March 24, 2020
Working from home - what I’ve learned as Local Welcome’s full-time remote worker
Celia Mellow, operations
My name is Celia and I am a remote working member of the team at Local Welcome. My role is centered around operations: putting everything into place to make our Sunday meals across the UK happen. However, as a member of our small, agile team I am lucky enough to also dip my toe into other areas of work such as service design, user research and comms.
When I joined Local Welcome in 2018 I was fresh out of university where I enjoyed a full social calendar. I would spend my time around other human beings as much as I possibly could. This is what made moving on to a full-time job where I spent most of my days alone, in front of a laptop in my new rented house very daunting. Naturally, it took some time to adjust but with the support of my team at Local Welcome, I got there in the end.
At a time when working-from-home is becoming a necessity for some workplaces as we face the Covid-19 outbreak, I’m taking this opportunity to impart my wisdom after almost two years of experience.
I have sorted my working-from-home advice into four different areas. Here they are from me, to you...
1) Routine is key
Not having a commute or a daily place-of-work will feel odd at first and you may find it harder to summon the motivation to start your morning at a reasonable time.
Don’t be tempted to stay up late and lie-in longer (or, at least stop doing this once the novelty has worn off!). Your commute, whether it was a walk, drive or bus ride will have required high concentration levels and you may find that, with this missing from your morning routine that it’s harder to ‘wake up’ your brain. In your drowsy waking moments, remember what The Chemical Brothers say:
“Don't hold back, 'cause you woke up in the morning with initiative to move, so why make it harder?”
Consider rescheduling some of your usual evening tasks (laundry, cleaning the bathroom etc.) for the morning as a way to get you up, moving, motivated and energised. As a bonus, this is also a good way of reaping the benefits of having all this extra time at home, especially at a time when hygiene is more important than ever.
Or, if starting your morning with chores sounds like the worst start to the day imaginable, use your stomach as motivation and treat yourself to a nice hearty breakfast. Why not cook up something that you wouldn’t usually have time to make on a working day?
Mix up your working-from-home clothes and see what feels best, whether that’s dressing casual to be comfy or slightly more formal to get your head in the working game. At Local Welcome, we have a whole range of working-from-home clothing preferences! It’s surprising how chilly your home gets during the day when you’re usually in a well-heated office, so bear that in mind when assessing your options.
Be active on your lunch break - resist the urge to throw a quick lunch together and then immediately go back to sit at your desk and eat whilst watching Netflix. Why not go for a quick lunchtime walk (government advice permitting), or hang up the washing that you put on that morning? Getting up and moving improves your wellbeing and boosts your productivity.
2) Tailor your space
I sustained a sporting injury last year. That meant being indoors all day and missing out on non-work activities. Looking back, the thing that really helped me was sticking to my golden rule:
To only spend time in my front room (where my desk lives) between the hours of 9am-6pm on Monday-Friday.
My home workspace 😊
o ensure that you can switch off as much as possible outside of working hours, I recommend that you try your absolute best to create a separation between your work and your personal life in your home.
Whether that’s by having a designated desk in the corner of a room where you can spend less time in the evenings or by making a conscious effort to put away your laptop and clear away any paperwork after finishing up for the day. Treat yourself kindly.
Work from a good chair that supports your back well or, failing this, prop yourself up by placing a firm cushion against your lower back. For laptop users, consider getting a laptop stand for optimum home office posture protection - Local Welcome gifted me with mine. 😊
Get your creative juices flowing by changing up your surroundings from time-to-time. Try working from a café (post-Covid-19-outbreak) or even outdoors. Whilst sitting in my garden, making final edits on this blog, a cat climbed along the shed roof and a very loud bumblebee buzzed around the buddleia bush for a little while. Both of these brief interruptions lifted my mood and made me feel less lonely. Alternatively, consider sitting in front of an open window to soak up some fresh air and inspiration.
You may find that you miss the hustle and bustle of your office, especially those of you who are self-isolating in a one-person household. A perk of working-from-home is that you needn’t worry about being too noisy for your colleagues, therefore, consider playing some music (like I do) or switch your radio on in the next room (like Claire does) to optimise the ambience of your space.
3) Keep in touch
Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask questions if you’re unsure about your work. Offices exist for a reason - most work can’t be done without some form of collaboration. You are worth your colleague’s time and your questions are helpful and important, not annoying.
I wish I’d been there to tell my nervous graduate self this when I first started out in the world of work. I owe it to our team at Local Welcome for building up my confidence on things like this, to the point where I can now wholeheartedly pass this advice onto you now.
Until recently (thanks, Covid-19) I travelled down from Derby to our London office once a week. I always look forward to all the small moments of communication whilst we work in our co-working spaces and the catch-ups (and fits of laughter) as we eat lunch together.
If your whole team is working remotely, bear in mind that everyone is in the same boat. Don’t be afraid to inject some humour or friendly anecdotes before/after remote meetings and to check in on how everyone is doing.
If this isn’t happening organically already then the chances are that your colleagues might be holding back through fear of showing their vulnerabilities in a professional setting. Why not make the first move and break the ice?
After all, the Covid-19 outbreak is a stressful, isolating and uncertain time for everyone and sharing some friendly words might make a colleague’s day - I’m sure they’ll thank you!
4) Use digital tools
To adapt and thrive as best as we can as a team in this isolating time, we have increased the time slot for our morning ‘stand-up’ meeting (where we each talk about what we did yesterday and what we’ll do today) from 15 to 30 minutes, to fit in a bit of chatty time.
We have also booked a slot into our afternoons where we check in with each other, catch up and ‘show and tell’ what we’ve been working on. We use a tool called Whereby for all of our video meetings and have done for more than two years - we are big fans!
As I reflected earlier: offices exist for a reason - most work can’t be done without some form of collaboration. Some other digital tools we use regularly at Local Welcome to visualise our work, collaborate remotely (and which have our big stamp of approval) are:
Slack - we keep in touch, ask questions, share updates and share our work throughout the day on this office instant messenger.
Trello - we organise and visualise our workloads across the team here.
Miro - we use this as a team weekly on Mondays (whilst screen sharing on Whereby) to review and debrief our Sunday meals and plan any actions. Think an infinite whiteboard and an endless supply of post-it notes which every team member can contribute to remotely.
Of course, there are things to bear in mind whilst executing your workplace's digital revolution. Make sure that your cybersecurity policy is reviewed accordingly and be on hand to support any colleagues who might be less confident with tech.
As with most things, this is a case of finding what works best for you, your team and the work that you do. I hope that reading this has been helpful and that you’ve found some things to try out. Happy home-working! 😄
Celia Mellow is the operations lead for Local Welcome. Say hello at celia@local-welcome.org. Find out more about getting involved as a leader or a member here.