Five years ago, I used to work in the UK office of Curzon PR when an unexpected family issue made me give my notice at work in order to return to my home country of Argentina. In my last week at the office, I had a conversation with CEO Farzana Baduel to discuss the possibilities of working remotely from Argentina. She agreed, and we ended up signing a last-minute agreement of me working from home, from another time zone altogether.

It was a sudden and unexpected change where I now found myself working from my home in South America while the rest of the team worked from London. Working remotely has always been my dream as a child, so I really wanted to keep this job. Feeling the lack of not being there face-to-face, I worked hard and tried my best to provide a better service than from when I was working in the office. In doing so, I made all the typical mistakes that most employees make initially when suddenly thrust into remote work. Focused solely on being a good remote worker, I neglected my physical as well as mental health –– from breaking my back by sitting for long periods to hardly leaving my house for one year.

Eventually, though, I learned what really matters (results) and what doesn’t (how many hours I am on my desk), and adapted my work style accordingly. While some people suggest separating work and life, I have personally found the flexibility great. For example, if I do little 10-minute chores around the house in between work, it saves me massive amounts of time later. Five years now, and remote working has been one of the best experiences I have ever had. It has allowed me to sharpen my skills, be an effective communicator, focus on results, and have a proactive attitude.

I was the only remote employee at Curzon for several years, but that has changed now. Back on the success of my remote working experience, the whole team at Curzon has now started to work from home since the last 2 years.

If you are one of the employees struggling with adjusting to sudden virtual working because of the COVID-19 pandemic, here are the key lessons that I have learnt. If you are a business owner, feel free to share these with your employees on how to have the best experience of remote work.

10 Tips to Have the Best Remote Working Experience

1. Set up an ergonomic home office

Ergonomics is the science of having a workplace that is designed for efficiency and comfort. Earlier, I had been sitting on a chair for 9 hours, and it gave me severe back pain that refused to go after several therapies, massages, and even shamans(!) I then got a standing desk two years ago, and it has changed my life. Now my arms are in a perfect position and the screen is high so I don’t need to bend my neck anymore.

Besides reduced pain in neck, arms, and back, I am also more active and my performance at work has improved. Standing up allows one to release stress hormones that are good for keeping focussed attention on work. It has improved my attention and response speed as it is like I am always on a tranquil alert mode.

2. Implement Agile methodologies

Agile is a way to approach projects that began in the software industry, founded by Toyota in Japan. Agile working implies the implementation of Kanban methodology or more often, Scrum. Scrum and Kanban are both iterative work systems that rely on process flow with an aim to improve performance.

In essence, agile working is a way to bring together people, technology, and processes to do work in the most effective way. It improves the team’s delivery processes and speed.

Originally, agile teams worked closely together in one office, had face-to-face conversations, and met daily for 15 minutes every morning for quick stand-up meetings to share what everyone is working on. In distributed teams, agile working could mean:

• Frequent catch-up calls for everyone to share their progress and struggles of the last day/week, and goals for the next day/week.
• When working with team members across time zones, it means updating and finalising any shared tasks before you end your day so that they could pick it up where you left off as they start their day.
• Using technology like Slack, which has been a revolutionary tool for remote communication. It maintains chats in a centralised way.

3. High visibility with team members

While you are no longer working face-to-face, it is still necessary to communicate effectively with other team members. Using tech and communication software like Slack, Zoom, and emails facilitate communication in distributed teams.

We at Curzon also take advantage of collaborative tools that Google offers like the GSuite. For example, we use Google doc to see in real time how others are editing the same document.

4. Visibility with clients

Building relationships by interacting with your clients is fundamental to the success of your work. We use the same tech to communicate with clients as we do amongst our team members.

Remote work with people working across time zones can actually be more beneficial as it allows team members to respond to client requests promptly — while it is 2 AM for one team member, another can reply to a client query as it is workday for them. 

5. Be results-oriented

When I first started to work remotely, I kept waiting for emails and the green chat light to go off, for the sake of keeping my job and to not fail. But after a certain amount of time, I learnt to adapt to the new normal. I transitioned from ‘Do they know I am working?’ to ‘It doesn’t matter because remote work is results-driven’. I stopped worrying about my visibility on chat apps to focus on being visible via effective communication, timely delivery of work, and achieving project objectives.  

Work in the post-pandemic world is going to be more results-driven than ever.

6. Have a proactive attitude

Proactivity and productivity are interconnected. Companies need employees to be proactive even in an office setting — more so when remote. Proactivity is about designing and implementing processes and iterating them to make them more efficient over time. Productivity is based on empathy since it means I think about what a coworker expects and what a client expects.

Some examples of being proactive look like being on top of all stages of a project, anticipating issues before they crop up, asking questions to yourself and answering them yourself — and only then checking with the team to get feedback.

7. Manage time

There are various different tools and apps to help you manage your time. I use the Pomodoro timer for certain projects. The timer basically divides your time in 15-20 minute fragments with a 5-minute break. It helps against burning out — by making you get the best out of your focus and attention in short bursts.

8. Socialise

Working from home may make you feel very lonely as you don’t have coworkers to chat with. But you just have to see possibilities. Before coronavirus, one could go to a bar or co-work at home with friends over coffee. Now, you could organise co-working sessions with friends over Zoom.  

9. Self-discipline and structure

For someone who has never worked remotely, there are several fantasies around the freedom that comes with it. While that is true, it also comes with a lot of responsibility and challenges. You have to personally build up your space, plan your time, and set up processes to achieve efficiency and productivity.

It is not easy for everyone to have this order in one’s life, as enablement of this structure is very personal to each one. But it is worth the learning and adaptation — because companies would naturally keep the employees that have a strong work ethic even when working remotely.

10. Exercise and mindfulness

I would say that one of the most important things to keep your mind focused on tasks in an effective way is to take breaks of 10 minutes to practice mindfulness or yoga. Laying down for 10 minutes, with an alarm, closing your eyes and relaxing can also help.
Also it is very good for your wellbeing to have a larger break. If you have a swimming pool, taking a 20-minutes break on the swimming pool can improve the way you feel.

Conclusion:

Working from home could be a challenge, but it is just a matter of adaptation. We wouldn’t be doing it if it were not better and if it were not working well enough for us to keep doing it.

Curzon PR is a London-based PR firm working with clients globally. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Business Development Team [email protected]