Remote work wisdom; from a WFH pioneer
Working from home has been part of my work life for the last 12 years. After taking two periods of maternity leave, when I returned to work I started to work more flexibly, both in terms of time and location. This allowed me to spend more time with my children (my most important job), and to continue to earn and learn.
Note I said work ‘more flexibly’ rather than work part time. Unfortunately, working for a major global bank, the emails didn’t stop arriving in my Inbox on the two days I wasn’t officially working. I still had to manage them when I returned to my desk. This differs to those who worked the more typical five day week where emails tended to slow down or stop over the weekends. But the flexibility was important to me, so I learned to work within those constraints. I was also lucky enough to have three excellent ‘job share’ partnerships, something I highly recommend to those wanting to work more flexibly. That approach provided me with more balance.
As for WFH (working away from the office, or “living at work” as my husband calls it) there are many pluses and minuses.
Pluses are the extra time available to support my family and the obvious time and cost savings from not commuting. There are also cost savings from the reduced need for childcare. Although these days those savings seem to have been eaten away by inflation!
But commuting did give me some “me time” which it is very important to create for yourself if you aren’t going to the office. I have two dogs which does help get me outside.
Sometimes – particularly before remote working became more prevalent – you have guilt to overcome about taking time out of your day. Easier to do with a colleague in the office who says "fancy a coffee", than when working independently from home. Fortunately, I have worked for supportive managers who know I get the work done and I can manage my work based on outcome, rather than hours. But I know not everyone is so lucky.
But, just because you don't have to leave the house at 7:00am for the commute, doesn't mean you should open your laptop earlier. This is still YOUR time. Also, make sure you carve out time for breaks and lunch. I found working from home I was able to plough through emails and work much more effectively as there are fewer interruptions, but it does require discipline and routine to be productive.
I started a new role during the pandemic and didn’t get to meet my direct manager or team. This did impact relationship building and meant it took longer to build trust and show what I am capable of. I get much more work done at home, despite periods in the early days of endless Teams meetings. The interactions with my team over video calls was useful particularly when I was newer in role and didn’t know how processes worked, or what everyone did.
The pandemic helped demonstrate to many people that working productively from home was possible. The shift to using Teams, Google Meet and Zoom etc. happened overnight and accelerated the acceptance of remote working. Something many of us had been pushing for over many years, particularly working parents like myself.
But as a team, we found that not everyone found working from home their preferred workplace. Be it managers nervous and mistrusting of not being able to actively manage team members, or employees who found they weren’t able to focus at home. I remember calls with young team members, working from their bedrooms. It felt a whole world away from my experience of working in an office when I was their age.
I now work for my husband's company where there is no office. We all work remotely and so there is a level playing field. The FOMO on drinks in the office, or someone's birthday donuts, or being able to meet a senior leader at the water cooler is eliminated. But it is important to have channels regardless of which tools you use - be it Slack, Teams - that are just for non-work chats. These interactions are what keep us human and it can be harder to dow when working remotely. We also have daily stand ups so we know what everyone is doing and can support as needed.
Do I miss the office and getting into a suit? Yes, sometimes. But overall, I have a great work/life balance working remotely, and it’s become easier post lockdowns now more people understand that ‘remote work works’.
From trial and error over the years I understand the importance of managing my time effectively. I also intentionally focus on building deep working relationships. That was often easier to create face to face in an office. But on balance, I love working remotely and it’s been a key enabler for my career over more than a decade. Long before the great WFH experiment during Covid!
Ruth Makgill is the Business Assurance Manager for ‘Spend Network’ and ‘Open Opportunities’, two remote first companies located in the U.K. She is a change management expert and has worked on transformation projects for large global organisations, with a key focus on HR, talent acquisition and recruitment teams, processes and systems.