Work from Home

And here we go again. 600 odd days into the pandemic and the government has directed that if you can, you should work from home. It’s difficult to articulate the impact. We recognise how these measures have opened up a whole new culture of working from home and it’s been a revelation for many. 

Employers and employees have realised the many benefit of this working arrangement. For employers it may mean reduced overheads leading to higher profits. For employees it can reduce the time spent commuting and a better work life balance.

That being said, there is a difference between having the option to work remotely and being told you must. The one thing that you are not allowed to do is the one thing you long for. Our working days were busy, filled with cups of tea and hallway chats. Working schedules meant that your interactions were varied and interesting. Stories about pets and children were laughed about over lunch and in between all that we actually achieved our daily working goals.

We have been here before

The only good thing is we have been here before. We have our communication processes refined. Our informal chats will move to Slack and our Notion boards will keep us aligned now that you can’t simply ask a question from across the room. Daily morning video calls means that at the very least once a day we all get to see each other to maintain that human connection that we all need.

Our clients are all dealing with the same issues that we are and there is an empathy, an understanding that we are all trying our best under extraordinary circumstances. Ideally the contracts and the handshake would happen in person but for now we will have to settle for a friendly wave in Zoom. We have become very used to creating Plan B’s to make sure that the programmes don’t grind to a halt. The key is and always will be communication. That is the true beauty of the digital landscape and technology. It keeps the connection alive and allows us to meet the expectations of our clients.

For now we will keep trying to improve our offering and deliver quality results  for our clients. There is an uncertainty in the air and that can be unsettling but there is one thing you can rely on and that’s at least once a day you’ll have to say these four profound words.

‘You are on mute!!!‘