For much of the pandemic, remote working became part of everyday life for most of us. For some of us, it still is. Upstream – the company I work for – chose to keep a hybrid model. Even in a hybrid system, the idea is to offer flexibility, so I find myself now writing this piece in a village atop a Greek island. Is it that all I need to do my work are my laptop and a good internet connection? These are obviously the basics but there are other steps to make remote working really work.
As I mentioned above, my team works under a hybrid model. This means that, as a rule, we show up at the office at least three times a week, while we can work remotely on the other two days. I find this to be the ideal option between full office attendance – which does not allow for much flexibility – and full remote work, which can, at times, feel isolating.
To facilitate office attendance, we keep an Excel tracker and since there are three of us, we try to have one day where all of us are in, so we can catch up in a more direct way and take care of tasks that need physical presence (this mostly means obtaining wet ink signatures on contracts and filing and couriering documents).
While we do track office presence so that we get things done more efficiently, there is no system in place to track remote team members’ work. We issue reports and trackers on the legal team’s work, but not tailored specifically to remote working. In terms of completing tasks correctly and on time it does not and should not make a difference whether work is done in the office or remotely.
It helps tremendously that there are tools available to allow us to work from home, which are now considered standard tools for all businesses: e-signature platforms, video call tools, corporate messaging apps, and specialized training platforms offering videos and quizzes. In several countries, administrative tasks, that legal departments routinely handle, such as filings and obtaining certificates, have also been digitized.
It is obvious that I appreciate the option of working remotely, as it can afford me flexibility in balancing home and work life. Further, working from home is useful at times when my tasks require a deeper level of concentration which can be hard to find in a bustling office environment.
Still, remote work has its challenges. I have found the biggest one to be onboarding new members and making them part of the common corporate culture. We did struggle with this during the pandemic and I have not been able to identify a definitive solution to this issue. Instead, after four years of practicing remote work, I find that there are small things that could help with making a new member feel part of the team and understand its values and priorities.
One of these is frequent check-ins – it is easy to forget you are part of a team and not pay attention to your teammates, especially during busy times. However, it is important to remember that they are there, even if they cannot be seen.
Precisely because my team felt that we were losing the team spirit, we instituted weekly catch-up calls, that were not structured around a definite agenda. Instead, they were meant to be relaxed meetings where we could make small talk and say what was on our mind without necessarily focusing on specific tasks – we would raise these in other meetings. An important detail that makes all the difference in this kind of meeting is that the video camera should be switched on – the whole point is for team members to have some face time. Last but not least, team meetings and corporate events outside work, like company Christmas parties or environmental initiatives help in that direction as well.
Conversely, the other challenge many people face when remote working is figuring out how to unplug. There are no physical boundaries when you work from home so very frequently you could end up getting overconsumed with work. This was especially evident during the pandemic because of isolation rules in various countries. What helps in this case is having a dedicated workspace/station at home, if at all possible, that can be left behind at the end of the work day. In practical terms, a proper desk chair and a big screen, as well as managing all these cables, can be very helpful and make working from home safe and much more enjoyable.
By Eleni Stathaki, Head of Legal, Upstream
