- the problems encountered and how they were resolved;
- technical equipment (which the home office took with them);
- internal and external communications of teams.
Denis, Firmware Team Leader Says
Problems
Bright Box employees even before the pandemic had the opportunity to work from home 2 days a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When the house became an office, psychological difficulties began in the first place - many found it difficult to recreate the work context at home. Family relationships, habits, information background interfered.
First of all, we in the team faced the problem of a downed regime, which in extreme form turned into insomnia. The question demanded the introduction of a daily routine - we strictly determined the start time of work, breaks in it and its end. Further, the team made a decision on the need to separate the working and non-working spaces. Someone put together a work desk, someone equipped a room, someone a balcony. HR and office managers took care of and provided employees with everything for comfort - ottomans, table lamps, office chairs. Everything so that the work was associated with a specific space, entering it meant the beginning of the focus on tasks, and the exit meant relaxation or switching to household chores.
On the positive side, we noticed that the lack of office noise increased the speed at which tasks were completed. And even despite the fact that additional meetings and the organization of new information flows partially restored this background, the productivity of employees increased compared to the office.
Synergy among team members has suffered the most in the move to telecommuting, and it is critical to completing complex tasks more efficiently and finding better solutions.
Technical equipment
The programmers took with them the operating telematics devices of three versions of our product in order to conduct remote support and develop new functionality. An approximate set of devices for each was as follows: 9 telematics devices of the last three versions, 4 programmers, a harness for connecting an emulator, transmitters with harnesses, CAN Hacker, a laboratory power supply, 3 tachographs, a USB port expander.
Communication
The specificity of our team's work is that we conduct research on cars and it is important for us to have their physical presence near the office, or the opportunity to work on the client's territory. Code writing and debugging, functional tests are also performed on real cars.
But due to the pandemic, we have shifted our focus to remote research. A competent employee is assigned in local offices or on the client side. With the remote assistance of our engineer, he performs research work, collects and sends information for analysis, and performs minimal tests. Based on this, the team provides a solution. This approach is fraught with limitations, but in the current situation it allows you to continue part of the planned work without relocation and business trips. Partially employees carry out work on their own vehicles or the vehicles of colleagues.
By Pavel, Head of Technical Support Team in Russia
Problems
The difficulty of working remotely in a team arose mainly among employees with children. Depending on their age, children may not understand that the parent needs to work all day and cannot play with them.
In addition, the physical presence of the team is still sorely lacking. But we are trying to solve this problem too. To support team spirit and employee awareness, a number of events are held weekly by the HR team.
Technical equipment We
did not have to invent anything new for our work. We use all the tools every day, even outside the period of self-isolation: VoIP telephony, a system for tracking incidents, internal services for working with equipment, etc.
Communications
Our clients are divided into two types. Aftersales customers who bought devices for their cars and car sharing operators. We provide the latter only with information support. As for aftersales clients, we help them remotely, as always. Technical support specialists have a shift work schedule, which is why it used to be so that if the shift fell on Saturday or Sunday, they helped clients from home. Clients call the first line of support, which helps us to initiate requests to the incident system, or write to the mail, which automatically starts the same requests. Next comes assistance by phone or mail.
By Ivan, Head of the Product Development Team:
Problems
For us, the transition to remote work happened imperceptibly, since our team had previously worked in a similar format. We have always used the opportunity to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we have long ago established a remote communication system that fully replaces personal contacts in the office. With the advent of remote work, our team solved the problems that took place - all employees are available during working hours by mail, by phone, in instant messengers, and there is no need to look for them in the back streets of the office.
At the beginning of the transition, everyone was worried about the uncertainty. Many were ready to go to work in another city / country, but did not dare, as they might have to return to the office next month. Now this question has disappeared. We will not return to the offices until the end of March 2021, or we may completely switch to a remote format.
Technical equipment
Since the foundation of the company, the tools and technical solutions that we use in our work have been designed for maximum employee mobility. Everyone has a laptop, some even have two, so there are no problems with access and work goes smoothly. If someone's working equipment breaks down at a remote location, our IT department can urgently send a laptop for a replacement. Everyone has the necessary access to office or cloud technical sites.
