How does it look like to work from home?

If you are like me, working from home pretty much means 0 motivation and productivity, eating cheese, wearing sweatpants and no bra, until I basically loathe myself and take an oath to never do it again. I kept that promise as much as I could, but how does it look like now that I am forced to do home office?

Nightmare? Nope. Because I forgot one thing, I work for the best company: FareHarbor.

Preparing for it like James Bond on a mission

As a manager, you are supposed to lead by example. As soon as the rumor spread about a possible Working From Home announcement, my first reaction was to panic. How I am supposed to lead by example when I am legitimately the worst at WFH (and that is why I stay away from it)?

As soon as I started to breathe again, I knew that just like James Bond I could count on M (Managers team) to help me plan this remote mission. We met, we shared our concerns but also where we could see opportunities. On top of that, I could rely on Q (Questions time) - I contacted our amazing People team and they gave me tips on how to make sure I stay focused, organized and can apply it to my team.

We all prepared our WFH plan that we share with our teams, clients, and stakeholders. We were READY for it.

How do we work from home with the team?

I often get emotional when talking about my team, to the point it becomes uncomfortable for people who have to listen to my cheesy speech about how great they are.

And despite the circumstances, I can tell you the team didn't disappoint. They set up their home desks for success...

We meet every morning at 9:30 am to kick off the day: we set up priorities, share updates or doubts, mood, questions each other on projects. We have already mastered the use of emoji on Slack to update our lunch break statuses. We keep every meeting we had, we are just used now to wave frenetically at our screen to greet each other. We stole the Product Team idea of a Remote Coffee Time, every day at 1:45 pm...to keep the spirits up! We stay available and supportive of each other.

Most importantly: no matter what, we move forward with our work and projects. We are all in this together! James Bond would never shy away from his tasks, even if he had to work from home...

The tribe is real

During my interview process at FareHabor, the EMEA General Manager, Jess, kept telling me about the company's key value "We are a tribe, like an Ohana". A bit corny, I thought. But I like corny.

Thing is at FareHarbor, it is not just a buzzword or a communication line we deliver to attract talents. It is real, and the last days have proven that to me more than ever.

This morning, our CEO reminded us in a video that our safety and health will always be the number 1 priority. He also reminded us how social our company is. To keep cultivating that, a work-from-home Slack channel has been created. It is our space to fill with pictures of home-schooling, home desk arrangements, cats ready to demo clients instead of their owners, organizing virtual lunches or highlighting progress and success with our projects.

Yep. The tribe keeps shining!

Keep doing what you were doing, no matter what

We are still keeping our 1:1 with our talents. We are still having meetings with the managers to share results, updates, and questions. We still work and support our clients no matter what.

We are even keeping Nooncore - an awesome initiative launched by the Product Team, where at noon we meet up to do 10 minutes of Abs workout (Did you know? Lunchtime exercise boosts productivity).

Except that now, instead of meeting in a corner of the office, we all make sure to put our pants on, meet in a Google Hangout and we all do planks from a corner of our flat or garden, while our pets watch us in contempt and wonder why we have suddenly invaded their space.

This is what every company should do: keep caring for employees, keep working for clients. And even do better, making the most of this situation where we all need to support each other...

...told you I like cheesy.