If WFH works for you, what do you do?

[QueSyrahSyrah]

I often see people on MN talking about how WFH works better than the office for them (and presumably their employer if they're still doing it) and I'm really interested in what these people do that works so well in isolation.

I work for a company of about 20 people in an office split across customer service, marketing, systems/operations and accounts and we collaborate and share information between us all day every day, in quick exchanges of words that take far less time than a call or a zoom. We were all back in the office at the very earliest opportunity after lockdown because we were clunky, slow and information sharing was severely hindered by home working, especially for less experienced members of the team. We were all really frustrated by it.

I can't imagine working in full time in a situation where I can't just say 'Dave; have you got 30 seconds to look at this with me?' or 'Who was that supplier you wanted me to call back?' or (with a client on hold) 'does anyone know who was dealing with X?' or and receiving an immediate response and resolution.

So what are these roles that work best with little or less team interaction? Or does everyone just constantly call, email or zoom everyone else all day every day, which to me seems extremely tiresome. I'm intrigued!

I work from home and don't have any issues chatting with my team, whether that's hopping on a video call or sending a quick message.

I wouldn't say it's constant. There are scheduled meetings. Outside of that we get in touch with each other when and as needed.

Because of core hours, you know that you can get an instant or close enough response during a fair chunk of the day.

I’m an academic (clinical researcher and lecturer). We’ve always worked part of the week from home (I have since like 10+ years before COVID). Nothing ever moves fast enough that it can’t be an email or I could just ring someone.

Being really practical, when we are ‘in the office’ we’re likely spread across several buildings due to teaching and meetings anyway, so actually much easier to ‘find’ someone now that we are all largely remote.

I work in an environmental consultancy. We use teams. It's much better than the constant chat in an office or distractions from people yelling out questions while they're on the phone. I would never go back to an office now.

We've been a fully remote team since 2006 and there are LOADS of tools and practices that make it incredibly effective for both collaboration, tiny check-ins like you're describing, as well as focused solo working.

During lockdown we were approached by a number of other businesses to share how we make it work – and that's the bit that may be missing for your company – learning from established remote teams how to work remotely in an effective way.

"Work from home" long term isn't actually just 'working from home' – it's becoming a remote team and running your business accordingly. You're right - just putting everyone in their house instead of an office isn't enough. It requires a culture shift and some investment of time and energy to make it work.

We're in occupational health administration and we work entirely from home. It works well. We can get everyone nearly instantly via Teams.

Exactly this.

In my current job (and my last one), the office is never full anyway as people will be scattered across campuses, teaching, in meetings, in the library, taking research days at home, visiting placement sites etc.

We work very autonomously on our own teaching or research and for everything else there's Teams / email / whatsapp. Sometimes it's nice to be face to face (and obvs we are for teaching students) but much of the time it's not really necessary.

Finance. It's easy to discuss work with a colleague over teams.

Have WFH since before Covid, very very occasional F:F workshops/training but that's maybe twice a year.

Global company, over 3000 permanent staff and about the same again consultants/temps spread across pretty much every country so working across multiple time zones and languages.

My immediate team are based out of the U.K. (Midlands, London and North East) and the US (New Jersey, Texas, Florida, LA, Arizona and Vegas).

I work in Information Security, Governance, Risk and Compliance so have to be able to interact and have meetings with people all over the place, it is t really possible for it to be a M-F 9-5 job so being able to do it from home via Teams makes the most sense.

I write scientific software. I've wfh since 1995, and before that I was never in the main office as that's always been in the US. A lot of what I do needs head down concentration; communication is fine by email and zoom/Skype. I've got colleagues all round the globe - wfh makes it much easier to find times to talk to them if necessary though email works best anyway for many things.

I work for a not for profit organisation and myself and my team are all fully remote. I bloody love WFH!

We have team catch ups a couple of times a week but aside from that we have a group chat on teams where you can do that "Dave have you got 30 seconds to discuss" type thing. We do call each other a few times a day but I don't find it tiresome. It's exactly the same as working fin an office and discussing various things throughout the day!

Teams chat. It’s quicker than talking.

Project manager
My stakeholders are national and none in my local office so I rarely go in as would likely be sat on my own
Travel as needed been out 4 times this year so far and we as a national team have quarterly meetings

That's what Teams messaging is for though. It's the new equivalent of chatting across the desk.

I work in a middle management role in financial services. Fully at home other than maybe two F2F meetings a month.

Work in insurance. I work closely with people in the US and Asia, wfh allows us to work better with the time zones.

We have scheduled catch ups with our line managers and direct reports once a week. I prefer this as when I was in the office I always felt I was interrupting my manager when I had a question.

Chatting across the desk can be quite disruptive if you do anything that requires concentration. When I did work in an office, we'd quite often email each other (this was before teams or even Skype I think!) if we could see the other person looked busy, so they could reply at a more convenient time, rather than butting in.

I work for a housing association, but team members are based across the country as we are a national service with properties across all of England..

I do have an office, but if I'm lucky there might be 2-5 people in it as we're a satellite office. So, instead of working on my own in an office, I may as well work on my own at home. I do go into the office twice a week, mostly for a change of scenery than anything else.

I pay out pensions and am the team go-to person now. We use teams for quick questions message, call or shared screen as appropriate.

Our productivity rates are higher at home than in the office.

Teams chat. Far less distracting than having colleagues walk up to my desk and interrupt me multiple times a day, but can still get a quick response to questions when needed. Obviously we also have scheduled meetings for things that require more structured discussion.

Thank you for the interesting and varied responses!

I guess with us there's a time-sensitivity in our business, both in the respect that things can happen unexpectedly that need to be immediately addressed (chaotic all hands on deck at times) and in terms of customer service and never having to have a client wait a second longer than necessary for the person or piece of information they need. Many's the time I've heard a client say 'Good Afternoon Mr X' while I've been busy on a call and been able to slide Mr X's file or quote across to them so they've got what they need to assist him. Wouldn't be possible without being able to see and hear each other.

In other parts of the office where they're not constantly on the phone, some people wear headphones as a 'do not disturb unless urgent' signifier.

*heard a colleague say, that should read!

Contact centre. Basically take calls all day

You just use a messenger service...WhatsApp, teams, hangout etc. If you don't know who you need to ask, put it on a group.

Sometimes you do overhead stuff in the office that you need to know but no one thought to include you in.

Downside of the office is trying to work with multiple conversations like you said going on in the background. And getting pulled into things that might not be your specific job.