Working from home, an insider perspective
It’s been a few months since our mailbox has been flooded by numerous articles about remote working. We’ve been covered with tips and tools about how to stay focused, how to have a perfect office set-up or how to stay in touch with our colleagues. Besides, experts have detailed its perks and disadvantages.
This article is not about all the above, it’s about unveiling how working from home has been lived by our data teams at Leroy Merlin France. I hope our experience will inspire you, and maybe you’ll read useful insights through those lines.
How do we stay in touch?
I joined Leroy Merlin France as a data scientist in 2019 and our team’s life has always been paced with recurring meetings. Some of them are quite ordinary in our jobs as our Monday’s and Friday’s weekly team meetings. But what I truly appreciated during this extended remote working period are the unexpected ones from afar. We had a “Meet Christmas lunch” during which we’ve been able to share a slice of life and not a few emails and short messages for a day. We’ve also had in the middle of January a full day dedicated to a 2020 retrospective and to 2021’s proper launch. I can say that the challenge to host a meeting gathering 90 colleagues and offering various content such as demos, games, rex, workshops was fulfilled.
We’ve been trying to keep growing as a strong collective. Hear me out, it’s not rocket science! One can feel an intense desire for social interactions “in real life” despite collective coffee breaks, midday activities as Geoguessr (which I’m the founder of), or Among us. Moreover, any of those previous informal gatherings are asking for a specific set-up and duration which leave spontaneity aside.
What about team spirit?
The necessity to answer our inhabitant's latest needs and to deliver our projects is a great motivation source. Nowadays, we are basically spending most of our time at home because of COVID-19’s restrictions. That means an increasing search for comfort as products and services to make the home a cozy and practical place to live for inhabitants. Our data team at Leroy Merlin France is committed to meet our customers’ growing needs. We have to be up to their expectations both in their online and in-shop’s journeys. I’ve worked on some new features for our website and our marketplace, and it’s definitely been an interesting challenge.
I’ll cover this subject and go into more detail about the work we have realized on search engine features in an article later on.
5 questions to 3 of our colleagues
When I started this article I wanted to address these questions: What helped our data team to go through this extended remote working period of time? And how do we keep a high productivity pace? Finally, it is all about understanding what motivates us on a daily basis and our team’s values. This is why I’ve asked three of my colleagues a few questions to help you get closer to our team and our spirit.
So let me introduce them to you,
Killian is our MLOps Leader, and he’s been working with the team for four years. He’s working with Sarah, a data engineer. She started as a trainee in the team before carrying on with her study on block release.
Pascal became our digital data coach leader in October 2019 in order to accompany Leroy Merlin in its digital transformation. He’s driven by challenges and loves to see the “digital twin” of an object appear (as numeric pictures for photography, as streaming for music, or 3D Printing for manufacture). One can say that his leitmotiv is the following questions: How do I digitize a process? How can I modernize things with Data?
- What motivates you everyday while working from home?
Killian: While working at home it can be a struggle to find the motivation to achieve everyday work. For me, the cornerstone to keep my work productive and enjoyable is to set up boundaries between working hours and personal time. I never mix the two and keep a standard 9–18 with a break for lunch (mandatory for French people).
Sarah: My remote working motivation booster relies on the workspace I created for myself. First, I’ve managed to create a comfortable desk with two screens. Second, I organize my day in order to optimize it and I challenge myself with short-term objectives. Besides, when I feel that I’m not at the top of my productivity I choose another spot from where I will work for the day.
Pascal: I would tend to say that what motivates me doesn’t change. It is how I’m working that varies at the end and how I’m interacting with my colleagues. This strength lies in my desire to inspire, orchestrate and keep projects moving on at a steady pace (such as developing the digital platform, the marketplace, or ongoing recruitments). We have clear deadlines for those stakes which are the key steps to the digitalization of Leroy Merlin.
2. What is your favorite playlist to code/work on?
Killian: I listen to music when I develop as it does not require that much attention (as meetings) and helps to create a nice work atmosphere and to block the feeling of being isolated. For example, I can listen to Telegraph Road by Dire Straits while working.
Sarah: I rarely listen to music while I’m working. I like to have a quiet environment, it helps me to concentrate. It sometimes happens that I listen to dynamic music because it heightens my state of awakening.
