusual at the beginning, it is evident that homeworking has brought a lot of new advantages and habits (like a rise of “purpose” in CSR and social impact activities) we wouldn’t want to give up now.

• Save time

Time, oh time, this precious immaterial thing we are all eager to possess!

No need to wake up at dawn to be in the car an hour later and ready to drive for 30 to 60minutes to get to the office. No more time wasted on the road, in the traffic jam, at the never-ending redlight lane.

With home working, you can start your day when you want, as long as you’re in front of your computer screen at the usual time you start working. This also means more time for you to take care of yourself, your house, your family before starting to work and AFTER. While the computer is off, you can directly go back to your personal life. And this is so precious.

• Save money and reduce office costs

Whether it is for the employee or the employer, homeworking also implies a lot of money saved. No need to spend the same amount of budget for office costs (offices, electricity, etc.) and to spend money on gas, lunch, etc. You’re working at home so everything you need, you already have.

• Decrease commute stress

Remember when you used to wake up early so you could jump in your car and start driving for some 40 or worse 60 minutes? Remember the number of times you arrived at the office later than expected because of traffic jams, car accidents, bad weather blocking drivers, etc.? We do too. We do remember these dark times, especially in winter, when getting up to know that we were going to lose a whole hour in our car was already getting on our nerves.

Well, that’s over. Traffic jams and car accidents have decreased and your stress too! Everybody’s happy.

• Have a better environmental impact

If fewer people are taking their cars to go to work every morning and go back home every evening…then, of course, it means fewer cars on the road! So less fuel use, and fewer carbon emissions. (Be aware that it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any pollution, but at least there is some improvement…right?)

• Improve work-life balance

How cool is it to be able to go for a run in the morning without being late for work? Or to be able to prepare a nice meal at the end of the day because you were able to start right after work? This new way of working also brings with it new things that we learn to appreciate more: more time to cook, more time to take care of ourselves, more time to spend with family, or friends, or both. More time to disconnect completely from work once your computer is turned off. Your work-life balance has reached a new level.

• Increase productivity without the distraction of open-space offices

When working in open-space offices, it might be tough not to listen to the latest gossip, or the latest work developments, or to participate in a heated discussion on your favorite project. A lot of workers have noted that their productivity has increased since they started working from home. While being in their dedicated space, they could focus more on their work and projects and they suffered from fewer interruptions. And even if they got interrupted, it was mostly virtually via a message on their collaboration tool (Slack, Teams, etc.). The notifications could easily be scheduled so they can have specific slots to focus on their projects.

• Welcome new talents

The time when HR and Talent Acquisitions experts were only searching for candidates in a specific area of your country is behind us. Since most of the job functions now include the possibility to work either fully remotely or in a hybrid way, it is now possible to attract talents and candidates who are not primarily located in the office’s area. And that doesn’t stop candidates from being interested and willing to drive or commute to work, since it’s only once or twice a week. This gives a lot more opportunities to the business.

Facing the downsides of homeworking

• Tech issues

Yes, we rely on digital tools, online platforms, and collaborative software to get our work down. So it also means that we need an internet connexion. Digital is not infallible. Sometimes a tool might face a bug, a loss of connexion, a system might fall and some tech issues might happen in the middle of the day.

It’s ok, we’ve been through that. The important thing to remember is that these things happen and everyone has to stay flexible and tolerant. Also, if some specific tools are problematic or you’re facing some blocking limitations with your current software, you shouldn’t be scare to make the change and go for the one that suits you the most.

• Isolation and loss of human contacts

Working from home also means that we don’t get to spend as much time with our colleagues as before. Chit chat at the coffee machine or lunch discussions don’t happen anymore. When facing isolation, the important thing to remember is that one should be able to reach out to their colleagues, manager, HR, etc. to discuss it so that the situation doesn’t worsen. Organize weekly team meetings during which you only discuss trivial things, that might be good. Some teams even planned online games once or month (or more often!). “Far from the eyes…” but not far from the heart.

