You Need to Know About Working from Home

Everything you need to know about working from home

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 1 Table of contents

What is remote work and why most people choose to 01 work from home? 4

Benefits of working from home for 02 employees 6

Benefits of working from home for 03 employers 12

Remote work is here to stay, it’s not 04 a temporary trend 16

Debugging work from 05 home 18

Designing your home 06 work space 22

Art of Staying 07 Productive 26

Motivate 08 yourself! 36

Everything you need to know 2 about working from home - Ebook. How to make yourself known 09 and seen 42

Creating “virtual water cooler” in 10 your work space 48

Switching 11 off 52

Addressing loneliness while 12 working remotely 54

Meditation & 13 mindfulness 58

Global Work From 14 Home Day 62

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 3 What is remote work and why most people choose 01 to work from home?

With continuously improving tech- Coworking spaces, social activities, nology and an ever changing work- and regular outdoor trips for example ing culture, remote work is becoming may not be relevant or recommended increasingly common in companies depending on your location and local around the globe. But now a lot of us are government guidelines. Please take finding ourselves in a situation where what you feel makes sense to you and we have to work from home due to the apply it in the safest way possible. We recent COVID-19 outbreak. It’s not ideal want everyone to be healthy, produc- that a large proportion of the workforce tive, and happy, so please keep this in are having to face home office without mind before you follow on any advice. proper training or support. Neverthe- We wish you all the best and good luck less, we’re here to help give you all the with starting or continuing on your essential tips and strategies that you will remote work journey! need to make sure that you are at the top of your game no matter where you are working from. We originally created this guide to tie in with our Global Work From Home Day that we ran last year. Now it’s become more useful than ever as companies and teams are searching for the best ways to work from home and minimise the impact to their busi- nesses during this extraordinary time.

We’ve revisited some topics to provide you all with new, updated, and essential information to help everyone who now is having to work from home, all for free. It’s just our way of helping us all get through the situation we’re in, and to help people feel more confident in developing their remote work skills. Just a quick word of warning: not all the advice and articles will be directly applicable due to the global lockdown that has already begun to take place.

Everything you need to know 4 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 5 Benefits of working from home 02 for employees

A lot of employees value flexibility Flexible working arrangements also in their working arrangements for a help employees better manage their number of reasons, often depend- work-life balance. It’s been shown to ent upon their own personal circum- be conducive to a better standard of stances and priorities. With COVID-19 mental and physical health, reducing now changing the current working stress and burnout. FlexJobs reports landscape hugely to one where remote that 97% of over 3000 respondents in work dominates, many workers are their 2018 annual survey said that a flex- now perceiving the benefits a bit more ible job would have a “huge improve- differently than usual. We can see that ment or positive impact on their overall working from home is a crucial part of quality of life2”. maintaining a global pandemic, and can help in keeping us and our loved ones “This is my first experience of working more safe. How we perceive working from home full time. I wondered if it was from home, and the benefits that we too good to be true, because in previous get from it, has all of a sudden seen a companies they subscribed to the idea massive change. Now that a lot of us that dedication meant being in the office are forced to work from home regard- all hours. Now I feel valued and trusted. less of our choice, people can perceive We’re all free to build a work environ- their own personal benefits differently. ment that encourages our productivity. We still have constant communication When given the choice to work from and “office” jokes; you don’t miss out home under normal circumstances, on that just because you’re remote. And one common group to really benefit you don’t have to do big tea rounds!” - are parents. This group perhaps need Maygen Jacques, Marketing Manager to work from home to look after chil- from Code Enigma. dren or simply to make their day more manageable when organising their Not needing to commute and signifi- family routine. FlexJobs, also cited in the cantly reducing your travel costs can HBR article, found that parents ranked lead to an increase in real income. You work flexibility and work-life balance also save precious time spent commut- as the most important work benefits.1 ing, and the stress associated with trav- This beats even salary and health insur- elling to work. 55% of people reported ance in the list of priorities. increases levels of stress due to their

2 https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/flexjobs-2018-an- 1 https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/survey-par- nual-survey-workers-believe-flexible-remote-job-can-help- ents-rank-work-flexibility-ahead-salary/ save-money-reduce-stress-more/

Everything you need to know 6 about working from home - Ebook. Career or family, why should i choose? • You do not use your own car or public transport for moving to and from work, - by Nancy Aharpour from DonnaJobs so you are reducing the use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions, thus improving air All over the world, there are millions of talented quality; women who find it difficult to enter, emerge in • Less commuting, less traffic. This also or simply re-enter the workforce after mater- leads to a smaller number of accidents; nity leave. These barriers could be due to family • #WorkFromHome saves considerable time commitments or other reasons related to their that can be used with children, with family, status as women. for yourself; • If you have more time for yourself then For both private and public companies, these you are more satisfied and happier; women are a considerable resource of relia- • The energy consumption of office equip- bility, competence and talent but for them it is ment is greater than domestic ones, once often difficult, if not impossible, to find ajob again #WorkFromHome gives a global We all know that the family comes first! advantage. One great solution to this problem is Donna- Jobs and the possibility that the platform gives My name is Nancy Aharpour and I am a #Work- to all women to #WorkFromHome with flexible FromHome Mother, the CEO & Founder of the jobs. DonnaJobs’ Project. I created this project with the aim of support- If I am the master of my work, if I am the master ing and promoting #WorkFromHome not only of my time, then I am no longer obliged to pick for women who want to reconcile the joys of family over a career, I can have both of them. motherhood with love for their career but for Why should I choose? all of us.

Deciding to work from home is a fantastic In conclusion we can say that #WorkFrom- answer that helps everybody, not only the Home is the way of working of the future and women but even the environment too. it acts in favour of the family and to the safe- guard of our Planet. So DonnaJobs also supports our Planet by encouraging and promoting #WorkFromHome, So, let’s #WorkFromHome. which in turn has a series of benefits in addition to those already mentioned:

daily commute, according to a report amount spent on food can be found by the UK Royal Society for Public when working at home, along with Health as cited in Forbes.3 Saving both improvements in the overall health- time and money will of course lead to iness and nutrition of what you eat. an improvement in your overall work- These costs can significantly add up life balance. over time, meaning that working from home can have a big financial benefit Many people also get tempted at work for you over working in the office. to splash out on expensive meals or takeaway food when taking their lunch “I live about 45 minutes from our break. Significant reductions in the local office so the time saved from my commute, getting “office” ready, and 3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrealoubi- er/2017/07/20/benefits-of-telecommuting-for-the-fu- socializing throughout the day really ture-of-work/#1d1e0ec316c6

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 7 adds up. I have found that working from 5 Remote Work Benefits and How home several days a week frees up an You Can Make the Best of Them average of 3-4 hours per day, which is time I can use to be more productive - by Alexandra Cote, Digital Marketing at Paymo with my work, accomplish other tasks around my home, or take care of admin- I’ve been working remotely for well over a year now and had the chance to talk to other fellow istrative tasks for a non-profit that I remote workers and see their own take on this support. This balance has allowed me experience. Working from the comfort of your to enjoy my days in the office and seek home is not always sweetness and light, but out more opportunities to engage with I soon got to realize that while we all had the co-workers face-to-face without feel- same problems, we also enjoyed similar bene- ing a major loss in productivity. Like all fits. Here are the most common remote work things in life, it’s about finding a balance benefits I and other people working remotely have experienced: that works for you.” - Ashley Dodge, Director Go-To-Market at Appirio 1. More energy left for the things you love after work “We are located in India’s highest traffic city Mumbai. Hence travelling from one Compared to the typical office job where end to the other end of the city takes way you leave at 6 and spend another hour stuck in traffic, plus more time wasted shopping too much time. Having remote work is for your lunch ingredients, when you’re relaxing for our associates. They do not working remotely you can just end your need to get in to jam-pack trains, buses. work day at 6 and focus on your hobbies. No need to spend 2-3 hours in one way No more aimlessly walking around the park- of travel. Rather, all get the opportunity ing lot trying to find your car or that dreaded to spend time with their families. We feeling when you get home after a long day have semi remote policy at the moment and it’s already time to sleep. which allows our associates to meet Remote work leaves you with an extra 4 each other in-person. That way they can hours feeling more energized, so you can plan with teams face to face collabora- focus on the things that truly matter to you. tion. Also by this strategy they do not Whether that’s spending time with your kids, experience loneliness. I would say they walking your dog or just lounging around get the best of both worlds. Some of watching your favourite TV show. our associates have moved to Mumbai 2. Organize your time your own way from other cities. So remote work policy allows them to work from their native Wake up whenever you want to. I for instance place and get to spend time with family.” don’t need too much time to wake up and - Shivani Thakur from Kiprosh get straight to work. This literally saves me at least two hours I would spend on preparing for work, packing lunch, and commuting each day. Or maybe you want to start work in the evening so you can run your errands before. One way of doing this if by organizing your work day into two distinct 4-hour schedule chunks.

Just remember to have a set schedule for each day. A predefined plan with a set start and end hour for your work is the key to maintaining your work-life balance. Other- wise you’ll just be relying on the same old “I’m definitely going to finish work in the evening.” excuse. Everything you need to know 8 about working from home - Ebook. 3. No need to buy so much stuff No compromise Fast forward to today and even if you offered Frankly, you won’t need a car, fuel, a park- me a lot more money, I would not change ing permit, car insurance, not even Uber to the location of my work – my home. Initially take you to work and back home. You’ll also going remote was not actually my choice as be saving a lot, and I mean A LOT of money unfortunately I was ill and so was unable to on lunch you’d get from pricey food chains commute for months, let alone do a full day in around your office. Just be careful not to the office. However, I quickly realised that my order take out food too often. I’m guilty for role could actually be done, with a little crea- that. tivity, remotely and that I was absolutely not an isolated case. The more I looked, the more 4. Change your workspace according to your I realised there were many talented, creative own requirements and brilliant people who craved and needed a similar solution. When you’re working in an open office, it’s impossible to please everyone. There will So can an extrovert really enjoy remote always be someone who’s too cold, needing working? to open a window in the middle of winter, or There is no doubt there is a bedding in period just wanting to move their office table. for everyone the first time they go remote. There is a self discipline that you develop as to Remotely, your office is whatever you make how to structure your week, factoring in video of it. You can work from your bed, a coffee time with others and ensuring you step away. shop, your car, a beach, anywhere really. However once you find your flow you discover And set the room’s temperature as high as you can achieve a lot more both in your career you want it without fearing others won’t be and in managing your home. So in short, yes, happy with this. you can still be sociable, get fit, have more time with your loved ones and much more whilst 5. Keep yourself sane and stay happy working from your home office or any other remote location. Indeed, remote work does keep you sane. Of course, you’ll still need to interact with What I don’t miss other humans, but working remotely means Mind numbing license plate watching, listen- more downtime every day to spend time ing to radio DJ waffle, fighting for the last few with your friends and family and less money car spaces, being late, apologising for being lost on lunches or commute. late, being squeezed into a crammed train, the repetitive “how are you” with no interest in Say no more about your extra sleep time, your answer, the cost of take-away coffee and scientifically proven to boost work efficiency a wrap, the heat of sitting inside a fishbowl on and overall happiness levels. Actually, at hot days, not being at the nursery/school gates, Paymo our motto is just this: Work Happy! the panic as you can see the traffic build past 4 And that’s exactly what working remotely is p.m. outside your window, that feeling of need- like. ing to stay late to show your dedication, the lack of space in your diary for private appointments, the crash on the motorway, the queue Working From Home While Being at the petrol station at rush hour, the train An Extrovert - a Personal Story cancellations and roadworks, the washing of work clothes, the planning of the outfit for the - by Vanessa Tierney, co-founder of Abodoo next day, THE TIME and MONEY WASTED doing all of the above. “Outgoing, likes to be social, a people person” This is how I have always been described and I am grateful for all the geniuses that devel- so, ten years ago, if you had said that my choice oped the connectivity and technology to make of working would be remote working from remote working an option. So yes I am a people home I would have replied “NO WAY”. Imagine person, so I make sure to see and interact with the loneliness I would have thought, and could people each week. I love being remote and I’d I really do my job of interviewing and hiring have it no other way. remotely?

