Trust your employees.
Why remote working should be more than just a snap-shot.
I always had a very strong opinion about separating work from life. Even though we always had the opportunity to work remotely or from home, I never fancied the home office. My mantra was: I work in our office, I live at home - no in betweens!
Then Corona hit the world.
From one day to the other, it was not an option to work from home — but an imperative.
And to be honest, I was a little afraid. Not because we didn’t have the technical possibilities. BEJOND is built on the idea of open, location-independent collaboration. All our files are stored in the cloud, we primarily work with cloud-based tools, everyone has a laptop, being on the road is part of our job description as creative consultants.
No, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to focus at home. That I couldn’t keep up the strict separation of work and life at home. And that all my days would just become a grey goose of work-life-imbalance.
Well, I was wrong.
The worst thing about working from home for three months was missing my co-workers. But to be honest, it was actually the only real downside. Working from home cut an hour of time on the road from my daily schedule, gave me the opportunity to start work earlier and finish in the afternoon. I could do some chores or get some groceries in my lunch break and still get all my work done in time.
All of that without the slightest drop of productivity.
This meeting could have been an e-mail. Or a video call.
For many companies, Covid 19 has been a catalyst for digitalisation. It has forced them to adapt to a number of trends faster than they had initially expected or planned — remote working being one of those. Consequently, tools like Figma or Miro experience a significant increase in use because they enable real-time collaboration and simplify project communication. “This meeting could have been an e-mail!” We all know that feeling. Now we have proof. Corona has shown that almost all of those meetings could in fact have been replaced with video calls or collaborative tools on an equal footing. Did any of you guys miss the hassle of flying across the country twice for a two hour meeting at your client’s office when you could have had the same conversation wearing sweatpants from your kitchen table?
Neither did we.
So what are the points I’m trying to make?
Build a technical basis for remote working.
Start enabling all of your employees to work remotely from anywhere. Invest in reliable data storage and video conferencing tools.
Go beyond traditional workplace scenarios.
Stop ordering your employees to come into the office, even if they don’t have any reason to stay away. Working from home isn’t a day off and sitting at a desk for eight hours straight after commuting for an hour does not necessarily produce the best results. Plus: The best way to spare the environment any more damage is not to commute differently, it’s to not commute at all.
Trust your employees.
If you give them the freedom to structure their days themselves, they will repay you with a better attitude, more creativity and more loyalty.
It’s time to rethink our work-life-balance and the time is now. If I was able to change my habits, you can change your company policies, too.
