Working Remote and The First Few Weeks
As you may of heard by now, crayon has some new faces among us. In fact there are several more people then were mentioned in the release.
Now, I’ve found working remotely to work quite well, but the first few weeks that there are new team members seem to be the hardest ones. For me personally this is because I don’t know the people yet. I haven’t sat down over coffee with them and talked about anything and everything. We haven’t figured out how to work together just yet. Sure, some of these problems would be there even in a traditional “gray place” (coffee tip to Brogan) type of office environment but in a remote sense it is even harder.
Thankfully with webcams the distance isn’t felt as much. Getting on Skype with someone and being able to see them is a huge help. At first I didn’t think ti would be, but you’d be amazed how much it helps. As software gets better and you can have more then just one on one video conversations it is going to raise the benefit exponentially.
I’m curious what other people out there have found about working remotely and for you what is the hardest thing?
I really can’t wait to get to NYC again soon so that I can sit down and talk to my new crayonistas. Sure, we are talking a lot about work and such lately, but I want to socially hang out with them. That is when a team really gels and comes together and that is an area where any form of virtual doesn’t come close to reality.
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Comments(1)
“..about working remotely…”
I have been the Marketing Director for a chain of retail stores in Canada for about a year and a half now, working remotely from home, because I live in a different city than our head office.
Working remotely has some advantages:
-less goofing off
-more quiet time to really concentrate
But there are some serious drawbacks:
- personal life can be more difficult to keep separate from work time (at least with 2 young kids at home).
- If you are ambitious, it is difficult to resist putting in a couple extra hours in at night when you should be relaxing. I’ve sometimes worked 12 hour days when feeling stressed and pinched for time, done too often can lead to feeling fatigued and burned out.
We found skype with video rather clumsy and just as interruptive as phone calls, so most of my communications with staff and CEO are still via email. We meet up once or twice a month for face to face meetings.
and for you what is the hardest thing?”
Not being in the office or in our stores all the time leaves me feeling like I don’t have my finger on the “pulse” of the company anymore, some issues that arise I am often left out of the loop. I feel working remotely will always be a compromise, and no technology can make it quite as real, engaging, and interactive as actually “being there” (not yet at least).