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 9 The Appeal of Remote Work Isn’t what’s called flextime, with core time being, for Only for Globetrotters instance, between 11 AM and 3 PM and employees being able to arrive at the office anywhere - by Dino Kukic from Hundred5 between 7 AM and 11 AM. While this timeblock does provide a certain window of flexibility, it’s There’s a common preconception that remote still not fully on the employee’s terms. work is all about travelling, as it has increasingly Full flexibility, is being able to decide when you become tied to leading a digital nomadic life- work, and at what pace you work at — such is style. But, the reasons people seek out remote the mantra of flexibility at Hundred5. If some- working are much more diverse than picturing one is a night-owl, and performs best during themselves ‘crushing it’ whilst sunbathing on the graveyard shift, then the early birds have a Balinese beach. As we’ve seen in the recent no place to complain. Although, we do have research by Buffer, even if there’s a possibility weekly meetings which all members attend. for remote workers to be at any place in the Albeit, it’s always good for the team hours to world, they tend to choose to stay at home. In overlap, so they can talk F2F over a video call. fact, 84% of the respondents said they work primarily from home and when asked about Remote work reduces commute time and traveling, the majority travels rather infre- makes people focus on what matters - In quently. busy cities, reducing the commute time is one of the most important reasons for companies At first, this might sound surprising, but the to allow at least some amount of time being underlying reason is that people do not neces- spent working from home. In the USA alone, sarily choose remote work in order to be able the average commute time to work is 25.4 to travel more. minutes, which can stack up when you look at longer periods of time. Additionally, working People try remote work in-between the from an office is often far less productive than jobs - Often people find themselves working what it seems like. I’ve personally experienced remotely without realizing that they have been lunch breaks that drag on to two or even more shifting towards it. My first remote job was after hours with general chit chat. And, no, that I finished university and was looking for an doesn’t shift to people staying longer hours to internship in my field of study. It took months make up for that. to find a suitable place and in the meantime, I landed my first clients and experienced what it It works well for parents / carers - In most was like working for someone who’s sitting in countries of the developed world, new parents an office 8000km away. This, of course, eventu- can claim time off to focus on nurturing their ally helped when deciding to go with a full-time children in their first year (the most impor- remote job, as I realized that afternoon hours, tant time for bonding). Granted, this crucial during which I spent time in the office, were not time off may have a negative overhead when the most productive for me. parents have to play catch-up upon returning to their location-dependent job. On the flip- Higher income for people in developing side, parents that work remotely can strike a countries - The possibility to work remotely is healthier balance between time spent on their open to anyone with a steady internet connec- career goals, while still juggling the needs of tion, regardless of their location. This also their children, even if the former is purely on a opens up the opportunity for remote workers part-time basis. to earn a higher salary than they would be offered in their home country. For example, at Travelling isn’t a big life goal for all people - Hundred5, even though we’re based in Esto- Probably the biggest point I am trying to make nia, we have people located in Serbia, Hungary, will be the fact that not everyone wants to travel Poland and Scotland. the world full-time. For some people, choosing remote work means that they can stay in the Work hour flexibility at its finest - More and place they actually want to be, without having more companies are offering ‘flexible working to compromise by taking the job that’s avail- hours’ as a part of their benefits package— able to them locally, but rather one that they ‘flexible’ being open to the interpretation of the actually want - not bounded by location. company’s offer. In practice, it usually means

Everything you need to know 10 about working from home - Ebook. Also, traveling while working remotely comes with challenges of its own. Unless we’re talking about residing in a certain country for 1-3 months, it requires a tremendous amount of discipline and organization to make it right. Some of the responsibilities include finding proper accommodation, taking care of visas and finding locations with a steady WI-FI— which is not all that common in many countries, even in the developed world.. At Hundred5, we consider a steady internet connection as the most important part of working remotely. Without it, communication would be broken, and work progress would hit a roadblock. To address this risk, we cover the costs for employees to work from a co-working space, and/or their monthly internet bill. Bottom line, it’s always up to a remote employee to make sure they are online.

With the continued growth of the remote workforce globally, a corresponding segment that doesn’t fit into the atypical digital nomad mould (nor wants to), also continues to grow. And, with the further expansion of remote- based jobs, the distinct segments of workers therein are only set to become even more diverse, as will their unique needs too. In addition, this idea of how the connection between traveling and working remotely actually looks like has been gradually shifting towards demonstrating its challenges and being rather transparent about its challenges.

To sum it up, remote work isn’t always about enabling a digital nomadic lifestyle. It can solve more fundamentally important needs, such as work-life balance. Remote work can help your employees discover how they can be their best, and most productive selves.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 11 Benefits of working from home 03 for employers

One of the biggest benefits for employers when allowing their employees to work remotely is the increase in productivity shown by workers. Global Workplace Analytics Costs & Benefits survey shows that teleworkers in a number of large companies are actually between 35-40% more productive than their office counterparts.4 They also found that “two-thirds of [all surveyed] employers report increased productivity among their telecommuters”.

4 https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/resources/ costs-benefits

Everything you need to know 12 about working from home - Ebook. XWikiers to offer as much transparency as A flexibly-remote company - possible, to announce when they are not avail- how does it work? able for a certain period during the day, to be reactive, to be responsible for the whole infra- - by Diana Veron from XWiki structure at their home/external venue etc. At XWiki, we have more than 10 years that we When working for XWiki, you can choose offer this flexibility and the possibility to work between working at one of the offices, with from home and we have noticed that it is a the benefit of partial remote working (all our win-win situation that brings a lot of advan- colleagues can take up to 2 days of remote tages both on the employee and the employer working, every week), or working fully remote. side, a couple of them are listed below. Remote working is a benefit offered by XWiki to its employees in order to improve their produc- In terms of working from home, XWiki is flexi- tivity and their well-being in their every-day-life ble and likes to find the solution that best suits at work. In order for remote collaborations its employees while not impacting team effi- to work well we have set up procedures, but ciency. We are proud and happy to have this mostly, we’ve given our trust to our team. We process implemented within the company and are using means of communication at distance we support the idea “Remote work is here to to keep the teams united. We encourage the stay, it’s not a temporary trend”.

For employees For employers

• Better life-work balance • More satisfied, motivated and happy • Higher satisfaction and motivation, higher employees commitment • Reinforcement of the company’s culture • Less time spent with transportation and positive image of the company • Fewer distractions • Differentiation from other companies • Higher productivity • Builds trust among the team members • Money Saving • Fewer costs with transportation • Healthier routines • Fewer costs with certain benefits • The flexibility of the schedule • Reduced risks of medical leaves • A better relationship with colleagues • Reduced turnover • Can bring in within the team talented people from different locations

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 13 The talent pool offer also increases, as still resilient to letting their employees hirers are no longer limited to those work remotely and even cutting down that can make it to the office and live on home office allowances. At Biotron in the surrounding geographical area. Labs we found that remote work has The whole country is now open for some major benefits. Attracting talent those that allow for flexible working on developed markets is a nightmare. arrangements, along with the whole If you were recently hiring engineers world if the company allow for fully or data scientists, you know it’s close remote workers who are allowed to to impossible to find senior employ- create their own schedule. ees without overpaying. Millennials also want their flexibility and—if possi- “At Talent Place most employees work ble—work on more projects in parallel. remotely from all across Europe. Owing Commuting is getting worse all over to that we are enabled to work with the world, with people spending hours the most talented people without being in traffic jams. And in Slovakia, where constrained by physical location of the Biotron is based, the situation is ever specialists what gives us an edge over more difficult. Being part of the EU has our competitors, and broadens our its advantages, such as free movement know-how. This form of work saves us of the workforce. However, attracting costs threefold as compared to an ordi- talent from Western Europe is close nary office based model. This structure to impossible and hiring from outside based on a distributed model require the EU is complicated because of the us to measure our efficiency much more immigration laws. It can take months precisely and also give more responsi- to get work visa e.g. for somebody from bilities to our employees, which in turn Ukraine, which is just across the border. strengthens their dedication and yields Solution? Remote work! We have all the them better results.” - Angelika Blicharz, technology to make it work – Skype, HR Manager at Talent Place Hangouts, Slack, or any other communication tool that suits your needs. We As previously mentioned, we also see even have processes that can help, like a tangible reduction in costs associ- Agile, Kanban, and Scrum. ated with running a fully equipped and staffed office for all workers. IBM for Collaboration and project management example managed to save $50 million tools? No problem – Jira, Airtable, Trello, in real estate costs. 60% of employers Google Docs, Outlook 365, Github, or questioned in the costs and benefits Bitbucket to name a few. Of course, you survey reported cost savings overall as need to be wary and put clear and concise a significant benefit of allowing people rules in place. Our team has daily sync to work from home. calls to keep everybody involved, share knowledge and discuss problems as they “The modern workplace has changed happen. Weekly planning and reviews a lot. We are slowly but surely switch- keep everybody aligned and working ing from agriculture and manufactur- towards the same goals. Monthly retro- ing to services and intellectual work. spectives provide a platform to give So why are we still sticking to processes feedback on anything. And quarterly invented in the 20th century that were and yearly OKRs planning helps us stick specifically designed for the “old” to our long-term goals. Obviously, we’re economic sectors? Most employers are trying to spend as much time with the

Everything you need to know 14 about working from home - Ebook. team as possible. But forcing everybody to be at one place from 9 to 5 is simply not necessary anymore. I would even argue that it’s counter-productive, as everyone has their own patterns and different productivity peaks. In return it’s much easier for us to hire top talent and even lower our costs. But the most important benefit is engaged and motivated team that’s less likely to burn out or suffer cabin fever.” - Pavol Magic, CEO, Biotron Labs

“Without a doubt, remote work is becoming an increasingly hot trend in HR. It is expected by more and more employees, and on the employee market we are dealing with in many industries, employers have no choice but to adapt to this trend. A kind of thaw in the field of remote work (even in industries where it would have been unthinkable until recently) should not be treated solely as an answer to another “whim” of spoiled employees. Of course, from the perspective of many organizations, it is still difficult to accept that a potential employee chooses a different job only because it offers a more flexible form of employ- ment, and the current employee wants to work from home at least once in a while. Making the working environment more flexible, however, is a trend that seems unstoppable. Therefore, what the employers have to deal with in the first place is not only to create formal conditions for remote work but also educate the managerial staff and gradually instill remote work in the company’s DNA. Only this approach will give organizations the chance to respond to the need for remote work, as well as derive tangible benefits from it, both in the area of employee engagement and business results.” - Adrian Juchimiuk, Employer Branding Director & Partner, MJCC

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 15 Remote work is here to stay, it’s not a 04 temporary trend

According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report for 2019, 72% of talent professionals agree that work flexibility will be very important for the future of HR and recruiting. In the past two years alone, there’s also been a 78% increase in LinkedIn job posts advertising flexible work arrangements. It seems than that remote work is here to stay, and won’t just be a temporary trend in the job market.

Everything you need to know 16 about working from home - Ebook. Remote Work is Here to Stay economic development job creation strategy by the economic development community. See - by Mark Lautman, CEcD, and Shelly Fauset International Economic Development Council from SoloWorks Spring 2018 Journal article on Solowork. The Community Economics Lab, a non-profit, 501(c) The best evidence that remote work is here to (3) think tank developed and tested the first stay is the steady evolution of the four stake- viable program model designed to systemati- holder groups in the remote work market: 1.) cally recruit, train, place and advance local resi- remote workers, 2.) employers, 3.) product and dents interested in working remotely. service providers, and 4.) the economic development community. Remote work has some important advantages over traditional economic development The number of people working remotely contin- efforts. The number and types of jobs available ues to grow rapidly according to GlobalWork- are unlimited, they can be created quickly at a PlaceAnalytics’ Remote Work Statistics, fraction of the cost of traditional job creation programs and have limited impact on the envi- • “Regular work-at-home, among the ronment. Remote work is one of the few job non-self-employed population, has grown creation strategies with the potential to work in by 140% since 2005, nearly 10x faster than remote rural communities. the rest of the workforce or the self-employed” In response the state of New Mexico estab- • “4.3 million employees (3.2% of the work- lished a post performance incentive program force) now work from home at least half to fund local remote work job creation efforts. the time.” In the last two years the CELab has been trave- • From 2015-2016: “The telecommuter led to China, Singapore, Austria, Mexico, Puerto population grew by 11.7%, the largest year Rico, and multiple cities in the US and Canada. over year growth since 2008.” As remote work becomes a mainstream The ranks of employers adopting remote work economic development strategy we should staffing strategies is also expanding rapidly as expect the rate of growth of the industry to more work becomes remote friendly. Accord- accelerate - more remote jobs available, more ing to Upwork’s 2018 Future Workforce Report, qualified and productive candidates, ever expanding markets for product and services • “53 percent of companies are utilizing providers and strong growing local economies. more flexible workers (freelancers, temp Remote work is not only in the future – it is the or agency workers when compared with future. three years ago.” • “38 percent of hiring managers predict that their employees will work predomi- nantly remotely in the next 10 years” • “55 percent of hiring managers agree that remote work has become more common- place compared with 3 years ago”

The number and the range of product and service providers focused on helping remote workers become more productive and comfortable with the lifestyle is also expanding rapidly. This includes everybody from software developers who create tools for better remote collaboration to internet service providers meeting increasing demands to people who develop and run coworking spaces and create communities.

