Have you ever:
- isolated yourself in the office in order to achieve better concentration and focus to finish a task?
- been earlier, or stayed late, in the office looking for quietness?
- used “office time” to watch a YouTube video not work-related, search a trip, or talk to friends on WhatsApp?
- thought about the ridiculous time you waste on the way to work and around?
If, as for me at some point in life, you said yes to most of these questions this article may save your job.
I’ve been working for two and a half years with comOn, one of the largest independent full-service marketing agencies in Portugal, and for the first 2 years I was part of an Account team with a dedicated set of brands working in a dynamic ecosystem of almost 100 people of different skills. At the beginning of 2019, already as the agency Business Developer, everything changed. The present house renting situation in Portugal made renting in Lisbon very expensive, forcing me to look for a home outside of Lisbon, adding me a 2h30 round trip every day by train.
The enthusiasm I was feeling at the beginning of the project suddenly gave way to a strange feeling of frustration and tiredness. There were even times when I wondered: Is this what I want to do with my life? What if I quit my job?
Trying not to get carried away by the initial emotion, after much thought and introspection, I came to the conclusion that I had not been successful in adapting my professional life to my personal one, and that the ability to change my current situation was 100% in my hands. Having this said I decided to dedicate myself to finding the answer to my greater challenge:
How can I adapt my routines so that I not only continue do to a good job, but enjoying my life as well?
Did I find a solution? Yes, Remote Work.
Before you raise eyebrows (employers), or enthusiastically jump out of your seats hoping for a dream life (employees), let us all assume that while the “Pros” arguments should be seen as capital gains if well implemented, given the distrust of later-adapters, the “Cons” arguments have to be seen as opportunities for validation of this work methodology, to break through the paradigm and establish a win-win relationship between the company and the employee.
The definition of Remote work is a situation where an employee works primarily at home and communicates with the company via email and phone and other digital platforms.
An employee can work at home, in a cafe, or anywhere other than an ordinary office. By the way, it can be a mix-remote interspersed with office days, so they can come to the office from time to time. Personally, mix-remote allows me to complete more analytical tasks at home while joining with my colleagues in productive office meetings on ongoing projects at the office.
There are multiple arguments against implementing remote work, and they all go around these 3 key factors: the person, the position, and the companRegarding the first two, I’ll admit that not all people are mentally prepared to start remote work, or that It isn’t an advantage for all professions (e.g. creative work in group), but if you believe that remote work is incompatible with your company reality, this article and the following answers to the above arguments, is for you:
“Innovation and problem solving only happens face to face”
No one questions the importance of a classic face-to-face conversation, or that “two heads think better than one,” but doing so all the time can be counterproductive and have contrary consequences. There has been a lack of methodology and organization in these meetings that are often an efficiency killer, plus the fact that there are people being constantly placed in meetings for which are not strictly necessary, not allowing them to perform the tasks for which they were hired — and sometimes their cost/hour can reach between 50–100 €/h.
Sometimes people go to the office and end up acting as if they were working remotely: email, messaging, meeting scheduling and tasks. At the end of the day, the question arises: Was it really worth going to the office?
For those who are used to processes of innovation, creativity, design sprints and brainstorming, you know that these are preceded by isolated reflection and research processes. Needless to say, for those who perform methodical, repetitive or strictly analytical tasks, their problems are usually not solved with a conversation, but with “leave me alone’. In short, for each job, there is a process.
“Distrust in people’s productivity working from home”
First things first: If you don’t have the ability to focus, you may not have the work remote material, but you won’t be the worker of the month either! The marketing agency where I work has not only an informal environment but also an open-space space and that is amazing, believe me. But for those who can’t easily focus, all these cool attributes can quickly become hell when it comes to time efficiency.
But even if there is productivity distrust in a new graduate who has just joined the company, I see no reason to feel the same of any other senior employee. If we struggle with trust issues, that means we made a poor hiring decision. If a team member is not producing good results, or cannot manage their schedule and workload, they should not be able to work for the company. Nobody wants to be a babysitter of anyone.
If so, we end up trying to level processes with a group of people who are more concerned with controlling what others do (or what time they got in/out), rather than delivering a good job. If you still evaluate today’s employee performance according to their arrival and departure from the office, congratulations: you’ve become one of your company’s biggest energy wastes. It’s the work — not the clock — that matters.
“Company culture fades, imbalances create”
I have to accept that some jobs simply aren’t a good fit for remote execution. Ok, but why force everyone in the organization to work the same way?
I think this is the weakest argument of all because when it comes to culture, its importance is often invoked to keep the group together and retain talent. If under this argument we force someone to see almost 100 people every day, 8h a day, 22 days a month, 11 months a year the culture does not fade, it just becomes fake and artificial. Do any of you spend so much time with friends or girlfriend? We should be able to adapt to every different human being, in order to get the very best of them.
Conclusions
If you are feeling unhappy and constantly thinking about working freelance or opening a beach bar in Bali, you should first think about working remotely for your company. Take some time to understand if that is even possible, if you can do it in a professional way, or if your position allows it. If you get all positive checks on those questions, plan it and present your proposal to the company.
Rather than forcing person acculturation by forcing them to live together, we should establish work procedures and conditions that allow each person to be efficient, unique and a positive asset to the company and its workgroup by attracting them with good onboarding activities and processes, so that genuine personal bonds are built, centered on the principles that the company upholds. Once a culture is built, people will yearn for the moment they can be together (just like friendship).
Today, instead of quitting my job, I managed to restore a balance between all the forces that shape my life, making it possible not only to enjoy working at comOn but also the life I have out of it.
Helping the company’s bottom line, adding to my pocketbook, and saving the planet: check, check, check.
Oh and I just got a new dog :)
I will continue to follow up on this topic with:
- the 3 most important things that you have to define to work remotely
- things that you have to be careful not to end your career and health while working remotely.
written by Tiago Veríssimo, Business Developer at comOn. This article was originally posted on his medium.