Communications
Our team works as self-sufficient as possible, so interaction with other teams is minimized and, in the case of remote work, it is not critical for the performance of our tasks. On the contrary, it opened up new opportunities for us, for example, you can go to a mountain slope or to the sea for a long period, continue to work remotely and increase immunity.
By Sergey, Head of Project Management Office
Problems
The transition to remote work was fairly easy and smooth. At first, the transfer to quarantine was perceived as an indication of action. And, to be honest, first of all, they thought more and more about the continuity of the implementation of business processes, the maintenance of all project activities. As soon as we were convinced that all processes continue to be carried out at the proper level, we began to optimize communications, solve “everyday” problems and monitor the state of remote employees. At this stage, it was important to receive feedback from employees and respond quickly. The company actively assisted employees in creating a comfortable work environment at home. It has become a good practice to discuss issues related to remote work during personal online meetings with employees, as well as meetings as part of regular annual and interim assessments.The main difficulties did not lie in the plane of the technical ability to perform their job duties remotely, but rather in the field of organizing the space for remote work and integrating work life into home life.
Technical equipment
In the early days of quarantine, everyone was solving their everyday issues, trying to equip a workplace at home. The company provided an opportunity to order from the office the delivery of any necessary equipment and office furniture. Someone had to change their home router to a more powerful one, and someone had to buy an additional antenna and change the mobile tariff in order to provide a reliable communication channel in a country house or in the country. All other resources required for work were already available with the Internet.
Communications
Working with remote employees is not new to us. This is not a novelty for us, but the transfer of all employees at the same time to this mode of operation caused some difficulties. When managing a remote team, you need to devote much more time to team communications and one-on-one meetings. Not surprisingly, at first, all available slots for calls and online meetings were completely packed for 2-3 weeks in advance. Additional activities were conducted with employees requiring micromanagement and more frequent monitoring to discuss the rules of remote work, the mode of availability and the response time to requests from colleagues.
In addition, during the quarantine period, we signed several new contracts, including with existing clients. One of them is a rather large project with our partner in the UAE, in which many engineers from Moscow were involved. The project was led by an employee from the Hungarian office, and the consultant was an employee from the office in Dubai. As part of the project, we had to organize the work of employees in the office, since we needed access to the vehicle under study and specific equipment, as well as coordinate a business trip to Dubai with the parent company. The organization of the trip turned out to be a quest, since despite the official statements of the authorities about the opening of flights with the UAE, it was simply impossible to buy a plane ticket at first. Of course, everything ended successfully, the employee passed all the necessary medical tests,completed all the formal procedures of the country of the sender and the country of destination and successfully completed all the tasks. Under normal circumstances, organizing a business trip in our company is a well-established business process that absolutely does not require your involvement. However, this time the entire team closely followed the organization of the business trip and the movements of the colleague, since the trip was decisive for closing a large stage of the project.as the trip was decisive for the closing of a large stage of the project.as the trip was decisive for the closing of a large stage of the project.
Since 2017, Bright Box has been part of the international insurance group Zurich, which is focused on the health and safety of employees of all companies that make up its structure. Therefore, we are in no hurry to open our offices, we do not send people on business trips, we compensate employees for the costs of coronavirus tests to be able to work in the office, if it is absolutely necessary. And today, when hiring a team, we focus less on office “goodies” and more focus on the list of real advantages of “remote work”. Here they are:
- An employee can work from any location in the presence of the Internet;
- New work experience - our engineers have found a way to test vehicles remotely.
- No need to waste time on the road;
- Saving money for lunch, you can stick to your diet and diet;
- Scheduling working hours as you wish;
- The opportunity to spend more time with your family;
- Increasing the level of self-organization and responsibility;
- The warmth of waiting to meet with your colleagues;
- Saving money on office maintenance (purchase of stationery, tea, coffee, etc.) and business trips;
- More opportunities for distance learning. Employees have become more actively engaged in self-education and are happy to take online courses on the educational platform of the Zurich Insurance Group.
Once upon a time it was difficult for us to imagine that in an instant all companies will switch to a remote work format. We took it twice a week, so we managed to quickly rebuild. But most employees still admit to the need to communicate live with colleagues at least several times a week. So we are not yet ready to completely abandon the physical office, are you?