Another sign that remote work is here to stay is the recent adoption of remote work as a formal

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 17 Debugging work from 05 home

We’ve gone through the benefits that to switch off when you need to. working from home can bring, but there You can also find yourself getting are also a number of possible disad- distracted with home comforts like vantages (or as we like to call them - your TV, games-console or bed! challenges). These can be avoided with You may also find it difficult to stop proper practice and by following our working as you no longer have any tips and hints! Throughout the rest of physical boundaries between your this e-book, we’ll lay out different strat- work and living spaces. Having to egies to make sure you don’t fall into set aside space for a working area the usual pitfalls. You’ll want to make will also take up living area. sure that you’re making the most out of 4. Whilst it’s been shown that there are working from home, so avoiding these actual productivity gains to be had common problems will help you enjoy from remote work, people do strug- the benefits of working remotely. gle with motivation and productivity. Not having a manager to check on Possible disadvantages from flexible your work and being totally depend- working arrangements ent upon yourself takes willpower!

1. It’s possible to feel less relevant to “Two key things of working remotely are your workplace when not physically tools and culture. To be able to have in the office. A lot of collaboration, employees work remotely successfully, ideas and socialising is done spon- there needs to be a culture of trust taneously, so to make this happen and mutual understanding. At Work- from home a different approach is space 365, we use our own digital work- needed. space to easily work anywhere, from 2. Some people can struggle with lone- any device, and to be able to reach all liness when working from home or our documents, information, apps and remotely. If you happen to be trav- news. This also simplifies working with elling, not having friends and family our remote employees, combined with around may take its toll. Not being many semi-personal contact moments, able to take a break to socialise with such as video chatting. We also make other coworkers can also be diffi- sure to have actual personal contact cult. Communicating just with tech- with our remote employees by having nology isn’t quite the same. them visit the office regularly and by 3. The lines between work and home organizing team activities, to strengthen will be blended, making it difficult the culture in the team.” - Workspace 365 Team

Everything you need to know 18 about working from home - Ebook. 11 Good Practices to get the most itory anyway, when you’re done working for the day. Just add an appropriate out of a Remote Software Team comment to the commit message and/or - by Maks Majer, ITCraftShip your issue tracking software.

Having been a remote engineer for the past 8+ 3. Organize your workspace years I have developed some good practices, that are helping the teams, I have worked with, Be conscious about where and how you become more productive. This guide is a part like to work and prepare your workspace of the onboarding package, that I now give to accordingly. Make sure you have the right all our new hires and it’s constantly updated as hardware and tools, that will help you be we gain experience. the most productive. Ask your employer to provide them for you. 1. Embrace Equality 4. Create habits Treat other remote team members on the same level as on-site people. Include People are creatures of habit, so having them on important meetings and discus- routines in place will help you keep the sions — even if it’s harder to schedule a balance between your work and your life. Set time with them immediately. Use tools to some regular work hours, no matter what help you do that: shared Google Calendars, time of day you prefer to work. Communi- Calendly, etc. You can also wait to your regu- cate those habits to the rest of the team, so lar standup — it’s unlikely that this can’t wait. they know what to expect.

Example: People working on-site at my 5. Communicate current team used to connect to our daily standup from a conference room and from a Don’t hesitate to engage in communication single computer. Recently we’ve tried having with other team members on a frequent everyone to connect from their desks as if basis, but also don’t expect them to respond they worked remotely. This has made the immediately. Use the channels like: remote team members feel more as part of the whole. It was also nice to see all the • Instant messaging (ex. Slack, faces instead of just the agile board through HipChat) — when you’re looking for a screen share ;) quick support hit Slack. Especially useful, when anyone on the team can be of 2. Visualize your progress help. Use open channels instead of direct messages. If you’re not getting the One of the Kanban rules works very well in a immediate response propose to set a remote team setup. If people don’t see you meeting. working they need to see the results, you’re • Issue Tracking tool (JIRA, YouTrack, producing. Make sure you: Trello) — tag people in your comments when you need support and explain • Commit & push your code often to your what is blocking your progress. If neces- remote code repository. sary create separate tasks to unlock • Report status in your issue tracking soft- the one you currently can’t complete. ware — make notes on your progress, Increase the awareness of roadblocks, to add comments and store history of your get them removed faster. approach (links, motivations for deci- • Online Meetings (Skype, Hangouts, sions, etc.) appear.in) — use them for scheduled • Record everything either in your issue meetings (daily standup, planning tracking tool or code: your doubts, ques- meetings, etc.) and discussions (archi- tions and findings should not be stored tectural, design, etc.) about issues, that just in your head — it will be easier are harder to handle through other to bring it into the discussion during channels. Be mindful about people’s standups and scheduled calls with other time — only include the people that team members if it’s down in writing. are required and only for as long as it’s • Push broken code to the remote repos- needed to resolve the issue.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 19 • Collaborative Programming (ex. you can schedule meetings to get and Slack screen sharing with remote give support. control) — useful for scheduled pair programming sessions and ad-hoc 10. Learn to live with blockers support, when onboarding new developer or helping team members grasp ASAP is Poison. Get used to being blocked some new concepts your team is accus- by the work of others. Be prepared to take tomed to. on another task and wait until the blocker gets resolved. If there really is no task you 6. Ask questions can work on, ask if someone needs your help progressing on their task. Don’t just sit If you have trouble solving a problem, go with your hands tied. ask the team. Someone may already have a solution for it. Don’t keep hitting the wall 11. Record time when you work with your head just to solve it yourself. It’s counterproductive and a big waste of your It’s hard to look back and remember what time. Learn to use the power of collabora- you have been doing yesterday and going tion. back as far as few days is almost impossible unless you have been doing your bookkeep- 7. Estimate ing. Be consistent about recording your time in a time tracking tools — it will help you When being assigned a task you should keep track of your productivity and improve estimate how much time it will take, so that the accuracy of your estimates. Look back we can compare that to the actual time at the time you spent on given tasks and it took. Use your issue tracking or project reflect if there’s anything you could to in the management tool to record the estimate. future to be more productive. After completing the time compare it to how much time you spent to help you become This is by no means a complete list, but it makes more aware of the accuracy of your esti- the base you can use to work your way into the mates. standards and practices that best fit your team and culture. 8. Timebox your work If you’re thinking of tasting the remote model After having made assumptions about the I suggest you make sure your team is mature estimate of your task try to break it into enough to jump on this bandwagon. A good trial fixes time intervals (2–4h) and evaluate if is to let a couple of team members work from you’re making enough progress after each home and see if that increases the productivity interval. If not, you should consider chang- of the whole team or business. ing the approach or reach out to the team for some perspective. Before you do it, please take the time to prepare: read through some materials on 9. Prepare for status meetings (ex. daily remote work, take my guide, adjust it to your standups) needs, go through each point after your daily standups and get conscious commitment/ To make the most of your scheduled status affirmation of each team member that they meeting, make sure to follow these steps: understand it, that they will try to follow it and improve it as you go along. • Do a check of your in-progress and completed items. If you already measure the velocity and produc- • Pan your work ahead of time to know tivity of your team, try evaluating it after a set what you’ll be working on. period of time (say 1 month). For most teams I • List the blockers and who can potentially have worked with this has become clear: saving help you move things forward. on the commute, introducing more transpar- • Review what you recorded in your issue ency into your work and being flexible when tracking software and bring it up if rele- and where they worked helped their busi- vant. ness generates more value and deliver better • Prepare to provide your availability so results, faster.

Everything you need to know 20 about working from home - Ebook. How to Establish a Flow of envision receiving constant phone calls about Communication While Working minor updates? While it may seem common- sensical, too many employees waste time From Home communicating over the wrong channels. The fear of interrupting other’s work can see - by Polyglot Group employees steer away from picking up the phone. Likewise, the value of face-to-face One of the key methods to encourage effec- communication via video chat is oven dismissed tive communication is helping your team to when it comes to remote meetings. understand its importance. After all, you may implement first-rate communication systems, but their effectiveness will always be Overall, communicating is a multifaceted in the hands of the user. As such, it is vital that concept, so the channels must cater for employees always take the time to communi- diversity. cate with remote workers and never assume Don’t Go AWOL that something is known. A great rule of thumb is, if in doubt, over-communicate! It’s When working in the office, employees consist- better to inform an employee of something ently encounter interruptions to their regular they were aware of than have them miss some workday. This is absolutely the same when important information altogether. working at home, The problem is, the rest of

the team may have no way of knowing what Choose the Right Channels for the Right is going on and ultimately leads to misunder- Conversations standing and disillusionment.

Can you imagine trying to explain a long and The remote worker simply needs an easy and complicated problem over email? Or, can you quick way of notifying others when they’ll be unreachable or tied up with some other engagements. Having knowledge of other’s movements promotes transparency and understanding.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 21 Designing your home 06 work space

Selecting a place to work from home you may need more space for certain jobs and tasks. When working with When choosing to work from home, just a laptop, it can be easy to work it’s recommended that you make a in smaller areas. However, things can clear distinction between your work- easily become cluttered when working ing space and other areas for winding with physical documents or materials. down or relaxing. You may also need Also make sure that you feel physically to think about the possibility of clients comfortable in your home office, aren’t visiting home, family interruptions or too cramped and have enough room to noise levels. Although it may seem fairly breath and stretch. simple to pick an area to work from, there can actually be a lot of different Desirability is another aspect to factors that play into making a great consider when choosing your space. decision on your home working space. You may have a certain room that gets better sunlight, or has a nicer view. Home Office Choosing somewhere desirable is likely to have a positive impact on your We recommend that you find the opti- productivity and also mental wellbeing. mum spot by utilising the Ds: demands, distractions, dimensions, and desirabil- You’ll probably struggle to try and fulfill ity. Demands include having a suitable every requirement and want when area for visiting clients if that’s part of setting up your home office space. your job, access to a physical connec- Try to strike a balance between the tion with your router, an appropriate demands that have to be met and the place for making video or conference other factors that will make your desk a calls. pleasant place to work at!

Distractions should also be thought Equipment about. If you share your home during the working day with family members Once you’ve chosen your space, it’s or flatmates distractions can occur. time to get it kitted out with all the Think about where you are least likely equipment you’ll need to successfully to be interrupted, but also fulfills any work from home. The most important demands that are required for your piece of furniture is the one you’ll prob- working space. ably using most: your desk chair.

Dimensions are also important, as The benefits of choosing an ergonomic

Everything you need to know 22 about working from home - Ebook. and comfortable chair are well known. source of lighting will help with concen- You can reduce back pain, improve tration. We recommend using them in posture and prevent long term work contrast, so when working with a task related injuries. You can improve your light try to keep other lighting in the productivity by being less distracted room at a lower level. This will reduce from uncomfortable seating positions. overall glare and help improve concen- Also take into consideration the height tration. of your desk, which should be at a suitable position in comparison to your Last of all is ambient lighting, which chair. Your arms should rest on the provides a whole room with a more desk at a comfortable height without gentle glow rather than directed at any causing any change in your back posi- source. It can either help create a more tion. relaxed environment within the room, enhance the natural light already Other pieces of equipment to think coming in or be used as a base to build about include video conferencing on with task lighting. technology such as a microphone or webcam, correct lighting and other With tall these kinds of lighting, it’s office basics you may need like pens, important to think about what exactly paper and filing systems. A decent your requirements are: router and ethernet cable for a direct connection is also recommended • The lighting should help keep you to ensure that all video conferences alert and also awake happen seamlessly. • Help improve your productivity • Reduce eye strain Lighting • Create an inspiring environment There are three types of light to Setting up your workstation consider when setting up your home office: natural, ambient, and task. Natural light is of course one particularly good way of lighting your home Top of monitor office, but cannot be used all the at eye level Monitor at an time. At certain points of the day, arm’s length away you may experience glare or just not Back slightly reclined Document holder enough have natural light to complete Minimise bend at wrists a particular task easily. Maybe think 90º-120º about the particular times that you are Back rest supporting lower back able to utilise sunlight to it’s best ability 90º-120º Front of seat not pressing on by either installing blinds to avoid glare back of knees and other lighting methods for early Adjust chair levers for morning or late at night. height, seat & back tilt

Feet resting on Task lighting is smaller, more concen- footrest trated sources of light such as desk or floor lamps. Another term for this is office lighting. For tasks where concen- 7RÀQGRXWPRUHFRQWDFW tration is needed, such as computer 02 9351 5555 [email protected] work or a focused tasks, a targeted sydney.edu.au/whs

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 23 xg Create your own co-working space Environment tips In case you have friends who also work from home you can create a co-working space in your - by Zlatina Pachedzhieva from Xogito own homes. Inviting a friend over your place or xg Consider the coffee shop dropping a visit at a friend’s house from time We’ve all faced the mid-afternoon lull. When to time will make sure you have someone to complete isolation makes it harder, rather than chat to or have a coffee with during your break. easier to concentrate, it’s time to relocate to You can share some valuable experience or somewhere with some friendly white noise. contacts as well. That might mean the neighborhood coffee shop, a local park, or a co-working space. xg Separate your digital devices One thing that makes switching between work xg Make place for video calls and play particularly difficult is having all your You may not have them often but the anxiety emails, phone calls, and other communica- that the washing machine behind you can be tions mashed together. Use one set of devices seen by a client or a colleague is pretty unpleas- for professional matters and the other set for ant. Make sure you have that place in the room personal. you are working in where you can take a video call and look OK. xg Ensure you have your working space at home xg Switch rooms if possible All you need is a stable internet connection, a Staying in one and the same atmosphere all door that shuts, roommates, family members day may make you feel bored and unproduc- and kids that respect the fact you are at work. tive. If possible change rooms at least once per week, just for the sake of it. xg Skype This is good for ad hoc conference calls, instant xg Dress up for work messaging with clients, or even creating low Do not make the mistake to skip the shower ceremony chat rooms. Consider Skype Out, before work or stay all day in your paja- which lets you take and make calls from your mas. Take the time to make yourself tidy and phone to Skype contacts. This is awesome, good-looking before work. Ladies, you can still especially for times when you’re away from save some mascara but everyone knows look- your computer and (you’ve miscalculated a ing good makes you feel good. Not only will you time, client has an emergency, etc.). xg Always feel better but you will save time as well in case have a backup plan ... In case you encounter you need to go out during your workday. a problem with your Internet connection, elec- tricity or heating while working, you should xg Minimize interruptions always have in mind that coffee nearby or If you live with other people, ask them to friend’s house you can rely on. respect your working time. Parents mumbling to put something warmer on, children scream- xg Make your work as transparent as ing or neighbors dropping by uninvited are not possible the best idea for your concentration. Set up a file sharing service with your teammates so you can keep on top of document xg Create a cozy work desk changes while you’re working. Dropbox and Keeping your work desk clean and tidy is really Box.net are both great services for sharing important but you can create some lovely mess documents and files between groups. as well in order to make yourself feel more comfortable. Keeping a bunch of pictures, xg Be present favorite items, a flower or anything you love If instant message is your preferred form of around your desk will make your home office communication, be sure you’re available during beautiful and personalized. Why not consider your working hours, and remember to set the a pet as well (one that does not create lots of “away” notification when you’ve stepped out. noise). This will be a big help for your co-workers who may be looking for you.

