Light at the end of the tunnel?

We’ve all been on calls over the past 12 months that have been interrupted by kids, pets, delivery drivers. I had my own experience a couple of weeks ago, but had fortunately forewarned the people on the call. My wife was heading out to an appointment, leaving me to multitask working and looking after our newborn twins. As a call overran, she offloaded one baby onto each shoulder, leaving me unable to click to leave the call, much to everyone's amusement...

What’s the point in telling that story? I’m glad you asked. Even now the world is starting to open back up bit by bit, the ‘WFH life’ is bound to remain in some shape or form for the foreseeable. It can be pretty difficult to keep focus, especially with screaming newborns and a toddler set on causing chaos at every turn chiming in on calls and meetings.

I've had quite an eventful time during the pandemic - getting married, moving house, 2 new babies among other things. I wanted to give my take on life over the past year and a bit - some positives I've taken out of life at home, and how to get the most out of the ‘flexibility’ brought about by the pandemic.

WFH Life

I certainly wouldn’t class myself as a ‘natural’ homeworker. Office interactions, working collaboratively with colleagues, and the ability to separate home and work are massively important – it’s not so much a lack of productivity working from home, but more from a mental health perspective, I need to be surrounded by people. It can be more difficult to switch off from work and concentrate on family life without having that physical separation of coming home from the office, so setting good habits and routines are key! I’ve learned to embrace Fred wanting to say “hello” to colleagues and clients or colouring in on my work notebooks, but it’s something that obviously comes with challenges of maintaining professionalism, particularly when speaking with people outside the agency.

I found it so important from the initial lockdown to set a morning routine before opening the laptop of a morning, be it going for a run, or taking Fred to nursery – just to be able to get out of the house and dust off the cobwebs before starting a day’s work. I'd wager I'm not alone in having experienced days of drifting through meetings with no real direction - but getting out for some exercise is key to beating those days.

That said, working from home does have its clear advantages. Getting to spend more time with the family, having lunch together most days and making sure that I can keep my parental responsibilities of an evening is brilliant. I’ll also take the time at this point to shout out the CDS management, for being so understanding around the challenges that inevitably came with our new arrivals, because the flexibility they’ve offered has been absolutely invaluable to our young family! Having 3 children under 2 years old is an incredible thing – but it also means we’re clearly outnumbered, and we know it. At a time where we’d usually be able to accept help from family and friends, we’ve had to be quite insular as a result of the pandemic, which has been lovely – but tough in equal measure. So, knowing you have the support of your employer and colleagues is incredibly reassuring.

Now what?

I've been itching to get back into the office since we received our original marching orders back in March last year, so it's great to now be able to do so. We're in a brand new office in Leeds, which is an unbelievable place to work, and we're looking forward to welcoming people to see it.

As the restrictions ease, we’re looking to get back to the office more regularly. This will inevitably be a hybrid model for the foreseeable, as even for those that love and miss the social element of working in an office environment, we’ve become accustomed to this scenario that was forced upon us.

I’ve spent time thinking about the positives that this involuntary situation has brought about over the past year and a bit, and have boiled it down to three things:

1.      Tech adoption – how strange did it first feel when we started doing everything virtually? The first team stand-up, the first video quiz, certainly the first pitch or presentation. Fast forward a year and it feels almost natural. Whilst it took a while to learn new skills, it’s definitely one positive we can take from the situation. It’s even given us the opportunity to meet new people we perhaps wouldn’t have previously, as it removes geographical factors and gives people the opportunity to conduct meetings in pyjamas and/or flip-flops.

2.      More time, better time – where done properly, working from home means more time to do what you want to do outside of the work environment. Removing the time spent in traffic, on public transport etc. frees up more valuable time to spend on things like the weekday lie in you’ve always dreamed of, spending time with family or sneaking out for a round of golf in the evenings, if you’re that way inclined…

3.      Collaboration – for me, there’s always been an element of “we’re all in this together” since we first went into lockdown way back when. A collective understanding that everything’s a bit sh*t, but if we all pull together, it might all turn out OK in the end. Both inside and outside the work environment, a sense of collaboration and togetherness has been key to us getting through it.

This is just my take on what’s been an incredibly challenging and bizarre last year. It’s important to take the positives where you can – in absolute honesty if I manage to leave the house without baby sick on my shoulder, that’s a pretty decent result.