A year in retrospection
Working remotely
Since March 2020 we all had to adapt to work online, instead of face-to-face, alone and meetings/calls soon became our pet peeve. In the last year, we all had to master the upsides & downsides of working from home, on massive transformational projects across time zones around the world. We ‘had to learn how to navigate culture building and understanding through the screen, which at times had some casualties along the way, while some can say they sailed smoothly. But I am sure each of us has learnt a ton about how best we must work to succeed as a team and keep our productivity high individually as we work remotely.
We’re people who spend a lot of our awake time in the office in the pre covid times, and suddenly shifting our office to the home could have been terrifying and apocalyptic. Isn’t this what you dreamt about every morning & evening when you were stuck in traffic or jammed onto a crowded subway/train?
While the pandemic struck us all hard, we all put aside the cultural gaps, our origin or who we are — clients, suppliers, employees and set aside the cultural implications and differences. A few weeks into the pandemic the regular connect where the touchpoints to check in with our colleagues globally how each of us was doing and how they are coping with the change.
While staying at home, we found ourselves overworking blurring lines of work & life. I couldn’t be proud enough to belong to a company & team that encouraged me to set boundaries so that we are all not working around the clock. We brought in no meetings hour during our lunchtime, we were encouraged flexible login and logout time based on our work schedule and also we were encouraged to take leaves during the course of work from home in the last one year even if it meant, staying at home and taking time off from work because we understood that time works differently at home.
Another aspect I reckon many of us can relate to and be grateful for is time to be with family. Studies, jobs and aspirations often take us to different cities and countries even. A lot of them reunited with families and shifted with them for a couple of months because we no longer had to rush back to the office or schools/colleges. We could all work remotely.
As I wrap up I would end by saying cut yourself some slack, mental and physical health is crucial as we continue to work from home & even after we are back in the office– get yourself at least 30min of exercise and downtime to reboot your mind and body!
©Shweta, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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