Everything you need to know 24 about working from home - Ebook. boundaries between your private and work Bits, Bricks and Behaviours lives. Wirecutter has shared a few great tips on how to work from home with children. - by Philipp Bohn, VP Circuit and CEO of blueKiwi Software at Atos Behavior While you work alone from home, you are Productive and enjoyable work environments obviously part of a larger organization or are always a combination of bits, bricks and community.Besides the actual work results, behavior. This is also true for the home office. I it‘s important to maintain a high level of trust want to share a few tips based on my own expe- and personal visibility. There‘s a few things rience as a home and co-worker, and building you can do: First of all, use video conferenc- tools that enable these new work styles. ing particularly for important meetings with new colleagues, customers or partners where Bits it‘s important to see physical reactions. Once Starting off with the obvious, you need fast DSL you‘ve built a good level of trust and connec- as 100% of your communication and collabo- tion, you can go back to voice-only. Some teams ration happens online. To ensure good quality found it efficient to make video mandatory to for your voice, video and screenshare sessions, keep distractions during virtual meetings at a make sure you have sufficient download and minimum. upload speeds over home WIFI. My recommen- dation is 1 Mbit/s or higher. In case of doubt, overshare. With the right Another important element is the collaboration collaboration tools, it‘s easy to leave a quick platform you and your virtual team choose. message with your team about your priorities, Here are a few key points to consider: blocking points or to celebrate accomplish- ments. It‘s in fact the only way to keep track of • All collaboration and communication what‘s going on outside your home office, and channels should be in one, easy-to-use to ensure your work is visible for others. For and scalable platform to facilitate orches- virtual teams, it makes sense to have regular, tration of work. Considering your work even daily standups, to provide an agile but is completely virtual, you and your team structured framework to keep each other in have many calls and share a lot of content the loop and ask for help where needed. throughout the day and week, and having to switch between different apps for With these tips in mind, you will benefit from a messaging, VoIP, screensharing, etc. is healthier work-life balance and greater flexibil- inefficient and exhausting, ity, while controlling risks and downsides these • To make sure customers and partners environments inevitable bring. can reach you in the home office, your collaboration platform should integrate with telephony services in the cloud or on premise, • If there‘s a risk of unplanned or uncontrol- lable background noise, noise-cancelling headsets with an easily accessible mute button make a lot of sense.

Bricks There are many useful tips online about how to set up your home office and they essentially come down to two key aspects. First, the home office is office space and should be equipped accordingly: Work close to windows and natural light, get ergonomic chairs and tables, set up your monitors on eye level. Second, define a separate space for work. It can be a separate room, or a clearly demarcated space within a bigger room. It‘s important to maintain clear

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 25 amount of hours worked. Think also about what you would do with any Art of spare time you end up with. Whilst it may be tempting to relax in a home Staying environment after all your work is Productive completed, it almost always pays off 07 to dedicate those spare hours to other work related tasks that you might need to do tomorrow or in the near future. When you’re working from home, it’s important to make sure that you It’s good then to begin your remote manage your time well. For many new work career with some clear defini- remote workers, it can be daunting to tions and goals as to what you should think that you have full responsibility do each day, and what else can be for how you plan your day. However, achieved if you finish early. working from home can actually remove many of the distractions that Figure out what times are best for you usually find in a normal office situ- creative or more repetitive tasks ation. Without coworkers, long lunch breaks and clock watching, it’s actu- Most people find that they perform ally fairly easy to make sure you have certain tasks better during different a productive day in a home office or parts of the day. Maybe you find that other remote environment. in the morning you have improved concentration for more focussed and Here we’ll provide some tips and guid- intensive tasks. This could then be ance that will help you organize, plan followed by a period of creativity in the and execute a successful working day afternoon, where you have less energy outside of the office. but a more open mind for creative thinking and ideas. Try and find your Create clear definitions for success natural flow and work with it. You’ll more often than not come out with When figuring out your daily process, better work and improved productivity. have a think about how success is measured within your particular field Budget your time well and don’t and job. Although it’s not quite the over or under spend same, try to adhere to the usual meas- ures of success that you would be This tip is of particular use to the judged by when in the office. This of remote worker. Often there are less course can change from job to job. The distractions from coworkers when main question to ask is: What would a working remotely, but it can be easy to productive day look like for both you get distracted with home comforts like and your employer? your TV, games console or even your bed! This is more so when working from This could be measured in a few differ- a coworking space or public area like ent ways. Perhaps it’s by the amount a cafe or hotel lobby. By making sure of tasks completed, or maybe by the you effectively budget your time, you’re

Everything you need to know 26 about working from home - Ebook. Time management while working remotely much more likely to meet productivity - by Ayush Jain, CEO & Co-founder of expectations set by your team leader RemotePanda or manager. Remote work can feel like a dream come true. You can work from home or spend the life of a Much like the previous time, budget digital nomad, feel comfortable, in your casual your time according to your natural PJs and t-shirt all day. No boss or nosy cowork- workflow. Don’t over or under spend ers. You get to ditch the commute and enjoy time on more creative tasks, or arduous working from your home office or a cozy cafe. one. It can be easy to get carried away, It feels awesome, doesn’t it? but it’s not an optimal way to spend your time when working remotely. But it’s NOT. Once you start working from home, remote work can be frustrating, it has its own challenges. You are completely accountable for Contrary to what a lot of people believe, managing your time as well as for finding an it’s fairly easy to overwork when not in environment where you can be productive and an office. You don’t have the natural get stuff done. on/off switch that comes with leaving your work premises. The line between There are numerous struggles a remote worker has to face. To name a few: working space and your home can be blended, so it’s a good idea to not go • Loneliness: Working remotely, you lack over your allotted time budget for any social circle, you are working alone. Inde- specific task. pendent work leads to stuck at work, glued at home, missing social contact. We recommend setting your daily • Unplugging from work: When you work routine out in the following way: remotely, there’s a threat of working all the time because there’s always something to be done. You start working before • Allot a certain amount of time for the morning coffee, working all day, drag- scheduled tasks from your team ging your laptop till your bed, while you lead or manager watch your shows or attempt to hang out • Make sure you also include enough with family. time for any meetings you have • Distractions: Major concern is distraction. Binge eating, long breaks for attending scheduled for the day. This can phone calls, family and friends, interrup- sometimes take up a significant tions if you have small kids, watching or amount of time, so plan accord- reading long pending books and shows. ingly and make sure not to over • Motivation: With all the distractions run. around, self-motivation can be difficult • For larger tasks, create blocks and full of hassle. within your calendar. You may • Vacation: Responding to emails and being available to take important calls can be use a tool like google calendar or expected while working remotely. Finish- some other system whereby your ing extra work before taking vacation is coworkers can see that you will be another task. It could be difficult to avoid busy with a specific job. work completely while on a break. • Also don’t forget that it’s fairly natu- • Time-zone difference: This can be diffi- ral for there to be some procras- cult again, leads to early mornings and late night work pattern. tination in your working day. Therefore don’t forget to account It is entirely up to you to build your schedule for this in your daily schedule. and get stuff done. If you are not mindful, work-

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 27 ing from home can actually have the opposite and decisions. The result will be a lot better effect where you might feel like you’re working when participants take time to think, share all the time. If there are no clear parameters information and discuss the main argu- between work and home, it’s all too easy to ments before the actual meeting starts. Use check emails, or be in work-mode late into the a goal oriented communication tool, like night. Yabbu, to not only make it an active discussion, but also a focused discussion. Don’t You may have coworkers in different time replace a dysfunctional meeting with an zones and you may end up being available all aimless online discussion. day long. Remembering to step back and clock out your day. Here are some tips to balance 3. Digital transformation is an opportunity work-life when working remotely. to reduce meetings to the essence

Meetings are for sharing information, How to hold effective meetings discussion, decision making and teambuilding. Of those four aspects, the first three in a remote organisation can, for a large part, be taken care of with online tools. We already use email, chat and - by Christian Zierleyn from Yabbu collaboration tools for sharing information, It’s hard to have good meetings and it’s even discussion and decision making, so it only harder to have good remote meetings. There makes sense to think about what can go into are a lot of tips on the internet about effec- an online preparatory phase and what really tive meetings, but the danger of focussing too needs to be in the conference call. This prin- much on tips is that you don’t think about the ciple is easy to apply with remote teams that root cause of the problem and a structural solu- are used to trying out new tools. tion. That’s why at Yabbu we focus on a set of principles that we believe structurally improve If you have an agenda item that is just meetings. The good thing is that these princi- an announcement, use an online tool to ples are ideal for remote organisations. Here’s communicate this before the meeting and what you need to know. be done with it. The same goes for simple administrative stuff and simple issues you 1. A meeting is a process you can improve can decide through a quick online discussion. Start by approaching a meeting as a process you can improve like any other business It is our experience that most organisations process. The remote meeting begins with can easily cut meeting time in half by follow- setting the agenda and closes with send- ing these principles. It’s also easier to make ing out the minutes. A meeting done right faster and better decisions when more should be more than just that one hour in people are actively involved. Finally, short a conference call. You should look at each and effective meetings are simply more aspect of the process and take some time to fun. Instead of being a drag, meetings can think how you can improve it. Use tips you become inspiring moments of team-build- find online and embed them in a structured ing.” improvement approach.

2. Make it an active process A day in the life of a Ubiwhere home working employee An effective meeting is part of an active process. You need to create ownership from - by Ubiwhere the moment you start the process. Make somebody responsible for each agenda 9:00 am. It’s the hour that the alarm clock item. Formulate the agenda item in such a rings every day. All because I’m lucky enough way that it generates an online discussion, to get up and be ready to get to work in just long before the meeting. The aim of activ- 5 minutes. Before, when I worked 30 minutes ity is to raise the quality of the discussion from home, I would wake up at 8:00 am. Now I can sleep more. I do not waste time getting ready and preparing the kettle. I only have 5

Everything you need to know 28 about working from home - Ebook. minutes to brush my teeth and face, wear something comfortable (or put on my pajamas if you feel like it) and put the toast on. Before the coffee machine warms up and I hear the characteristic roar of toast, I start turning on my computer to check my inbox. It’s the advantage of working remotely, I can crack the toast while I write the answers.

It is not always easy to manage time, habits and concentration, but you learn. And I learned to be everything I wanted to be. I’ve learned that I do not need to go to the office to be an excel- lent professional. That’s something I’ve always ambitioned. And I wanted to have this life, a quiet life.

At first, I often lacked concentration. I got easily distracted. I get up from the chair more times than expected and take three times more to complete the tasks. But in the extra comfort that I got for being in my house, I found the answers that I needed. Over time, I realized that it was all a matter of routine, balance, and dedication.

There is no price for the fact that I can work and, at the same time, have my dog at my feet. To be able to take it to the street in the morning pauses. Catching both sun and vitamin D. It is comforting to be able to balance agile work and family or leisure time more quickly. The secret is very simple: we have the common sense to know that, just as they trust us and give us the possibility of doing remote work, we must be mature enough to know how we should recip- rocate and show that we deserve that place.

It’s 6:00 p.m. and I check out the Ubiwhere online platform. The day is over and I am immediately where we all want to be: at home. And there is no more comforting sensation than this.