• Welcome new talents

When joining a company and working 100% from home, it might be very complex to get to know colleagues from your team AND other departments. Having a job that you like is nice but if one works by yourself 8 hours a day, one might feel a bit disconnected from the general atmosphere that colleagues do share with each others. It doesn’t have to be that way. A company can make sure to build onboarding plans so that their new talents don’t feel lost when joining the company remotely. Planning meetings to meet all the departments and colleagues, getting to know the industry by participating in workshops or exercices, being invited to informal meet ups online, etc. There are ways to fill in the gap that the wirtual is imposing, one just has to be a bit creative about it.

• Time management and danger of overworking

Ever felt it? The guilt of turning off your computer and going to sit back and relax in your sofa? We know it might be tempting to check an email while cooking dinner or to reply to a last minute request while distractedly watching Netflix but don’t. Breaks and being able to disconnect at the end of the day is important. And if you’re not working at the same time — either because your colleague is located in a different time zone or just because he started later -, and that bothers you, don’t hesitate to have the discussions with your team and to fix proper schedules for work. So they know that, at a certain hour, you won’t be reachable anymore and whatever their request is, they will have to wait tomorrow. There’s no shame in disconnecting, on the contrary: you deserve it.

• Virtual meetings fatigue

Participating in 8 meetings a day is exhausting. We are all a bit exhausted to attend a meeting that could easily be sum up in an email. Staying focus while someone (who you might no see because the camera is off) is talking about specific things and there is no interaction whatsover is indeed tiring. The screen, the noise, the fact that meetings can last longer since we all take the first 10 minutes adjusting our sound, videos, screensharing parameters, etc. are elements that we have to take into account. We should bear in mind that meetings are only relevant if they are necessary and will bring something to everyone’s job : deblocking a situation, sharing important information, asking for information and details on a project, etc. If these can be shared easily in a document, let’s choose this less tiring option first.

• Data safety breaches

Compliance with data safety is really important. Even before covid19 outbreak, the data breaches were numerous. Then in 2018, GDPR had an extra layer of security and data safety topics to discuss internally for each company in Europe. And then these past two years, we had to face the increasing numbers of data breaches. Losing precious and confidential information is every company’s nightmare so before adopting a tool or sharing information, all colleagues must know how to deal with these important information. Learning meetings, specific documents available to everyone, a team lead in charge of this topic, etc. are good ideas to set up if you don’t want to face safety issues.

• Family distraction

Your kids are done with school, your husband doesn’t work today, your partner is taking a break in the room next door, your roomate is playing the guitar or having a heated discussion with his parents… Your environment can also be very disturbing. If you don’t have a dedicated space in a closed room, you might just want to set up some clear rules about your working days, just to make sure that everybody is respectful to one another. Again, it all comes down to communication.

Our 5 tips to surviving to homeworking

1. A nice desk: whether you have a dedicated room at home or not, make sure to set up a nice desk for your working day. Get everything you need, arrange it the way you like it. It’s going to be the place where you will spend the next 8 hours, it might as well be nice to work there. Candles, water flask, tea cup, agenda, notebook, a picture of your dog, a nice view and maybe a pleasant soundtrack might do the trick.
2. A proper environment: You don’t need a complete mess, clothes everywhere, dust and a dark room. Clearly these will only demotivate you. Start your day with a clean area to work, get everything ready.
3. A set of rules: If you’re sharing a space with your partner, your family, your roomates and they’re also working from home, set up clear rules. Break times, lunch time, coordination when it comes to virtual meetings that might create some disturbing noise for each other.
4. A set of breaks: Don’t forget to stand up, go for a walk, get some fresh air (if possible !), .. to have BREAKS. It’s not because you’re at home that you can’t take a coffee break or 15 minutes to call your mum and ask her what’s up.
5. A set of habits: Procrastination can become our friend very quickly if we don’t pay attention. If you set some daily habits for yourself, it’ll become easier for you to complete your tasks and goals and be satisfied of yourself at the end of the week. Since you’re saving some time off the roads by working from home, you can add a new habit every morning before really starting to work: a 20-minutes run or yoga session? A nice breakfast with your loved ones? a half hour reading session? A moment to meditate, write, paint, … do chores? Whatever you like, your habits, your choices.

You have some time? Listen to one of our CSR Connect Podcast episodes!