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You should start working remotely once a week

Ready to work from home?

Do you know the benefits of remote working? Do you doubt that it would work for you? Would you like to give it a try? Don’t know how to convince your boss or even how to start?

If so, I have something for you.

This article is based on my experience of having the complete company working remotely once a week for the past few months.

Remote working has been growing in the past few years but for some organizations can be a change difficult to accept.

If you are in an environment with resistance to Remote Working, the best way is to propose a small experiment. The best way to prove a hypothesis is to test it following the scientific method.

I suggest you present the case to the leadership presenting a few reasons (listed below) and proposing a small experience to prove them.

5 reasons:

  1. Studies report that working from home has a huge impact on productivity.
  2. It’s a benefit the company gives which can help to hire people.
  3. It reduces costs both for the company and employee.
  4. Leads to an improvement of the team communication skills.
  5. Happiness
    1. Studies report that people who worked remotely were less likely to leave the company.
    2. Health improvements.
    3. Less time spent commuting.

How to start

After presenting a few reasons supporting your case, the best thing to do is to propose an experiment to evaluate the results.

  • Start small. I suggest starting with one day a week.
  • Set a period for the experiment. I suggest to never do it for less than 3 months since in the first weeks everyone is still adapting.
  • Try to block a day in the calendar. For example, schedule a recurring “Remote Wednesday” meeting.
  • Try to organize the work to leave remote days free of meetings. If you have a creative job, this is a good day to focus.
  • Make sure that everyone has a good pair of headphones.
  • Make sure that the team has the right tools to facilitate the communication (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom or other).

Don’t forget to define a few success metrics and define how you will evaluate them.

If you have other technique to start this journey, please share!