Tips for regaining control and getting things done

- by Matej Latin from Gitlab

Here are a few tips that I picked up from others or learned from my own mistakes and applied to my life. I think they’re especially useful for people working remotely.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 29 1. Establish a routine these down in a small notepad the first thing in the morning. The key here is to have When it comes to productivity, nothing a visual cue in front of us that reminds us beats a well-established routine: of the things we want to do and keeps us focused. • Get up early and exercise to get your body going 3. Book out your “focus time” • Plan for your day ahead • Have a few hours of “focus time” Each day, try to find a slot of 3-4 hours and • Plan for the next day reserve them for your “focus time.” Try to • Wrap up work and disconnect spend those hours completely undisturbed • Go to sleep early and focused, with short breaks of course. • Repeat 4. Turn notifications off It sounds kinda boring, I know. But establishing a routine like that will free up time for At least for those few hours that you the fun things you want to do. Not every day reserved for focused work turn off your needs to have the same routine either. Just email, phone and chat notifications. I have make sure you plan your days out instead of Slack notifications turned off all the time, leaving all your time up to others for grabs. and I check it outside of my “focus time.” The same goes for email. After a while, your routine will turn into a habit, so you won’t need to spend willpower Research suggests that it takes a person 25 and energy on deciding when to start work- minutes and lots of mental energy to refo- ing, have lunch etc., you’ll simply start at the cus on their work after a distraction. Stay designated time. And you’ll be able to spend strong and ignore the dancing panda, at that extra attention and energy on work least for a while. instead of deciding. 5. Wrap up work and disconnect 2. Write down your MITs If you work remotely it doesn’t mean that MIT stands for “Most Important Thing.” The you need to work all the time. Treat your idea is simple: write down a few important work just like you would in an office. Set things that you want to do that day. I write your working hours and stick to them.

Everything you need to know 30 about working from home - Ebook. Disconnect from everything work related Bonus Stuff: after that. Spend time with your family, read a book, play a video game, write a journal… If you’re feeling edgy and want to go even further. I go even further and set my “Do not disturb” mode on my phone from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. 8. Dedicate a room to work and simply don’t check in on it during that time – it’s hard at the beginning when your If possible, dedicate a room to work, you brain is hardwired for that dopamine rush know, like a study. Don’t work in a room every time you check it, but it’s doable. where you do other stuff or where you sleep. If you do, your brain will start asso- 6. Set a deadline for yourself ciating one with the other and soon it won’t know whether you’re going into the room to We have such a negative association with work or to sleep. This results in less focus deadlines, but a self-imposed deadline is when you work and lower quality of sleep. If different. First of all, it needs to be realis- that’s not possible, try going to a co-working tic. If you can’t hit that deadline it will only space or even a coffee shop. lead to depression, burning out and chronic apathy. You know what’s cool about self-im- 9. Getting things done spreadsheet posed, realistic deadlines? The feeling you get when you cross the tasks out and mark This is my systematic approach to getting them as complete. People think that motiva- things done. I didn’t come up with this idea, tion is a thing that comes out of thin air but I picked it up from somewhere and modified it doesn’t. The best way to get motivated is it so it works for me. It’s quite simple: I keep getting things done – even if it’s little things. all the things that I want to do in a spreadsheet, where I can set to which project each 7. Focus on one thing at a time item belongs to, the status of the item and the deadline. I set my filters so it only shows Multitasking really is a myth. Even if you me items with “To Do” and “Doing” status think you’re an exception, the reality is that labels and sort by the Due Date. You can see you’re wasting energy and attention when it in action and make a copy here. It feels you’re switching from one thing to the other. so good to mark things as done and watch them disappear from the list

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 31 Six Tips For Preparing To Take a total boss. There are loads of templates available on the internet to help you esti- The Plunge As A Remote mate your monthly spend. Consultant Make sure to set aside money for tax (and - by Outpost Asia know where you plan to pay it!), and a little extra for emergencies. At Outpost, we create coworking and coliving spaces designed not just to give you the edge 4. You’re the boss on the remote life in amazing locations, but to help you get prepared to succeed through Get clear on your rates. Think hourly, day or fostering a creative and collaborative commu- project. Chat to others in your field about nity. After all, going remote doesn’t mean going what they’re doing (see tip 5). it alone. If you’re based in a remote location where Here are our top six tips on preparing to take your cost of living is much lower, consider the plunge into the remote life! how you use that to your advantage in the beginning? Can you afford to charge a bit 1. List big or stay home less than if you were living in a big city? How can that help you overdeliver to delight a The first thing you need to do is make a list. client? A biiiiig list. List everyone you’ve worked with, contacts you have from university Or, how might you pitch so that you can work (hello, LinkedIn!), friends and family, as well in the “off hours” – ensuring a company can as people who can act as ‘connectors’ to have a product delivered “overnight” their other people. time?

You want this list to be 10x longer than you 5. “I’ll be there for you…” think it needs to be. Begin MANY conversations, not a few. Now, it’s time to network! If you’d rather trek through the jungle alone for three days 2. Customise, customise, customise than go into a room (virtual or otherwise) of random people: you’re going to have to Work on your pitch to each of these contacts. force yourself to put it in your diary, and Each email or phone call should be tailored stick to it. and to the point. But, happily, these days there are plenty If you know they might be looking for some- of great online communities for remote one with your skills, by all means say: “Hey networking (virtual coffee date, anyone?) [friend/guru/great human], I know you have AND and plenty of great coworking spaces Project X coming up: are you looking for the or similar that will help you meet other perfect [insert your genius skill here]?” people in a similar place to you.

If you’re contacting them to open up a We’d suggest joining Outpost (of course!)— conversation, don’t try to sell. Instead, be where we have a member forum with a friendly and humble: ask if they have any bunch of clever peeps and regular network- advice, or if they can connect you to some- ing, learning and social events. Or check out one that might have use of your skills. Make FB groups for digital nomads and freelanc- sure you include your website and profes- ers. sional links. Consider what of your socials are public, and if you’re happy for them to 6. The three-month rule be searchable. We’d suggest you save about 3 months Though we’re kinda loathe to say this worth of living expenses to give yourself a (#letyourfreakflagfly), if your IG stories buffer before launching into the remote are full of chats about your latest yoni egg consulting life. purchase or the full moon party you went to, perhaps consider making it private for a Or, why not begin freelance work *before* bit. you leave your current role or location. Take on some evening or weekend work to get in 3. Know your dollars the flow of having clients.

Do a budget. (Yes, we get it: the horrors!) But, actually, this is going to make you feel like

Everything you need to know 32 about working from home - Ebook. Staying productive increase overall productivity. Some are fairly basic, but making sure to create In order to stay productive, there are positive habits will improve your over- certain areas that you should focus on. all energy and focus when working at They’ll help you make the most out of home. A few examples include: your working day and produce the best possible work that you can! The first is • Eating a good, healthy and balanced ritualization. Creating habits will allow breakfast. For many it’s easy to you to perform tasks without the usual skip breakfast or just go for some- mental and physical strain that you thing easy and practical. However, would normally feel. When you ritual- a good breakfast has been proven ize an activity, you end up conserving to increase morning alertness for energy for more rigorous and produc- those who perhaps struggle to tive activities that you may need to get their best work done before perform. You’ll improve focus, effi- midday.5 ciency and time management by creat- • Listing all the tasks you want to ing rituals out of your everyday work. complete in the day, either on paper or some kind of time management The next area to focus on when improv- software. The feeling of ticking off ing productivity is planning. Planning another piece of work can be both will allow you to have a better idea of satisfying and motivating! what you are supposed to currently be • Try not to check your emails first doing, what you should do next and thing in your working day. You may what to prioritise when under a time have already prioritised a certain constraint. This is even more important task which could then get side when working remotely. Whilst you tracked due to an email request have less office type distractions when from a coworker or manager. at home or travelling, a lack of struc- Usually, if some work is incredibly ture can end up being your downfall. A important and time specific it won’t manager may make sure that you don’t be communicated through email! spend too much time on breaks or at These things can wait till later in lunch, but at home you only have your- your day. self to rely on. Figure out what time you • Pick one important and kickass work best and plan accordingly. objective that you need to complete in your days work. Try to complete Finally, focus on your natural flow this first and then feel great for the state. Getting yourself into a focused rest of the day. work state depends upon the way you naturally work. It could be that you Make sure that you are structuring your work better on some tasks at different day in a way that you can have positive times of the day. With flexible working rituals that will reinforce your produc- arrangements, it’s up to you to figure tivity. out exactly when you feel in the zone. Producing work independently means How to effectively plan your day that you can choose when and how you produce your best best quality of work. “In an office environment, it wouldn’t be uncommon for a manager to walk Creating positive rituals in your day to 5 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ day life are also effective when trying to abs/10.1080/096374899101382

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 33 around the halls in the evening and your natural rhythm and flow through- encourage the team to go home if they out the day, where you can really get in felt that people were working too hard. the zone and produce your best work. But in a remote setting, there is no simi- It’s the ability to enter a high level of lar way to know if work hours are getting productive work, where you’re excited out of hand. Time tracking provides and enthusiastic about what you’re early warning signs for burnout or the doing. Here are some tips that will help need to hire additional resources.” – you to enter into your flow state: Carrie McKeegan, CEO of Greenback Expat Tax Services • Separate your workspace form your social space. This can be a bit diffi- When looking to plan out your day, cult, especially when working from there are a variety of different tools you home. Try and find a space that you can access to make sure the process don’t associate with relaxing and is easy and efficient. One resource we down time. Your bedroom probably recommend is TimeDoctor, it gives isn’t the best place to enter a flow you pop alerts that remind you when state! you’ve run overtime on specific tasks. • Use the previously mentioned You can access a number of different tools, like TimeDoctor, that allow metrics, set personal goals and track you to plan out you day and avoid your progress over time. It’s easy to overspending time on certain tasks. see when you’ve over run and spot any • Make sure you have a complete recurring patterns in time mismanage- set of instructions and brief for ment. the things you need to complete in your work day. Having to email your You can also achieve similar results by manager for more instructions and using some kind of calendar app, like and any relevant documentation google calendar or your inbuilt calendar will make you less productive. This in any smartphone. You can even go old is all part of having a strong meth- school and go for a white board. Find odology when working. out whatever works best for you! This is best used in combination with writing down your daily, monthly and quarterly goals. Keeping track can provide you with more structure, that some people can find lacking when not in a rigid office atmosphere. Create mile- stones for yourself too and celebrate big achievements and meeting goals. These will all help you stay productive throughout your remote work career!

Flow State Focus

We’ve mentioned it previously, but finding your flow state focus is really one of the most important aspects of staying productive. It helps you find

Everything you need to know 34 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 35 Motivate 08 yourself!

Working from home has a large number roll out of bed, fire up the laptop, and of benefits for the remote worker. The get to work. After all, what is more luxu- degree of flexibility you have in your rious than working in your pajamas? working conditions is much greater Resist the urge! Take the time to dress and of course no lengthy commuting as if you were going into an office. Keep times! However what can’t be denied a routine for your work day, with a is that the number of distractions are start time and an end time, and include much bigger than in a traditional office breaks during the day. Set a timer -- setting. It could be your TV, social media once every two hours does the trick for or even your comfy bed that stops your me!” – Carrie McKeegan, CEO of Green- concentration and motivation! back Expat Tax Services

Self-motivation can waver and this, in Create working patterns for yourself turn, will affect your productivity when working from home. So we’ve gathered Whilst one of the benefits of working together some simple tips to make from home is having flexibility in how sure you stay in a working mood all day you plan your day, it’s still good actu- long. ally make a plan! Keeping some sort of regularity in these plans is also a good Get dressed for when you begin work idea. Perhaps you perform more difficult and lengthy tasks in the morning, Working from home obviously has followed by easier ones in the after- no strict dress code! You can really noon. Knowing what work you’ll be wear what you want. This however doing and when you’re doing it can isn’t always conducive to a good day’s improve self-motivation. work. Sometimes simply what you are wearing can affect your concentration, Reward yourself for great perfor- motivation and productivity. Wearing mance your dressing gown all day, or not even getting properly dressed at all, do not In an office setting, feedback on your lead to a working mood. Whilst you work comes back quickly and often. probably don’t need to get in a full suit Supervisors and other coworkers can or business attire, try to wear some- give you praise for a job well done, which thing that doesn’t make you feel too is proven to improve productivity and much like having a lazy day at home. mental well being. When working from home, this process isn’t so instantane- “When working from home, it’s easy to ous. After completing a large project

