A Day of A Remote Worker

In recent times, many companies have opted to let employees work remotely from home because of the COVID 19 pandemic. Working remotely not only reduces the impact of the pandemic on enterprises but also contribute to the prevention of the virus spreading.

In Taiwan, everybody is familiar with the concept of remote working but there are very few companies actually involved in working remotely. Slasify focuses on providing a convenient and efficient remote platform for talents who wish to work remotely. Other than that, Slasify has been working remotely for more than 4 years and with this, we would like to share with everybody the experience of working remotely.

In the morning, while many people are crowding the public transport system or driving in circles while trying to find parking on their way to work, we start our day with a cup of coffee while checking on our favorite social networking and email apps with our favorite Spotify playlist playing in the background because my team/customers who are based in North America and Europe may leave us a message in the middle of the night. After replying to all the messages, we schedule our today’s to-do list and prepare to leave a message to my Taiwanese colleagues in Teams. Oh, and did I mention that some of them wake up at 11am?

At 10 am, most of the ASEAN customers have started work. There will be a lot flood of messages but there are some cases that are more serious that we need to deal with immediately. While we communicate by phone or video software such as Zoom and Teams, we also use electronic whiteboard software to communicate more complicated issues (Frankly speaking, it is difficult to draw with a mouse, but the communication effect can basically be achieved. If it still does not work, you can also consider using Nulab products).

Our famous tradition is our morning meeting at 11 am because some people like to work at night. In addition, we do this to let our employees to sleep more. The morning meeting usually takes about 15 minutes and we call it as morning update meeting in which we update each other about are progresses.

The hardest time for remote workers is right after lunch when the food coma hits after eating a large meal. During this time, it is good choice to chit chat with our colleague about their day. At the very least, we take this time to keep each other motivated and awake.

Our company has an appointed a time period for everyone to work together which is from 1 pm to 6 pm. During this time, if there is a need to have a meeting or visit customers it will be placed in the company wide calendar so our colleagues know that you are busy at the moment.

In the evening, while others brave rush hour on the road, trains or buses, my colleagues and I are not troubled by this. Due to us working remotely, we can always have a meal with the family at the end of our tiring day. For some of our colleagues who like to work at night, they may use this time to work together with our other colleagues in another time-zone. A remote worker doesn’t need to work at home. They can choose to work where ever they feel comfortable working at be it at a café, library or even at the beach.

While some people may say that this type of work arrangement may cause inefficiency, poor management, lack of discipline, etc. It is proven in many companies across Europe, the United States of America and even mainland China as they have implemented such remote work arrangement for many years. These problems can be solved and the key is whether there is a corresponding change in the management method.

Of course, we are not saying that every job can be operated like this. But if your team/work can be performed remotely, you can try by experimenting letting them work remotely maybe once a week and then slowly expanding it to be a completely flexible office and once the COVID 19 pandemic ends, you may continue to let team members to work remotely in order to have a work life balance.

Slasify is a platform for remote workers, providing one-stop services from job recruitment, remote cross-border team deployment to cross-border payroll settlement, etc., creating a team without borders for enterprises and increasing the flexibility of employment.