As you may know, I am working with a brilliant web agency Forge and Smith. A few weeks ago we had a work-from-home day – it was the result of an internet-provider outage in the entire building.
Being a web design company, working without internet for a whole day wouldn’t have been possible. However, there is always a positive. The team pulled together and made it a successful day.
I am reflecting on 5 things that made work-from-home day possible – and how everyone can use these same principles in their work life.
1. Have a plan
With a few short text messages Shawn, the founder, notified every one of the issue and what the plan was. Working from home was no worries for me (although my chair is not as comfortable nor my computer as speedy). I was perfectly set up with my laptop.
2. Have a backup
All files are stored and backed-up to Dropbox instantly. This made working from home a possibility and a breeze. We all logged in and were ready for work as usual shortly after 9am.
Without a backup to a cloud service, working remotely wouldn’t have been possible. Returning to work the next day – everything had synced back to our office workstations and the work day proceeded as usual.
There was also a backup plan for those that didn’t have reliable internet at home – simply commuting to the closest café or colleague’s to use the wi-fi.
3. Communication is key
We all know that communication is important. What work-from-home day enforced to me was how important having a clear and open communication and structure in place is.
Slack is already used for inter-office messaging – this worked perfectly from home; so communication barely skipped a beat. It also reinforced that sometimes talking is the quickest and best method: never be afraid to make a call to talk something over! Subtleties in communication are often missed or misinterpreted via chat. A friendly tone and a laugh here and there go a long way.
4. Teamwork
I am so lucky to learn from and be working with such a talented pool of people. The team pulled together – I got the support I needed and worked from home with no issues.
5. Take every opportunity
Everyone seemed to take working from home like champions. There were two main advantages for me:
The first one being coffee… well kind of, but not really. I took advantage of the extra time not having to commute and hit up my favourite coffee shop JJ Bean (Forge and Smith also did their website). After tweeting about it, it fostered a fun interaction between the brands:
work from home day @forgeandsmith means coffee from my fave place @jjbeancoffee #loves
— Damian Jolley (@damianjo) November 18, 2014
@damianjo @forgeandsmith now we’re blushing. — JJ Bean Coffee (@JJBeanCoffee) November 18, 2014
“@JJBeanCoffee: @damianjo @forgeandsmith now we’re blushing.” Thanks for keeping us happily caffeinated!
— Forge and Smith (@forgeandsmith) November 18, 2014
@forgeandsmith @damianjo and thank you for keeping us alive on the interwebs! :) — JJ Bean Coffee (@JJBeanCoffee) November 18, 2014
“@JJBeanCoffee: @forgeandsmith @damianjo and thank you for keeping us alive on the interwebs! :)” You bet! We love you guys!❤️❤️❤️
— Forge and Smith (@forgeandsmith) November 18, 2014
The second advantage for me was I was able to hit up a 40 minute spin class at the gym in my lunch break. (The extra 20 minutes sleep was an added bonus too).
That was 5 things that I took away from work-from-home day. How would you handle a working remotely? What would you do if you didn’t have internet or lost your work or computer? Do you have a back-up plan and would you be able to cope? Tweet me @damianjo and let me know.