Everything you need to know 36 about working from home - Ebook. or some work that you’re particu- 3 Steps to Supercharge Your larly happy with, give yourself some Daily Drive kind of reward. Doing this frequently directly increases motivation accord- - by Danny Page from StudySoup ing to a recent study from the Journal “Workers around the world face all sorts of 6 of Personality and Social Psychology. challenges on a daily basis. Solving complex This could be a short coffee break, a problems, presenting at tense meetings, navi- snack or anything else that will give you gating internal politics. But there is no single some motivation! Even just a moment challenge greater than maintaining motivation of self-reflection and acknowledgment throughout the day. of your success can help. Believe it or not, the way we sustain motivation is rooted in how we start the day, and Plan time for self-improvement and here we’ll share a short five minute process education that will prime anyone for success first thing in the morning, and provide the tools needed to Putting some time in your day for thrive until the sun goes down - and often later. self-improvement or learning a new Can you give five minutes? Start your skill can improve your motivation. It can timer...3...2...1...GO! sometimes be hard to motivate yourself to complete work tasks when you Step 1: State Your Mission - don’t see any gain. However, learning (Less than one minute) a new skill related to work or educating yourself in a relevant area can provide At the core of the deepest levels of motivation exists a set of principles that serve as an intrin- some motivation. You learn new things sic guide which can drive one to achieve the and feel satisfied! highest of heights. Over the next week, spend five minutes per day, and think about what 6 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fp- your mission is. It can be one long sentence, spa0000116 or a collection of statements that you believe in. Shape this into a specific document, print it out, and place it on your bedside table. Read it every morning as soon as you wake up. Memo- rize and recite it at specific times throughout the day. Whenever the mind wanders, and you navigate to a social network site, think of taking a nap, or start responding to the throng of messages accumulated in a WhatsApp group, say your mission statement aloud and remember why it is you do what you do. Here are a few excerpts from my personal mission statement that I recite first thing each morning:

TODAY IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY WHAT IS IT YOU PLAN TO DO WITH YOUR ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE? BE A GIVER, NOT A TAKER PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION BALANCE IN ALL THINGS NOTHING IS MORE POWERFUL THAN AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 37 Step 2: Prep Your Priorities - (Three minutes)

Once you have recited your guiding principles, transcribe your core goals for the day relating to the most important components of your life. Set between 1-3 reachable micro goals that will keep you motivated throughout the day, and leave you feeling accomplished at day’s end. Just as with your mission statement, quickly review this priority list every few hours to maintain focus and motivation. I keep a daily document called “Danny’s Daily,” that tracks this data, which I can then review throughout the day to stay motivated - and also analyze of periods of weeks and months, to provide senti- ments of consistency and accomplishment.

The areas of the greatest emphasis for me are… DIET EXERCISE STUDYSOUP FAMILY AND FRIENDS ENTREPRENEURSHIP FINANCE

Step 3: Build Your Vision - (1 Minute)

Similar to the mission statement, build a document that contains the vision for what you want out of your life. This can be your vision for the next year, the next decade, or the rest of your life. Draw it visually, create a list of bullet points or build a powerpoint.

For me, I want to teach people and companies how to leverage remote work to revitalize trust and transparency in the workplace, thus giving hundreds of millions of knowledge workers greater purpose and ownership in their work and lives. I remind myself of this every day as part of my vision document. It drives and moti- vates me when energy and purpose are low. I also want to own an apartment here in my new home of Barcelona, and that’s part of this document as well!

Time’s Up!

Well that’s it, our five minutes are over. By building a set of guiding principles, tailor- ing your goals for the day to those principles, and reminding yourself constantly of the big picture, you can maintain motivation and purpose throughout the day.

Oh, and also, espresso helps. Lots and lots of espresso.”

Everything you need to know 38 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 39 Plan Matching breaks and music with 08a holidays 08b tasks

If you find yourself lacking self-moti- Music can be a great way to stay vation, perhaps you need to plan set focussed whilst completing longer breaks throughout the day. It could be tasks. We do however have a few tips that you’re not spending enough time and tricks to make sure that you don’t working through difficult tasks and get too distracted and stay focused taking breaks too often and too early. when working from home. Knowing that you need to spend a set amount of time doing continuous work, Think about what kind of music you’re rather than taking a small break every listening to. Some types are more suited hour or two, can help you stay moti- to different kinds of work, and some vated. Also, make sure you plan larger will probably hinder your performance! breaks and holidays from work! If you You will have to find out what exactly have some big trip to look forward to works for you. Most of the time, instru- then you’re going to be much more mental music will better for any kind motivated. of writing task you need to perform. Lyrics can be distracting and may inter- “Working at home can be challenging if rupt your train of thought. Something you get easily distracted. I keep myself relaxed, but not too relaxing, can also motivated to focus by rewarding myself really help with concentration. with small things like sweet treats, a detox facial mask or a 10 minute brisk Try and find out what works, for what- walk outside after completing a set of ever different kinds of tasks you need tasks. Additionally, when I watch some- to perform. thing on YouTube or Netflix during lunchtime, I set a timer on my phone and stick to it.” - Serena Ramos, Communi- cations Specialist at The Greater Sum Foundation

Everything you need to know 40 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 41 How to make yourself 09 known and seen

With the number of different commu- networking will really help you to stay nication tools available, you can make relevant. yourself known and seen fairly easily. Slack for example is in use within Over communicate your status and many offices, and makes it easy to chat progress of your work instantly with other co workers, share files and make sure everyone is up to Giving constant updates provides bene- date. Try and make extensive use of fits for both you, your employer and messaging so that people know you other coworkers. First of all, it commu- are available and easy to contact. nicates the status of your tasks and gets any possible issues out of the way In order to make yourself really seen, that you may have. Without being able we recommend that you try and prior- to quickly check in person, you proba- itise video calls over other means of bly need to give out more updates than communication. This isn’t always prac- you usually would do that in the physi- tical however, but the more often you cal office. show your face the easier it will be for people to realise that there is a real Second of all, doing this gives you person on the other side of the email presence and reminds your cowork- or message! ers that you are actually a part of the team! Checking in only when absolutely Another helpful tip is to take notes on needed will put you in the back of many meetings, making yourself useful and coworkers’ minds. Staying relevant is in need. People will remember that this much easier when you make use of all is something you do and be in touch to your communication tools and put in get the notes off you. It also reminds the effort to over communication. people that you were an active part of the meeting, even if you weren’t there “It’s so much easier to communicate in the office physically. with other human beings in real life, therefore in a remote setting, it’s better By organising meetings and being to overcommunicate instead of making proactive, you can also make sure that assumptions and not vocalising things.” you’re not left out of networking. Bring- - Jan Zborowski Co-founder and Board ing in new clients, reaching out to other Member SoftwareMill companies and making an effort in

Everything you need to know 42 about working from home - Ebook. “When recruiting people to work Remote teams live and die based remotely, I have found that there are on trust two key factors that make the recruit- ment a successful one; the first is find- - by Ryan Chartrand from X-team ing skilled people are outcome driven and their outcomes will always benefit Trust is built not only by the quality of your work and whether you deliver on time. In many and support the business proving they cases, you might not even last long enough on are valuable. The second one is ensur- a remote team before they get to witness the ing that the employee will communicate quality you can deliver. promptly and frequently. It’s important to let colleagues know when you will be Trust is built and maintained on a remote team online and available to contribute and in one way and one way only: by showing your team how you’re adding value every day. support and when you will be offline and when colleagues can expect a response At X-Team, we do this through journaling. We or outcome from you.” - Michelle Black- create a Slack channel and post updates in it more (Head of HR) Topcontent.com throughout the day so others in our team can see how we’re adding value. By reading through everyone’s journals each day, it gives us all a sense that we’re moving forward together and not off in silo’d worlds.

It’s different from a “daily standup” post in that it’s about more than just “what did you do? what do you plan to do?” and is a livestream of your thoughts throughout your day, articles that inspired you that day, things you learned that could benefit others, ideas you’re baking in your mind that others can jump in on (or not). A daily standup is static and usually a couple lines of text, whereas a journal can be visual, dive deeper into your thought process, and is collaborative so others can jump in and help based on your progress or thought process.

Journaling allows your team to feel connected to you, and it’s through seeing the value you’re bringing each day that they’re able to build trust with you. We’ve found that people who journal are not only more trusted by their teammates, but are given more empathy, team spirit and support than those who don’t journal.

Without trust, a remote team has incredibly limited potential and will invite toxic behavior very quickly. Make yourself, your thoughts, your routine, and your value known to your team each and every day and they will follow you into battle like Spartans.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 43 Overcommunicate your status stage, update the entire team at once, attach and progress of your work important documents on the fly and otherwise get organized and DONE. Best of all, Airtable - Yuri Kruman from MasterTheTalk connects seamlessly to specific threads in your work Slack channel to update your boss and/ “When you’re working remotely, one of the or team members when updates have been most difficult things to manage is expectations, made, including task completion or project deliverables and effective communication with plan update. This saves much email back-and- your boss and team. Team members may be forths. working from different time zones, come from vastly different work cultures and have wildly Lastly, one of the simplest, yet most different expectations of what “good” or “great” game-changing tools I’ve used to help make my works looks like in terms of cadence and remote work productive and clearly commu- communication. Plus, there is the factor of little nicated is Calendly. Not only has this taken to no “face time” at the office. away all those annoying back-and-forth emails to schedule calls and appointments, but it’s As a remote worker, you’re got your work cut also made it easy for all project stakeholders out for you. So what can you do to create clear to never miss meetings or calls, plus show the lines of communication to give your team regu- boss through a CSV download when their calls lar updates, ship your deliverables regularly and appointments are scheduled or were held. and maintain a good working rhythm and rela- This keeps the team’s time used efficiently and tionship with your team members? tells the boss that everyone is working hard and smart. Turns out, quite a lot. Working remotely has become more main- Firstly, make sure you have regular calls and stream, especially with Millennials now the check-ins scheduled with your boss and team majority demographic in the workplace. Seam- over teleconference tools such as Zoom and less integrations and free software tools have Skype. Zoom lets you record calls, then get made communication and over-communica- them transcribed by such services as Eva and tion quite easy, enabling remote workers to others, allowing everyone to focus on the enjoy many of the same benefits of working in substance of the call, not on taking notes. This the office, without the commute and distrac- also you gives you coveted “face time” on the tions thereof. call, which is quite important. When you make an effort to show yourself Next, you must set up systems that let you and your work to your boss back at company update team members and your boss on HQ, you can make sure to keep your work and things you’ve shipped. Email is the mainstay, career on track. Best of luck!” but becomes a massive distraction when you get hundreds of messages a day and don’t have your folders well-organized. Try Slack to organize your workflow and team communication. It lets you loop in anyone you need for specific projects and keep the 1-on-1 with your boss, but in a visual format that’s easy to see from start to finish, helping you build your case as a good and productive employee.

Taking things one step further, there is project planning software like Airtable, Trello and Basecamp. I use Airtable for all my client work, letting me create a visual project timeline, list of tasks with deadlines and priority levels, stakeholders and team leads, with all sorts of ways to track who’s doing what and at what

Everything you need to know 44 about working from home - Ebook. Communication principles for remote teams 6. Make meetings a positive experience

- by Moodle • Ensure every meeting has an agenda with key points, action items and follow At Moodle, we want to foster a strong and up dates. empowering culture that keeps everyone • Recognise the impact of time zones and connected regardless of where they are or how office space when scheduling meetings. they work. So we created a set of guiding prin- • Be on time, prepare, and ensure your ciples to help us communicate more effectively equipment is functioning correctly. and more respectfully, particularly considering our geographical spread and range of cultures “Setting the ground rules has gone a long way that make up the world of Moodle. They were in making sure our team members are produc- created to align with and support our values tive, engaged and happy.” Holly Barnes, Head of and culture. People and Culture

1. Assume positive intent Building great remote teams and a connected culture needs to be intentional. You don’t have • We are aware of cultural differences. the benefit of water cooler chat everyday. At • We respect other people’s points of view. Moodle we rely on a few basic things in conjunc- • We speak the truth, but do so with kind- tion with our Communication Principles ness. • Thoughtful consideration - e.g. time zones, 2. Respect other people’s attention working hours, appropriateness of our various collaboration tools • We don’t always require an instant • Preface your context response. • ALWAYS assume positive intent... • We are aware of time-zone differences. • And the use of LOTS of emojis • We trust each other to work towards our shared goals.

3. Contribute to organisational culture

• We bring our full selves to work. • We consider those not in the room. • We listen to one another before responding, and we work openly with one another.

4. Use the right tool for the job

• Personal feedback should happen in private. • Ask groups or a queue/on-call channel if you need a quick response. • Use searchable asynchronous tools for information that affects everyone.

5. Make it easy to collaborate

• Don’t assume context: provide all relevant details. • Pin important messages to the top of communications channels. • Schedule time if you need to talk things through or get more details; avoid just ‘dropping in.’

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 45 How to stay relevant while working from home?

- by Xapo

Xapo remote best practices:

• Regular team calls, active Slack channels, Xapo Buddies, and companywide virtual events are just a few of the ways that we stay connected as a distributed organization. • We use Zoom video conferencing to facilitate face-to-face interactions and cultivate productive working relationships. • We organize regular, companywide virtual events, which are available live and recorded to accommodate different time zones. The purpose of these events is to align, engage, and develop our remote team. We encourage team members to attend live when possible, share their video, and ask plenty of questions. • We host a biweekly “Open Office” event in which different teams and executives have an opportunity to present what they are working on and how others can get involved.

