We had no idea how to live without spontaneous meetings, delicious coffee and fun gatherings at lunchtime or after work. But we managed to minimize the loss of efficiency and benefit from the new experience of remote work for us. Here are the decisions that were made and what they led to.
Instruments
Even before remote control, we set tasks in Jira or Trello, communicated in Telegram and checked the time in TimeDoctor. With the transition to a remote work format, these tools have become more in demand. The positive experience of using the first three services is unconditional, but the mention in IT circles of the word “time tracker” gives a high probability that they will start spitting poison at you. But for us, this tool makes our work more comfortable: thanks to it, we ourselves choose when to come to work, how long to have lunch and how often to pour coffee and go to the next office to discuss who spent the weekend.
And it also allows you to coolly analyze your own effectiveness - all kinds of reports give you an understanding of which tasks took more time than planned, and the ability to correct such situations in the future. TimeDoctor in a couple of clicks shows statistics on employees and% of their time spent on solving tasks for a particular project. This helps to most accurately solve the business problem of calculating the costs of payroll for each direction of the company.
TimeDoctor made it possible to painlessly switch to remote work in one day: we continue to work in a free schedule and no one has any questions whether an employee is currently working or chilling at the dacha with a phone in hand.
Traditionally, our working day lasts 7 effective hours. Realizing that changing conditions is a stressful situation, in April we shortened this time by an hour, which allowed us to get used to the new realities more calmly.
At first, many guys were faced with the fact that a workplace was not equipped at home and there was no powerful equipment necessary for comfortable work, and sitting on a kitchen stool for 7 hours noticeably discourages the desire to become an employee of the month. Therefore, not only laptops, monoblocks and accessories, but also familiar comfortable chairs migrated to everyone. If there was a need for new equipment or software, the company quickly bought everything needed.
Zoom has become a new tool for us at a distance. With its help, we conduct both working calls and support informal communication. Among others, it compares favorably with the ability to record conferences, less lags with a large number of participants, as well as a simple change of speakers. We also actively used the background change function.
Despite the well-coordinated organization of remote work, we still have office tasks. Therefore, it was possible to escape from a persistent neighbor with a puncher in a corporate abode, but subject to a number of conditions:
- come only by appointment;
- carry out all hygiene measures;
- to be indoors in splendid isolation.
The processes
Of course, the transition to a remote work format and the transfer of all communication to Telegram and Zoom could not but affect the peculiarities of interaction within the team. If in the office space we solved some small issue instantly, simply by asking a colleague sitting next to it, now we have to tap the text on the keyboard and wait for the fiber-optic cable to bring it to the addressee. Previously, when an employee had an idea, we immediately discussed it, everyone could add details. Colleagues from related areas shared their experience, gave examples of good or bad implementation of this. Spontaneous ideas often grew into something worthwhile. Online, there is no desire to bother the team for a trifling conversation. And this is perhaps one of the most tangible disadvantages of remote control.
So that valuable information is not lost and every employee is heard, we have abandoned weekly meetings in favor of daily calls to Zoom. They usually take no more than 20 minutes. Within the departments, everyone shares the results of the work done, talks about problems during implementation and plans for the current day. By the way, such calls are not only a way of informing and flexible control, but also additional motivation: I want to complete my tasks as soon as possible so that there is something to tell about tomorrow.
Before the pandemic, we adhered to certain principles of Agile project management, but did not obey anything completely. After going remotely, we began to actively implement a unified Scrum methodology in the processes of development teams. In our opinion, it most effectively solves the problems of distributed teams. We plan to continue using it after leaving the office.
The new work format forced the planning horizon to be greatly reduced, narrowing it down to a month instead of the usual three. In addition, the quarterly week traditionally ended with events with presentations of the work results, which were attended by all office employees. Since we have three offices, we could only watch in person the speeches of colleagues from our city, and see the results of other projects in the recording. This time, we brought together representatives from all offices and talked about the successes and failures of the ended period on the air. To some, this format has gone even more.
Motivation
Under the conditions of the new, temporarily deformed reality, the range of options for team motivation has significantly narrowed. Praise to those who make Telegram sticker packs, in which it is easy to find an animal or a famous character showing a thumb! But seriously, it is very important to demonstrate to employees the results of their work and contribution to the overall success of the project, albeit in writing. Have a record attendance per day? We are sharing this great news. Has the new functionality introduced by the programmers freed up the support specialists' time? We send rays of gratitude to colleagues.
We make sure that depressive moods do not develop in project teams, we try to set a positive tone for general calls and remind employees that they work in a team and the actions of each of them are important for the entire holding. As before, we praise and reward promising initiatives with prizes. During three months of remote work, one employee even received a promotion.
An important circumstance for all employees is that they will not lose their earnings, and there will be no staff reductions. The IT sphere has hardly suffered from the transition to online, so this decision was quite justified.
If we see someone's performance sagging, as before, we use an individual approach: together with the employee, we look for what interferes with work and try to fix the problem. Communication and motivation have become one of the main tasks for managers in the new environment.
Corporate life
With the onset of self-isolation, gyms, dance schools and even libraries were closed. We decided to motivate the employees who were bored of self-development in our own way: we launched the internal corporate movement #MarathonModeco.
For a month, the guys competed with each other in three directions: improving the intellect, body or the world around. Someone lost weight and ate right, while someone read books, studied English, did needlework. Many were inspired by the idea of clearing up the rubble in the apartment, because before that there was not enough time for this.
Any employee who was ready to carry out daily tasks within the framework of the chosen program could take part. For successful implementation, he was awarded points, which grow under the condition of continuous completion of the chain of tasks. As a result, in each category, we determined the winners who received prizes and recognition from the team.
We also added up all the points we earned and turned it into a cash fund that we will spend on landscaping Volgograd and Voronezh.
We laid in the marathon not only the idea of overcoming ourselves, but also filling the lack of live communication. The guys had to get out of their comfort zone more than once, but the feeling of unity with the team and excitement did not allow them to go astray. As a result, we managed to implement several tasks:
- acquaint colleagues from different cities better;
- find motivation for their personal growth;
- to strengthen the corporate spirit of the employees locked at home.
The gatherings in the office so beloved by us have migrated to the format of zoom parties. Of course, they do not take place so often and in large numbers, but this is a reason to dress up beautifully once again, finally tell all the latest news, and, of course, play something funny and funny. Those who love more serious entertainment also did not stand aside - our fans of KVIZ also managed to go online.
Disadvantages of remote work or why we still dream of returning to the office
We have identified for ourselves a number of tangible disadvantages of remote control:
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We went to a remote location on March 16, which means that for the fourth month now we have seen our colleagues only through the cameras of laptops and computers. For some, this was a real test, so in addition to gloves, masks and antiseptics, we purchased bactericidal recirculators and hand dryers for offices, and since June we have increased the number of employees who are allowed to be in the office at the same time to three people.
We are looking forward to returning to our usual office life. Taking care of the health of our employees, we have left the online mode for now, despite the official lifting of restrictions. The question of continuing to work from home even after quarantine is not worth it, we do not believe in completely remote work. Live communication and collective problem solving, generation of crazy ideas and their joint implementation for us is the most valuable thing in our work.
During the entire period of self-isolation, we did not interrupt the hiring of employees. Among us there are those who have yet to personally meet colleagues and experience the benefits of working in an office. In the meantime, we continue to work remotely, quite successfully coping with most of the difficulties.
