SURVIVING COVID-19 CONDITIONS THROUGH REMOTE WORKING

WHAT THE STATISTICS SAY

• A recent study shows that on average, remote employees are more productive and work 1.4 more days every month, or 16.8 more days every year, than those who work in an office.

• 50% of remote workers plan to be their own boss one day.

• Remote workers save an average of 408 hours, or 17 days a year from not having to commute to and from the office.

  Source: Airtasker | March 31st 2020

Working from home is no new thing for me.

In fact, it was something I had to fight for in my current job when my then boyfriend (now husband) and I decided it was time for us to build out the next chapter of our lives in Oakland, CA, where he lives.

It was a hard ask and I knew it.

So much so that I expected a firm no from my employer. You see, I work in Marketing and Marketing is the heart of a brand’s business and it is generally expected that we are seen and heard. 

So with me being the Head of Marketing and leading my team from afar (I’m based in California and my team is in our NYC HQ), granting my request would be incredibly untraditional for a corporate company rooted in tradition, like my employer is. 

The process took about 10 months, from me asking and to getting the yes. I will say, it would not have been possible without my boss advocating for me the way she did. She was absolutely integral to getting the key stakeholders onboard when I was not in the room. This is also a good example where one’s work ethic precedes them. I have always been a resilient hard worker and pride myself on making arduous deadlines. With ten years of tenure and my track record, there was no reason for my employer not to trust the future of my work ethic, because it was already solid and that spoke for me. So now, 8 months later and we are in the thick of the COVID-19 quarantine. Most of us are working from home. As someone who is a loud advocate for working remotely, when we finally come out on the other side of this, I cannot wait to see how companies update their remote working policies to allow for it more broadly. Corporates will be forced to slacken their grip, re-evaluate their traditional mindsets and catch up with the young indie-brands or startups, who have been the early adopters of this approach. The reality is, employees are leaving their current jobs for roles that allow them this flexibility; even it means accepting a lower salary.

However, I do appreciate that working remotely is new and can be a challenging concept to some.
A lot of you only had a small window of time to prep for this new norm, so here, I am sharing with you my playbook of seven best practices that work for me. I will not for a minute, pretend that these tips will solve all your concerns or that they will work for all, but I hope they at least set you off in the right direction in finding out what works best for your situation. 

1. Set Up Your Space

You may not be commuting into the office but for this to work, you will need a routine and a dedicated physical space to work.
Set your alarm for the same time each working day, just as you might do normally when going into the office. I set mine to go off an hour before I have to start work. That means I am up at 5am, ready and positioned in my home office for a 6am start, since my team begins their working day at 9am in New York City. I have a home office slash second bedroom, so this is where the work-magic happens. During this quarantine season, my husband is also WFH with me and takes the dining room as his unofficial work space. Since our home office is much warmer, I recently suggested we swap locations at lunch time, because it was important to me that we make this temporary situation comfortable for the both of us. It is easy for tensions to surge during this time, so level out the playing field and be fair. 

Talking about room temperature, aim for a balance. Too warm and that might send you to sleep; too cold, and that may make you unfocused, distracted and therefore, unproductive.

Tip: Get an adjustable standing desk. There is plenty of research out there speaking to the health benefits of standing more. I enjoy taking calls or short meetings while standing. Brings a little more varied activity to my working day.

2. Set The Mood

I’m a mood kinda lady. Think lights, fragrance and inspiring visual connection.
I like to set a scene.
An example of what this looks like for me is having my vision board in sight to remind me of how I want to show up each day. I also have one framed photo on my desk of the exact location my husband proposed to me in Viñales, Cuba. Imagine a peaceful country green meadow, blue sky, mountains, utter bliss. Whenever I feel stressed, or if I have just ended a frustrating conference call, just connecting with this visual reference for a short time, directs my energy more positively and very quickly, gets me back into my productive zone. 

It may sounds strange but fragrance is big for me. In a previous piece I wrote here, I mentioned my discovery and use of Palo Santo each morning, especially when my work calls for me to put my creative cape on. Yes cape, not cap. Who knew a fragrant piece of wood could do so much? It has become my go-to ritual for when I want to achieve relaxation and focus. Plus, it smells divine and now my mother is all over it too.

Anyone who knows me personally, knows that my DNA is composed of all things music. However, while working, music is only a maybe for me. It has to be without lyrics or an instrumental to keep me in the zone. This yoga-meditation style playlist on Spotify does the job. I do also rate brain.fm, a scientific-first approach in creating functional music that improves focus within a short time. It is subscription based, but worth it in my opinion.

