We recently crowdsourced some tips from our community to help you and your colleagues with remote working and well being during the COVID-19 Level 3 & 4 phase.
The above photo is from my remote Friday catchup, the wine is Cross Hares Pinot Nior Greenman 2017 and it was delicious.
Please do share your tips as well! Take care, Bronnie.
Working remotely
- Over communicate with each other. Set up a #watercooler channel on Slack to keep the social discussions happening
- Identify and ask for equipment that will make your work life from home easier (a laptop stand, taking an office chair home, monitor). Some tips on what you might need in this Stuff article
- It is OK to slow down productivity in order to make sure we get the quality and supportiveness of our work right
- Daily virtual stand-up meetings – all hands, projects, daily weekly, 1-on-1
- Know the best way to communicate with your team. Try a communication style questionnaire.
- Take regular breaks, get away from your desk, don’t eat lunch at your desk
- Change your location from the dining table to the bench, to the couch, to the BBQ table, etc
- Are there others home when you’ll be working? Set some ground rules
- Consider flexible working i.e. start early, finish later, work a split shift, work less hours.
Collaboration
- If you don’t have any collaboration tools, get some. Loomio, Zoom, Teams, Slack, Yammer are good places to start.
- If you do have them, use them more!
- Daily virtual all hands and project team meetings
- Use the screen share option.
Mental well being
- You’ll need to change your daily routines working from home. Take a proper break for lunch. Try to get out for a 2-3 short walks a day to freshen the mind and get the blood flowing. I’d also highly recommend staying away from social media which is anxiety inducing for the most part. Headspace is a meditation app and they’ve made some stuff available for free at the moment, including a 10 minute guided meditation walk.
- It is important to recognise that this is uncharted territory for all of us. There are no wrong questions and no bad ideas. We are all here to help each other and we are a family who will work through this together. If you are feeling anxious or worried, talk with your manager,PO or coach. If you need further support, please take advantage of our EAP programme
- Daily quiz via teams (this is going to be hilarious)
- Remote yoga 3 times a week (our lovely instructor yogawithimogen.com will be teaching us via video)
- Weekly competitions – we love exercise competitions and will be adding others to keep us all connected and motivated
- Company subscriptions to Calm, Headspace, etc
- Monitor your sleep quality, maybe actually start limiting screen time (talk a walk instead). If you need more sleep, take it
- Learn NZSL or Te Reo
- “What I saw today” chats with colleagues or on Slack or Yammer
- Exercise
- Get your pets involved
- Take regular breaks, get away from your desk. Don’t eat lunch at your desk.