Working remotely

As companies are asking their employees to work remotely (read at home) due to the global coronavirus outbreak it seems from the articles I’m reading that no one has ever worked from home before. Companies are having managers go through virtual training on how to manage remote employees, there are articles about which tools are best, how to setup your home office, when to take a break and it goes on and on.

I look at this and wonder why in the 21st century this is even an issue?

Then I step back and need to remember that I’ve been a remote worker off and on for more than 20 years and this is all second nature to me.

A little about my remote work journey, I started working from home when I worked at a conferencing software company using a 4800-baud modem, compared to todays internet access that was painful. Later at a different company I became the only Canadian working for a Swedish company and used ISDN micro link, which was wonderful. It gave me dual bonded 57.6k channels that could be un-bonded when I made a phone call, it worked most of the time. Eventually, I worked for a large multi-national company and managed people globally all the while working from home using cable provider internet access starting at 10 down and 1 up to where I am now using 250 down and 20 up.

On a side note; there was no company technical support when I started working remotely, I had to solve problems myself. In the long run, the experience of finding solutions and solving sometimes difficult problems has had the added benefit of also serving my career well.

What I found throughout this work from home experience is that whether you’re an employee or a manager you need to make an effort.

As an employee, you need to make an effort to accept work from home is not laundry time, or watch tv time. Not everyone is suited to working from home but if you make the effort, even for the short term, you may enjoy it.

As a manager, you need to make the effort to trust that your employees are getting the work done and you need to virtualize the managing you did by walking around when you where in the office (you did do this right?).

Office equipment and availability has certainly changed since I started my remote work journey and there are way more tools today that are online and accessible from wherever you are and yet the companies I worked for were very successful with our working arrangements.

In my next post I’ll talk about how my office evolved to what it is today and the tools I use in my office.

If you want to discuss your own remote work journey reach out.

Update: fixed a spelling mistake (oh yeah, transparency working remotely is important too)