A while ago I noticed a movement: several friends started working from home. Advertisers, designers, video editors, Developers. It was still a small number of people, but year by year it was increasing. Some good reason should exist.
Cut.
March 2020. Quarantine. Lockdown. Practically overnight companies around the world had to reorganize themselves. Empty offices and streets, everybody at home.
Without prior planning in the vast majority of cases, things got messed up.
Few people had the adequate space and the necessary equipment to work comfortably in their homes. Not to mention the parents who had to reconcile work with a more intense and demanding family routine than ever. Besides millions of people who unfortunately had no option and ended up losing their jobs.
The companies weren’t used to it either — and neither ready for this moment. Many didn’t know how to manage their teams from a distance. The demands and the workload varied from very heavy in some cases to idle in others.
But after almost one year of this new normal, I understand more and more the friends (and companies!) who migrated to this work model.
At Talk2U, we work with OKRs and biweekly sprints. This means that we have a long term vision and know what to do in the short term.
I know my tasks. I keep a schedule. But I have flexibility. And working from home, that makes a huge difference. Because I can organize myself to make lunch (day in, day out), an invigorating break in the afternoon (and not just stop, have a coffee and go on), play with Nina (the sweetest dachshund in the world) and even play a guitar (the guitar is a great friend, it’s incredible how things can be magically solved in my head while I play some music).
Of course, the distance also brings some awkward situations. “Everybody is seeing my screen?” turned into a mantra. That presentation that you dedicated a long time to create, now is received in absolute silence (everyone is on mute, just listening to you!). But for the sake of truth, whether in pandemic times or not, here at Talk2U meetings with clients and partners would happen by video call anyway. There are people in Argentina, Brazil, England, USA, China and many other places in the world.
Small parenthesis: much more interesting than meeting people from different countries, is to see how our chat stories keep traveling with incredible scales. And yes, they do arrive in the capitals and big cities, but it’s especially beautiful to see how we open conversations in the most distant and remote corners, delivering free entertainment that also informs and generates positive changes in the behavior of young people from these communities. Besides, of course, we also learn a lot from each comment and response we receive.
So, it is undeniable that the pandemic has affected our daily lives, shaken our mental health and, worse, left a huge number of victims. But at the same time — and still deprived of a regular family interaction and leisure activities — I am very happy with my routine today.
And curiosity: apparently I’m not alone. According to this research commissioned by IBM in eight countries, people want to continue working remotely, whether exclusively, most of the time or occasionally.
Even with the majority of the population experiencing the remote working model in the worst possible circumstances, it is approved. After this pandemic and all the limitations it brings, working from home will get better and these numbers will probably grow.
Each company has its own peculiarities, and I’m not the one to say how each one should act.
But here at Talk2U, this equation is working very well. And every day we work from home, we talk to more people around the world.