General tips:

• Having a designated workspace is key to establishing healthy habits as a remote worker. Your workspace should be separate from your living space, making it easier to shut down at the end of your workday • A good connection is essential to working remotely. Test your connection and equipment before videoconferences to ensure that you do not waste time troubleshooting during the meeting.

Everything you need to know 46 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 47 Replacing Water Cooler Chat In A Remote Work Environment

- by Jen Raines-Loring, VP of People, Creating “virtual Springboard Retail Developing gratifying relationships with water cooler” in colleagues in a remote work environment your work space requires being more intentional and proac- 10 tive in your interactions. But when done correctly, we have found that remote work actually encourages deeper, more meaningful conversations than casual run-ins at the water While you may miss out on being cooler. As a Springboarder recently said, “it’s around a physical water cooler, most hard to get past sports scores and weather at jobs that utilise some kind of instant the actual water cooler.” But when you have a messaging system will have a channel thoughtfully designed range of virtual interactions around various topics and interests, you dedicated to this kind of chat. Staying get to know different sides of your coworkers. part of the more relaxed and social side of work, and not just your tasks, will Our tips for replacing the water cooler with help you stay relevant too and main- something even better... tain good relationships with coworkers. Balsamiq, a company that hires Building your company community is key! Our success formula involves mixing a variety of remotely, makes great use of slack virtual formats to appeal to everyone. Open to maintain these kinds of workplace social events, like holiday parties or coffee interaction: dates, require no agenda. Just normal catching up and a few laughs, all via video. Structured “Slack greetings in our water cooler social events, like trivia games or icebreakers, room are typical. Some employees have been some of our best. We have found might take the day off, but that’s up to that a bit of structure goes a long in terms of increasing social comfort (and participation) them… Slack is a cloud-based applica- at virtual events. Learning events, like special tion that connects teams of workers, interest discussions, allow people to nerd out allowing them to collaborate in real- on whatever they love as a shared experience, time on projects and share documents, whether that happens to be musical theatre or images, video calls, and other data finance (no judgement!). Asynchronous social necessary to do their job. events, like Secret Snowflake gift exchanges, allow for participation regardless of time zones or schedule. It is available as a stand-alone app for desktops or mobile devices. Slack allows Complement your community with social- PeopleG2 to bring remote individuals ly-oriented Slack (or other messaging tool) together to help them work more effi- channels. Channels dedicated to kids, pets, ciently and effectively as a team. Of food and WorkFromAnywhere locations have course, it’s not just about work! Slack been popular among Springboarders. Related, use your tools to increase inclusivity. Make it lets PeopleG2 to make interactions a priority to keep profiles up to date and use fun, which has been a big part of our Birthday Bot or other helpers to acknowledge success: public channels can often be special occasions. And even if it’s not strictly filled with GIFs and celebratory Green social, encourage openness in general. If the Flags sent between colleagues, creat- information isn’t sensitive, let interested people ing a digital watercooler.” have visibility so that there is a general sense of connectivity and awareness.

Everything you need to know 48 about working from home - Ebook. Set people up for success early by making personal lives. Making the most of any time relationship development a primary goal of when you’re face to face helps remote workers onboarding. We discourage people from imme- to bond with colleagues, and you can then keep diately taking on new projects. We feel that the connection going by scheduling a “chat” people should fully embrace being new and time into virtual meetings, starting a silly group spend time simply getting to know the team. text, or creating a Slack channel around shared We facilitate connections for new Springboard- interests. ers and get them up and running on video on day 1. Brainstorming

Finally, though somewhat counterintuitive, be Until you’re alone with your own thoughts and disciplined about measuring the results (the your houseplants (Hi, Wilt!) you may not real- fun doesn’t just happen on its own!). We meas- ize how valuable it is to pop your head in the ure “interpersonal satisfaction” as a key metric, office next door and shoot the breeze about right up there with productivity and collabora- a current project or learn what folks in other tion. Actionable feedback as to how to encour- departments are up to. I schedule subject-spe- age further relationship development is key. cific meetings with team members so that we Most of our best community building ideas have time to brainstorm together but don’t get have come from Springboarders. too sidetracked. Volunteering for interdepart- mental committees is a good way to feel less Though it can be awkward to join your first siloed in your own work, and you can also just virtual coffee date or special interest chat, over- let people know that helping them with projects coming this is key to replacing, and ultimately helps you stay connected. Once the marketing upgrading, water cooler chat in remote work manager at a prior job of mine realized I was a environments. With lower barriers to participa- compulsive proofreader she started asking me tion and a mix of formats that allow for broad to take a look at her monthly newsletter. As a participation, we have built an inclusive, thriv- 15 minute brain break for me and an extra set ing virtual community. With a bit of experimen- of eyes for her, it was a win-win.. tation and creativity at your own company, we are confident that you can too! Networking

Does hearing the LIttle Mermaid sing “I wanna I’m New Here, Where’s the Water be where the people are!” make you a little Cooler? teary-eyed? You’re not alone! Schedule a few work-adjacent lunch meetings into your - by Greater Sum Foundation monthly calendar. Use your workday flexibility (or volunteer leave policy) to volunteer If you’re new to remote work, you may be in your community. Seek out other virtual noticing that some of the distractions of the workers with similar needs and interests who workplace were actually productive. Building may be getting together in local coffee shops rapport with your colleagues, gaining inspira- or community centers. I have a friend whose tion through conversation, and maintaining a neighborhood has a Watercooler Club with professional network can be harder to accom- regular meetings - she was amazed to see plish when you work from home. After a few how many people were working from home all years of tinkering I’ve found a way to incorpo- around her! Online networking opportunities rate these typically face-to-face interactions abound, although they’re not always easy to into my remote workday. find. Find out whether one of your company’s Slack channels is actually where the entrepre- Teambuilding neurs hang out. Your industry probably has a variety of social media groups, one or two of Do you work on a hybrid team? It’s hard to get which will be full of kindred spirits. Groups that over feeling like you’re missing out when your have traditionally convened for face-to-face colleagues are still wearing party hats from a networking are taking it online; my university lunchtime birthday to your 2pm virtual staff has launched virtual networking events as well meeting. And, if your team is fully remote, it as a virtual book club. can take quite a while to get into the groove of sharing and learning about each others’

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 49 Pulling it Together “When the web design team uses it to discuss Your virtual watercooler may look different technical information and graphics, we drop in from mine but I suspect you’ll use the same a graphic and start fine-tuning the product for “hack” to find it. Imagine growing up with a delivery right away. That is a must for meeting stocked fridge and then having to do your tight deadlines” says Megan Bair - head of busi- own shopping for your first apartment. You’re ness development. used to the milk being there to pour on your cereal in the morning, but now you’ve got to Setting it up is easy and works well on all of our buy it the night before. Maybe it’s scheduling devices. That is vital since building a company a power walk with a neighbor, saying “yes” to never stops and having the ability to commu- the conference planning committee, or turning nicate on a Smart Phone or laptop is essential your most engaged LinkedIn connections into to a project’s workflow from initial requirement a networking group; when you realize that you discussions to product and service delivery. miss some element of office life, understand that as a remote worker you’ve got to go get it Another quality feature Discord brings to yourself.” the company work environment is the voice channel selection, enabling everyone to easily Discord is our watercooler discuss topics, join in meaningful conversations, or participate in group activities. This - by Ctrl Solutions Group element, combined with text channels, makes the communications process smoother. This Working in an environment where teamwork workflow process of sharing links a co-worker counts, isolation is the enemy. Previously, can click and see or dropping in graphics such collaboration occurred because team members as charts or design elements as a presenter would be a short walk down the hall or across reviews them makes integration and coordina- the floor. Economics and social changes have tion as easy as a boardroom meeting. revolutionized the way people work. Now, many people work from home across conti- We especially like the no limits on usage and nents, spanning the globe. This modern busi- storage features that come with using the appli- ness reality doesn’t mean communicating the cation. It is a handy feature for the company old fashion way has to deteriorate. because that means there is no cap on team members communication and reviewing meet- Today technology has made it possible to be on ing history. It provides us, an effective way to the island and still talk to the ship offshore. In communicate and socialize for business and rescue parlance, the remote worker can send gaming events. It’s become the go-to app for up a flare to ask for help on a project. They can our company when we want to collaborate. ask someone how to build a fire on the beach that can complete a job requirement. Discord’s communication features prove to our company daily that no employee is forced to be CTRL Solutions Group team members work alone wherever they work, on an island or any across several different states and countries, remote location. but still, collaborate using the Discord application.

The application provides the essential watercooler effect - allowing several channels for team members to congregate on shared interests and interact on a social level. Our hard-working team has a creative side as well as technical expertise. Currently, we have channels that discuss photography techniques, web, and graphic design creations, as well as gaming. All of these passions can be satisfied using the Discord channel set up.

Everything you need to know 50 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 51 Creating wind down 11 Switching Off 11a routine

One of the biggest benefits reported by Saving less intensive tasks for the end remote workers is the ability to improve of your working day can really help you your work life balance. A lot of people unwind. Finishing work with residual find that stress and burnout from an arduous task will not help you to fully enjoy your Having a healthy work life balance is downtime. We recommend creating key to maintaining and developing your a wind down routine for yourself that physical and mental health. We’re now you stick to. At the end of the day, you’ll more accessible than ever, with push feel more capable to relax and actually notifications on your smart phone enjoy your time off. providing you instant updates of your emails, messages, texts and calls. It can The line between work and relaxa- feel wrong to turn these off and ignore tion when working from home can get your phone outside of work hours, but blurred. That’s why it’s important to it can really be beneficial for your over- create a wind down routine that will all well being. ease you into your free time.

“Over the years that I have been working from home, I’ve learned that one of the most important things to do, is to get your setup right. Create a dedicated workspace in a room that you don’t use that much. When I’m at this desk, I’m always in work-mode. When I leave this desk, I’m in home-mode. In the same way, having work outfits that you only wear when working helps to create a great work-life balance. After the day has ended, I change the outfit to something I would never have worn at the office. Hello sofa-mode!” - Øystein, Head of Sales at Topcontent.com

Everything you need to know 52 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 53 Addressing loneliness while 12 working remotely

Remote-work provides a large array of increased mortality rate, equivalent to benefits and opportunities: Working smoking 15 cigarettes per day!8 from where you like, choosing your own hours, working exactly how you like. In order to stay healthy, productive and There are of course some difficulties happy you should make sure to try and that may arise. Not being around other stay connected with others. A cowork- workers in the office can bring about ing space is an easy and effective way feelings of loneliness. This can be made of combating loneliness when working even more difficult when working from remotely. Even on your travels, you different countries, without the social should be able to find somewhere to support of friends nearby. work with other remoters and freelancers. Of course, you don’t always have Have no fear though! It’s fairly common to use one, but they are available for that you’ll sometimes get a bit lonely when you need! working alone or across the globe. When loneliness strikes, get yourself to The benefits of a virtual office a coworking space! While coworking spaces have previ- The effects of loneliness on your ously been a solution to solving lone- work and health. liness, at the moment a lot of us are faced with lockdowns and quarantines The effects of loneliness on the quality of to help combat the corona virus spread. your work have been well researched. It Companies that have never experi- can affect your performance in a whole mented with remote work before are number of ways according to research now beginning to notice that the social from California State University. This side of an office needs to be replicated includes teamwork, completion of in some way for all their remote work- assigned duties and overall contribu- ers. tion.7 Apart from an obvious decrease in performance at work, it’s also associ- Setting up a virtual office where people ated with a number of negative health can hang out with each other, drop into effects. Anxiety and depression are video call rooms, and stay connected correlated with loneliness and even an whilst working can all help bring about

7 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sigal_Bar- a more social atmosphere. This doesn’t sade/publication/323007916_No_employee_an_is- necessarily mean that you have to be land_Workplace_loneliness_and_job_performance/ links/5aa05c300f7e9badd9a1865c/No-employee-an-is- chatting all the time, but it does still help land-Workplace-loneliness-and-job-performance.pdf 8 https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/09/ work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic

Everything you need to know 54 about working from home - Ebook. bring out more of an office community feeling.

