The virtues of remote working…
In the past couple of years, we have noticed a shift in the way people work. We have started to receive requests to introduce remote working to help people achieve a better work/life balance.
Then in 2016, one of our team needed to move back to Spain. We decided that rather than lose a valuable member of staff, we would trial remote working. After 3 months, we assessed how this was working, and everything was running smoothly and Patricia, the Project Manager was delighted that things were working out.
With so many companies holding meetings using various meeting software, as well as Skype, we’ve been able to dial Patricia in on these meetings, including our regular all-company meetings.
We were concerned about Patricia feeling isolated, but she still gets to speak to colleagues and join in with the usual company activities. She also gets to visit the UK every 3 months or so when she comes and work in the office for a week, staying in nearby accommodation.
We then received a request from our Vendor Manager, Irene, asking if we could offer the same remote working, but working from Mexico. Having looked into this, apart from the time difference, we couldn’t see any problem with this. Irene has adapted her working hours so that she’s online early in the morning in Mexico, which means we can liaise with her after lunch each day and she’s available until late UK time.
And last but not least, Gabby, our Accounts Manager had the opportunity to move out to Spain to live and wanted to take it without having to give up her job with ALM. As a key member of staff who has worked with us for many years, we agreed, and she moved out on 19th March and is trialling this way of working to see if it works out in terms of the accounts function.
Pros & Cons of remote working:
Pros
- Staff get to keep the job they love
- We get to keep the staff we love
- Different time zones give us flexibility, including bank holiday cover and additional hours in the day.
- We have opportunities to set up offices in other locations.
Cons
- We have a lot of events in the office that involve food – international bake-off days, company lunches etc. and our remote staff can only watch us enjoy these treats from a remote screen!
- For us, they have better weather and often sit around in t-shirts, while we’re wrapped up in several thick woolly layers!