Pascal: It’s changing every day! Today I’ve been listening to The Last Dance Netflix series soundtrack’s playlist between meetings.
3. Which teams’ moments helped you to stay grounded?
Killian: To keep a sane daily routine while remote working, I am looking forward to socializing moments with my colleagues. Coffee through the screen may not be as good as a beer, but it is a must-have during this troubled time. I don’t hesitate to keep a meeting going on a bit longer to ask about small things of life to keep in touch with others.
Sarah: The daily, every morning with my team, they allow us to break our work routine, to meet up with the team, and also to welcome new colleagues.
Pascal: I make a clear distinction between managerial rituals linked with current projects (demos, collective and structured meetings …) and informal ones (one to chat, video conference…) with team members and colleagues. It’s the mix between collective formal rituals and informal one-to-one. We need both.
4. Do you feel the need to come back to the headquarters? Does remote working have an impact on your productivity?
Killian: My job can be separated into two parts, the development and the meeting one. I manage to have tricks for each of them to keep focused. For the dev part, listening to music fill that purpose. For the meetings, I have a block of 100 magnets to play with… If I don’t do something with my hand I tend to lose focus on what is said and to start doing something else.
Sarah: Yes, I feel the need to come back to our headquarters because I’ve lived both remote working and the on-site period of time between lockdowns. As a trainee, being surrounded by experienced colleagues on-site eases the learning process. I also have to recognize that teleworking is helping me to gain greater independence. So, I think it doesn’t impact my productivity.
Pascal: Yes, coming to the headquarters is a good way to keep the “emotional connection’’ with the company, to see people, discuss and take a coffee (in respect of sanitary measures of course). Nothing can replace eye-to-eye contact. Remote working does impact our productivity in a good way. For example, the fact that we’re physically separated and numerous back-to-back meetings are demanding more formality from us and a better ability to listen. Timing is more essential for an efficient follow-up. On the other hand, one cannot yet design a new collaborative initiative on a whiteboard and debate on it at the same time as easily as if we were in the same room.
5. What is your vital item while you’re remote working?
Killian: Well… My block of 100 magnets, definitely!
Sarah: I would say: my computer, of course, my second screen and my notebook.
Pascal: I have several devices for different use, and it helps me a lot. For my emails, and online meetings I use my tablet. My computer is what I use for drawing schemas or navigating through dashboards. But like everybody I guess, my phone is needed for Work chat and WhatsApp. I also make use of my paperboard to keep in mind important events/ to-dos of the week forthcoming!
Those interviews taught me that one can find its motivation unchanged by the Covid-19 crisis while for others it demands various adjustments. In general, I wasn’t really surprised by their answers. Indeed, those last months proved to me that social interactions and a comfortable environment are vital to remote working. I will just add for myself a cup of coffee to the items quoted by my colleagues. In the end, I really enjoyed getting closer to the three of them and discovering how they cracked remote working.
What did I learn from this period of time and remote working?
To close this short view on our remote business life, I would say it was a roller coaster ride so far. First, I was pretty excited about new remote possibilities and challenges, with some success and at the same time with room to improve a lot.
Technical tools were ready for most of the headquarters collaborators to work remotely, I was, and I am still impressed how smoothly the infrastructure handled the transition. On the other hand, even with every member of the team putting effort into keeping our team spirit with multiple and great rituals, I couldn’t feel the same. I miss my coffees (Running Digital Data Factory Coffee King Here 😋) with the team, I miss the jokes my colleagues and I make, even the worst ones!
Moreover, I had few issues to separate my family life and work life, but with clear and challenging objectives on both sides, it helped me to finally make these two worlds fit a day. There is no point doing the best in our job without room to spend precious time with my wife and kids.
Out of the health crisis, I think I would like remote working to be part of my future “usual” life but definitely not a 0 or 100 percent. At the time of writing these lines, next week’s look pretty remote. I feel now confident to handle these weeks, being productive, close to the team, and with a life as balanced as possible.
If I have to sum this article up with only one idea, it would be that we’re all living remote working in our way. It’s challenging us differently, and each of us finds a solution to the difficulties we’re facing.
What about you? Can you see yourselves in some words from the above? Do you have a completely different perspective of working from home and tricks? Don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments!