3. Check Your Tech

If WFH or WFA is new to you and your team, you have to show yourself to be as reachable as before.
Get with your IT department ahead of time and make sure you have seamless access to all the files and systems that you would usually access in the office. Your audio connection has to be strong. Nobody wants to hear you cutting in and out of a conference call everyday, so make sure you are setup for success. If you have poor data reception at home, opt for wifi calls (if your wifi is strong).

Microsoft Teams and Zoom are great applications for video and audio conferencing, which allow for you to interact with participants through chat and screen sharing functionalities. If using these for the first time, setup test runs with your colleagues before the big meeting so you can be in a better position to navigate through the inevitable technical problems that may arise.

These digital meeting platforms are great collaborative alternatives to in-person meetings. Wherever you can, opt for video calls. Although it is not a direct replacement for face to face meetings, video is the closest you will get to read body language and the facial reactions of your colleagues or meeting attendees which can be key indicators for gauging how your virtual audience is engaging with your content.

4. Exercise

Plan your workout breaks into your day. During this moment of quarantine, all gyms are closed. Even if mine was open, the fact that my work day begins at 6am prevents me from knocking out a workout earlier. So I plan 2-3 15 minute sessions in-between meetings and plug them into my Outlook calendar. If this is what you need to keep your productivity levels up, don’t shy away from committing to this time for yourself. Just let your team know.

Tip: Set yourself up with a few fitness basics so you can workout at home effectively. Resistance bands are great. They take up minimal space, come in various levels of resistance and there are an insurmountable amount of workouts you can do with them, targeting different body parts. Kehinde Anjorin, known as Power In Movement on instagram, has some great ones on her Instagram page. Expect a podcast episode with her soon! So open up some windows, get the air flowing and get lifting.

5. Build in a State Change

No one wants to sit in the same chair, in the same room for 8 hours a day.
Move around.
Take in a change of scenery.
If you are lucky enough to have a balcony, or outdoor space, use it. Just make sure you still have a strong wifi or data signal so you are still accessible to your team. If it is almost the end of the day and I am having difficulty nailing some presentation slides, writing a creative brief or ad copy, I make it a point to take this one task outside and power through to completion. Sometimes the fresh air, or change of state is the nudge our brains need to push through those hard tasks on our to-do list.

6. Tag Team with the Significant Other

Tag teaming lunch and dinner prep with your significant other, house mates, kids etc, can be efficient and save you wasting time figuring out what’s for lunch and who’s cleaning up. Have the discussion the day prior. Better yet, agree to prepare and clean up together. I don’t know about you, but for me, a clean sink is a clear mind.

Take the time to have lunch together. Yes, without the TV (my husband’s idea, not mine; but I am onboard). Use this time to check in on each other’s day or make plans for the evening. Disconnect from work and focus on each other over your meal. When was the last time you had a conversation with your significant other, friends, housemates without the distraction of technology? Great time to change that practice and build that bond.

You will notice there has been no talk of TV in this playbook so far until now and that’s deliberate. TV is a no-go. It is a distractor and can lead you down a rabbit hole. You wouldn’t watch TV in the workplace, so I would not recommend it at home either, during your work day. 

7. Prioritize & Shut Down

It has been said many a-time, but the value of a to-do list is crucial; especially for those of us multi-taskers whose minds tend to jump from task to task, leaving the original item we were working on unfinished because our minds were distracted by incoming emails and requests.

Keep a list of your hot action items in a notebook or digital note-taking platform. I recently migrated from a physical notebook to Microsoft OneNote. That was a challenge for me because I am a collector of notebooks. I have many used and unused ones. I love turning the pages, taking my pen and striking off items from my lists. However, the ability to note-take on-the-go with my iPhone through the Microsoft OneNote app while my changes update on my laptop version, won me over.
Commit to a hard stop. This is one I am working on. It is very easy to work longer hours while WFH as the data above implies. You are comfortable, already in your own environment and don’t have to catch your train back home. But in order to have a good sense of work life balance, this will be essential for your mental health.

By getting the balance of these and other practices right, there is no reason why employees cannot be empowered to be the most productive, highest version of themselves, while being accessible and highly communicable while WFH or WFA. 

I for one truly hope, that employers will see that out of sight, does not always mean out of mind. WFH/WFA will never be for everyone. But for those of us who are more productive working this way, this level of flexibility should be an open judgement-free discussion point between employees and their managers/HR personnel and should at least be an option for piloting (in the beginning) before offering the traditional auto-response of, “No.”

From here on,
Tumi Soyinka