Your colleagues can see that you’re available during your office hours, and it helps people to remember that you still actually are all connected as a team. It can be easy, especially for new remote workers, to fall off the grid when working at home. So help your team stay in the collaborative mindset by setting up your own virtual office. You can do this in a way that benefits you, either with a voice chat program that allows for breakout rooms, or some other software solution that suits your team.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 55 Filling the social deficit: Dealing with colleagues, either in person (if you’re near enough) or via video chat. with loneliness in remote teams Try coworking: Working remotely doesn’t - by myworkhive.com have to mean working alone. Coworking can be a great way to meet other remote-workers. Remote working brings so many benefits for Some employers even offer membership in a both staff and employers, but it’s important to coworking space as a staff perk. Many cowork- recognize the potential downsides, too. Work- ing venues pride themselves on organizing ing remotely can be a lonely experience for talks and social events to help members get to some people, and loneliness can have a serious know each other. effect on physical and mental health. Research shows that loneliness has the same impact Attending on health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, Build your ‘real world’ network: networking events and conferences is another and increases the risk of depression (Source: way to build your connections (and build in a Campaign To End Loneliness). little social time too.) If your employer doesn’t have a huge budget for this kind of activity, Remote specialists myworkhive.com have look out for low-cost meetups near you. For shared their favorite tips on how to avoid lone- example, try local business networks, or the liness when you work remotely - and what ‘jelly’ movement (which organizes free cowork- employers can do to make sure it doesn’t ing pop-up days). Or try groups specific to your become a problem for their remote teams. sector - if you are in tech, many cities have regular developer meetups, for example. Beating loneliness: Tips for remote workers

Don’t just rely on work: If you’re working long Think about how much social contact you hours it can be hard to make time to social- need: If you are new to remote working, the ize. But it’s extra important when you work first step is to accept that working remotely is remotely. Getting together with a friend - even different to being the office; you will lose some if it’s just a phone call - can be a really valuable day-to-day social contact, and can no longer way to reconnect after a long day spent working easily join in with social events at work. Particu- solo. If you’re in a new city or don’t know many larly if you are a very social person, it’s a good people locally, volunteering your time can be a idea to plan how you will fill this ‘social deficit.’ fantastic way to start feeling more connected Just recognizing the role that work has played to the community around you - youth projects, in your social life, and thinking about how much hospitals, seniors’ homes, homeless shelters, ‘people time’ you typically need to feel happy, is and many other projects are almost always in a good place to start. need of volunteers, and nothing makes you feel connected like getting involved and giving Connect with colleagues: Those easy social back. connections - such as popping out for lunch - don’t happen in the same way. Remote-first If you are feeling really employers such as Buffer and Doist are very Don’t struggle alone: lonely, don’t struggle on without seeking help. good at filling the gap, organizing social events Feeling isolated can eventually have a negative by video and whole-team get-togethers in impact on your mental health - so do tell a line person. However, some employers may not be manager or trusted colleague how you are feel- so pro-active. If that’s the case, talk with your ing. team leader about how to build in some more social time: Beating loneliness: Tips for remote team • Explain that those ‘water cooler moments’ leaders are important for team creativity and cohe- Feeling isolated sion, as well as your own wellbeing. Take loneliness seriously: can affect the productivity and motivation of • Offer suggestions! Suggest trying some- your team; left to fester, it can start to have a thing simple, such as a weekly video ‘coffee serious impact on people’s mental health and and chat’ with colleagues to help bring well-being, so don’t just assume all’s well with people together. your remote team members. • Make your own plans to regularly meet up

Everything you need to know 56 about working from home - Ebook. Check-in personally: It’s harder to have a casual chat when you can’t just drop by someone’s desk. A little effort here can go a long way. A weekly, short social call with each team member allows time to check in and catch up.

Treat remote and non-remote team members equally: For example, if you celebrate birthdays in your office, don’t leave out the remote team members - maybe you can’t share a cake, but you can acknowledge the day in other ways, such as posting a card or popping a birthday GIF on Slack.

Build in regular online social activities for your team: You could try including a few minutes just for a social chat at the start or end of team meetings. Or have a regular ‘team social’ once a week, such as a video lunch. Check out the blogs of experienced remote- first companies such as Buffer and Doist for more ideas for team activities that can work well online.

Do recognize that different people communicate differently: Whole-team get-togethers might actually be stressful for some intro- verted team members. Instead, find ways to get people together in smaller groups. For example, if your team is on Slack, the Donut app pairs people up with a colleague, prompt- ing them to set up time for a video chat - something like this can be easier for those who don’t like big social occasions.

Meet in person when you can: If you can afford a big annual whole-team get-together, that’s great. And if only part of your team is remote, pay for remote staff to come to the office occasionally. If budgets are tight, encourage social meetups for team members along- side other events you’re attending anyway, such as client meetings or conferences.

Hopefully, these tips have given you some fresh ideas on how to tackle loneliness among remote workers, keeping remote teams happy, healthy and productive.

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 57 Meditation & 13 mindfulness

A lot of the time during our working spot when stress strikes! You can still life we will have to deal with a certain use the following guidelines when you amount of stress. This can actually help feel that you need a moment of relaxa- improve our performance if we have tion and clarity. a certain upcoming deadline, but too much of it is detrimental to both your 1. Begin to observe the pres- physical and mental health. A 2014 ent moment and any particular survey from PGI looking at remote thoughts and emotions. Try and workers reported that 82% of telecom- take a step back, let thoughts just muters had lower stress levels when pass through your mind and do this working outside the office. Neverthe- without judgement. Simply observe! less, we recommend periods of mind- 2. As you notice any judgements fulness when you find that stress arising during your mindfulness strikes! session, take a quick mental note and then release the thought. Try Mindfulness not to dwell on them. 3. As you notice your mind wandering, Mindfulness is a mental technique and try to return to observing the pres- method of meditation. It makes us ent moment. Your mind can and more aware of our emotions, impulses probably will get carried away in and biases that drive us on a day to day thought, but notice this and return basis. It allows you to take a step back, to concentrating on what is happen- evaluate and refocus our attention ing now in the present. on what is occuring or more impor- 4. Don’t worry about what thoughts tant tasks and feelings when needed. and emotions appear, just notice With practice you can make conscious that your mind has wandered. It’s choices and be more in control of how OK for this to happen, and you your emotions affect you, allowing you shouldn’t judge yourself harshly for to become your own master. it.

Throughout these steps, the key princi- Basic Mindfulness practices ples are in observing your moods and energy and trying to concentrate on Although mindfulness has benefits in the present. This could be in the simple being practiced in quiet and comforta- background noises that are occuring or ble place, you can’t always find such a how your body is feeling.

Everything you need to know 58 about working from home - Ebook. Getting into a mindfulness routine 5 Effective Mental Health Practices for Remote Teams from In order to practice this technique Industry Leaders effectively, it’s recommended that you work it into your daily routine. Making - by Acework a good habit out of mindfulness will Of the 2,500 remote workers surveyed in Buff- require some time and dedication, but er’s recent report The State of Remote Work , the benefits on offer make it worth it! unplugging after work hours made the number Consistency here is key, so dedicate 1 spot as the biggest struggle employees faced even just a small amount of time every- with remote working. Loneliness came in day to practice. You’ll find that in no second place, while collaborating/communication came in third. time you can easily enter a mental state to help combat the stresses of worklife. Amir Salihefendic, CEO of Doist, states in the report how “we need to acknowledge that We recommend starting small. Try isolation, anxiety, and depression are signifi- just 10 minutes a day and see how it cant problems when working remotely, and we goes. From there, you can increase the must figure out ways and systems to resolve amount of time spent and really begin these complex issues.” to master the skill. Setting a fixed time 1. Loosen your grip on policies every day, perhaps when you wake up or before you go to sleep, will help you While having a well-thought out policy in on your way. place is a good start, it’s easy to become over-reliant on them. In the worst case, A great resource to take a look at they can even make managers lazy and fearful. “They’re frightened of saying the is headspace. They offer some free wrong thing or saying something that may beginner mindfulness sessions where be taken the wrong way,” says Hayley Lewis, they walk you through the techniques a chartered occupational psychologist, and needed to help you reduce stress, founder of HALO Psychology.. anxiety and other problems you may encounter. It’s easily downloaded onto Hayley recommends managers trust their your smart phone for whenever you judgement and instincts. That is, drop the legalese policy content and be courageous need. enough to step forward and have a human- to-human conversation with the person who is struggling.

2. Create a safe space for open conversation and learning

For Doist, mental health is a hot topic because their team members talk openly about it and share their experiences. To reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, the team started a mental health initiative. Among other practices, they prepare a “Mental Health Monthly” to discuss a specific topic such as stress, burnout, or imposter syndrome.

“Navigating mental health is complicated because there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach. By creating a safe space for our

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 59 team members to learn, share experiences cleaning, eye exams or any other treatment and discuss, it doesn’t take long for us to that feels good. realize that mental health affects us all as remote employees, and as people,” says Let’s keep talking Andrew Gobran, People Operations at Doist. While mental health is a complex and nuanced 3. Lead by example topic, the more conversations we have in the remote community the better chance we have At Buffer, Marcus Wermuth (Mobile Lead), to find solutions to isolation, burnout, anxiety shares with his team and direct reports and depression. how he takes care of his mental health, which includes therapy appointments. By At acework we are warriors for greater flexibility being open and transparent, some of his and happiness at work. We are always curious colleagues were comfortable enough to let how the rest of the remote work community him know that they, too, sought the advice gets this done. Get in touch and let us know and help of a therapist. your ideas and best practices (hello@acework. io). “We consider therapy appointments just like any other health appointment. Leaders and This piece was originally published on Linke- managers are open with their teams, offer- din & Medium. Read the full article here: LINK ing an open and comfortable environment that reduces the stigma,” says Marcus. All Buffer employees also have access to Top Dos and Don’ts of staying Joyable, an online digital therapy tool that healthy when working from offers proven solutions for depression, anxi- home ety or stress. - by TopContent 4. Embrace compassion There are so many pros to working from home! As human beings, we all want to be seen Saying goodbye to long commutes, traffic and and heard. thinking about a wardrobe are some of them! However, taking care of both your physical and Going back to leading by example, manag- mental health is paramount if you are serious ers and leaders should consider tapping about pursuing a career in remote working. At into their inherent sources of compassion. Topcontent, we have put together a few do’s This is a tried and true method of helping and don’ts for our employees. Enjoy! team members, who are struggling with mental health challenges. DO … mind your hygiene

Next time you notice or have a feeling Feeling fresh from a hot shower will give you someone on your team is struggling, keep a boost when starting the day! Change into the following in mind and have a human to some “work clothes” anyway. It will help give human conversation: you separate the work from the home part of your day! - Hey, I see you - I’ve noticed DON’T … stay indoors all day - I care enough to say something about it Without realising, days will pass and you won’t 5. Take an Unsick Day have left the house. The great thing about working from home is that you don’t really have to In addition to sick leave and a flexible time- be at home. Take your laptop outside and find off policy, Buffer is a founding partner of a great wifi hotspot and work away! a program called the Unsick Day. Every employee is encouraged to take at least once DO … set up an office space a day a year off and book in for preventa- tive treatments such as: counselling, dental Likewise, it’s important to have an office at home to help you concentrate and give you

Everything you need to know 60 about working from home - Ebook. that sense of “going to work”. You don’t need to redesign your home and if space is tight, grab yourself a corner and make sure everyone knows that’s it off limits when work is on.

DON’T … snack

With the kitchen in arms reach, mindless snacking will creep in. Stock up your fridge and pantry with healthy alternatives such as fruit and nuts and stick to a time dedicated for lunch - it’ll help you get your break in too!

DO … seek company

It will get lonely - human interaction is still important. This is a quick fix: • Integrate social breaks into your routine • Work from a local coffee shop or co-working office so you can feel part of society • Go to networking conferences or arrange a meetup

DON’T … procrastinate

Remove things that can distract you and prevent you from getting on with work. You can deal with this by establishing a routine, having a schedule and sticking with it.

DO … mind your posture

Working from your bed and/or couch is a no-no. Invest in a good office chair and make sure your computer screen is at eye level. Consider a standing desk too.

Now you know how to stay healthy and enjoy all the great benefits of remote working, why not sign up with us and give it a shot?

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 61 Global Work From 14 Home Day

After going through all the tips, tricks check out the Remote-how Academy. and advice, we’re sure that you’ll now It’s an educational platform powered be equipped to make the most of by and for the community of leaders your time working from home. As we of distributed teams. Think of it as an mentioned before, we originally tied online campus, where you get to meet this in with our Global Work From and grow with top remote manag- Home Day 2019, which ended up being ers from all around the world. Every a fantastic success. We had 140 compa- skilling program offered as a part of nies participate, 1.2 million reach on our Remote-how Academy is prepared and socials for the event, and 1200 people delivered by industry experts working sign up to download this e-book! Over- for companies like inVision, Buffer or all it was an amazing celebration of Doist. working from home for all employees and employers around the world, and an amazing way to promote the benefits of flexible work arrangements.You can also keep up to date with the event and network with other remoters by searching the socials for #WorkFrom- HomeDay every year.

It can seem a bit daunting at first, with a lot of areas to cover and think about, but when everything is taken into consideration you can really begin to reap the benefits of working from home. All aspects covered within this e-book have been contributed by a number of different remote work experts from around the globe. By sharing their experience and expertise, you’ll be able to miss some of the pitfalls and get off to a flying start in your remote career!

If you’re interested in taking your work from home experience further and want to learn more, then you can

Everything you need to know 62 about working from home - Ebook. partners

Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 63 Everything you need to know 64 about working from home - Ebook. Everything you need to know about working from home - Ebook. 65 Everything you need to know 66 about working from home - Ebook.