6 Tips For Remote Working:

Tunley engineering has always been a 100% remote working business, the flexibility of it has always allowed us to meet the needs of our clients, especially internationally. However, the nature of a fully remote business means nearly everything we do is online and that has given me a list of 6 tips I thought I would share with you to make it a little easier on those it is new for: 

• Dress Smart (kind of) 

While your company might not have a dress code anyway and even more the idea of wearing a full suit and tie while sat at home might be laughable to you but it won’t be to your clients so when meeting new people dress for the occasion, even over zoom first impressions last. 

Further-more when there is no longer a commute, you lose the little things that you do that separate work and home but that does not mean you cannot create them. Things like still wearing work attire (to a small degree) will help you focus while on the clock and crucially help your mind switch off when the day is over.  

• Take Time Away From Your Desk 

In many office settings, lunch breaks provide an opportunity to socialize, take a moment for your mind to think about something other than the task at hand and return with fresh eyes. When we are working from home the day can quickly lose its structure so make a conscious effort to take time away from your desk and whenever possible GO OUTSIDE! 

• Positive Procrastination 

You are not 100% on task every minute of every hour, no matter how much your boss would love to think you are, and that was before you were working at home. We can only stay fully focused for a certain amount of time (there are many books on this subject) and while many people would berate you for procrastination (mainly yourself) this can be done in a healthy way. 

If you feel your mind wondering surely it would be better to spend 10 mins reading a relevant book then mindlessly scrolling social media. This is one of the many things I discuss in my time management online training session (which you can book a place on the next date here). Setting clear boundaries 

Setting boundaries as to when we can be interrupted is always difficult but a plus side of remote working is, we can make this easier. For example, we use Microsoft Teams and you can set your availability to ‘busy’ or the blunter ‘do not disturb’ when you are on task and really do not want to be distracted.  

The subtle but effective thing this does is mark your name with a red icon giving pause to any pesky colleagues so they can evaluate whether what they are calling for, merits ignoring your request to be left alone.  

This 'do not disturb' function can always be used for breaks too – just book them in using your calendar like you would a meeting. #

• Communicate and adapt  

While it might be desirable, you will never be able to fully copy and paste peoples working practices from the office to the home, seems obvious yet many teams are making futile attempts to do just that.  

Be prepared to open the floor to discussion about how you can make small changes, to adapt to the unique situations of your team within reason. It is likely your team will not come to you asking for this without prompting.  

Can you change some team members working hours to better reflect their home responsibilities (homes with children currently off school etc) without a massive disruption to the wider team? 

• Daily updates.  

A simple thing that can be a short but brief message or a strictly 5-minute meeting at the end of someone’s day just keeps everyone informed with what is going on, might have even more benefits now we can't just catch each other as we pass by.  

When people begin to work from home, for the first time you can find yourself becoming hyper-vigilant of their actions, time, and levels of productivity to an unhealthy level.  

A simple daily update does two things; firstly, it helps managers resist the urge to fall into the trap of micromanaging but still make the team accountable. Secondly, it lets the team know what needs doing and by when, so they know clearly when the day is done, reducing the new work from home anxiety.  

• Embrace the experiment 

While the very function of some businesses can’t allow for remote working, this doesn’t change the fact this time, while difficult, has opportunities for experimentation.  

This isn’t just limited to ‘can we run this team remotely in the future?’, but also experiments in working practices, time management and the smaller details of teamwork.  

This time, which we are never going to get back, allows us as leaders to try different things with how we run our teams, some of which you might keep for the future, some of which you’ll totally discard but then at least you will know.  

As much as we are all itching to get back to normal, don’t let that obscure the opportunities that are hidden by these circumstances.