Had a quick search but nothing came up immediately But looking at some examples of best practice for home working. Including, but not just home office stuff – i.e. home office set up, H&S etc, but also ways of working from home especially if you’re blending some home working time and office time? Any businesses out there who are examples of best practice or studies or something?

The company I work for has reduced office space by about 50% over the last year…mainly by old and decrepit buildings becoming uneconomical to bring back to life and have subsequently been condemned while they’ve been sat empty over the last year, so no chance of going back full time and some blend of office and home working is going to be required when things finally ease up and things pick back upto pre-covid levels. I’m looking into how we can manage meetings where some are in the office and some at home (so as not to exclude those dealing in), how collaborative working can be improved and netting challenging the ‘normal’ way of office working, how a traditional company that has thrived on the more informal way of working forever, can drag itself into the 20th century.

There will be some people who will be 100% office based due to the requirements of their job, some will be 100% work from home, but probably the majority will probably be a blend…wether it is a 1 week out of 4 in the office or a couple or few days a week or whatever.

I’m considering a combination of tools and processes…not looking for IT to solve the problem 100%, ways of working and organising ourselves have to be considered too – like new operational models or something like that.

Any pointers to best practice and other exampled os where it works will be appreciated. Thanks.

I think you’re about 6-18 months away from anybody having “best practice” nailed down for blended working 🤣

That said, I work for an American company in London. All my meetings are on Skype (and soon to be MS Team) already.

When we all need to be in a room, people fly over for a (normally pretty intense) week or two to do what we need to do, those that normally WFH come in to be in the room, or dial in and accept they won’t get as much input.
That hasn’t happened recently (obvs) and we’ve muddled along. It’s not as good as being in a room, but you get by.

Good tip I found is.
Keeping the “Insert” key held down, stops Teams changing your status from “Available” to “Away” when you are away from you desk.

Good tip I found is.
Keeping the “Insert” key held down, stops Teams changing your status from “Available” to “Away” when you are away from you desk.

In the old Lync days I wrote a little script that imitated the space key being pushed after x seconds of inactivity to keep me showing as available even when I was in the garden etc 😀

MS Teams seems to be the way my company and many others are going/gone. Sacked off all our properly equipped video conference rooms etc and having something relatively simple in comparison by using Teams is definitely a good thing. We’ve proven that it works well over the last year despite being spread over 6 countries.

Look on eBay for a ‘Mouse Jiggler’

It’s a real thing.

I often just set teams to unavailable to stop people calling me unnecessarily about stuff.

Also, having separate screens to enable the cricket/football/Americas cup/golf/whatever your chosen sport to run one side whist working the other is a good plan.

We’re looking at this very thing, through we’re unlikely to have any 100% home workers.
The best solution so far is to have 1 day per week when all the members of a specific team are in the office. For us that means Tuesdays will be an office day, you can flex around every other day.
This isn’t ideal as Tuesday won’t work for all, but it’s as good as we can get at the moment.

Watching with interest.

I was a WFH person before this kicked off, I hated mixed meetings where you had a group of folk in the conference room and others remote. I find it much easier in bigger groups where everyone is home or everyone is together.

RM.

Also watching with interest. We are working on how to do blended workshops (made even more complex by people being in various time zones), and also how I work with my team on site (at the moment I think I am looking at 2 days a week in the building in due course).

1. Stick on Columbo
2. Make tea an toast
3. Eat tea and toast watching Columbo
4. Light snooze
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4

The best solution so far is to have 1 day per week when all the members of a specific team are in the office.

I can see the rationale behind that, but it kinda harks back to presenteeism.

If I don’t need to be in the office any day of the week, why is Tuesday special? Conversely, at the start/end of projects and milestones, there might be KO meetings and reviews which take weeks to get through and do work better with everyone in the room.

I suspect my industry will go back to being in the office 5 days a week because it’s managed by dinosaurs, even though we were far more productive at home. I’m crossing my fingers that all the noise about going back in will fizzle out if one company says “you can work from home” and everyone jumps ship to go there and/or demands a 20% uplift in salary to cover the real-world inconveniences and cost of having to go into an office.

Did your quick search not run to ‘yesterday’?

Show me your home office!

Loads of home office ideas there.

The Office is Dead

… may also be useful.

Assuming you’re employed (as opposed to say contracting) then your employer has the same obligations regarding Health & Safety that they do if you were to be in an office. It might be worth your while having a chat with HR?

I hated mixed meetings where you had a group of folk in the conference room and others remote. I find it much easier in bigger groups where everyone is home or everyone is together.

Likewise, and I know quite a few places discouraged mixed meetings pre-pandemic – better to have the on-site folk connect separately and have everyone on an even footing. Some technology can help (fancier cameras that zoom to the active speaker, etc), or good meeting leadership/moderation but it’s easy to end up sidelining remote participants.

Decent devices help a lot, so many laptops have terrible microphones and cameras built in – you might think the meeting sounds great but you can sound awful to others. Proper headsets or speakerphones as a minimum, ideally decent cameras (and being able to sit somewhere well lit) for video.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Basecamp “guide to internal comms”. They make comms software but it’s all applicable to anyone else’s – Teams, Slack, Fuse, Cisco, etc. That mindset of avoiding quick-fire chat all day, or constant meetings, in favour of writing things up and doing stuff asynchronously if you can makes this sort of hybrid work much smoother. Think and write away from others, discuss when you’re together, go away again to get on with it.

We will have a similar approach to this:

I can see the rationale behind that, but it kinda harks back to presenteeism.

If I don’t need to be in the office any day of the week, why is Tuesday special? Conversely, at the start/end of projects and milestones, there might be KO meetings and reviews which take weeks to get through and do work better with everyone in the room.

Each team will determine its own frequency of on site days and we will try to cluster meetings into the on-site day – it won’t be perfect but we think it will reduce communication issues that arise from people not being in the same room, or the opposite extreme of the whole world being invited to every bloody call.

If there is no need to be there we won’t insist on it – but if any of my teams haven’t been using the F2F opportunity and then blame comms for a **** up – heads will roll! Similarly we will be able to say we need three days solid to fix this issue so everyone who needs to be is in each day.

… and as others have said,

The only real issue with Teams / Zoom / [insert VC platform of choice here] is that it’s different. There is a mindset amongst some people that you need to be in the same room to have a conversation. We used to have people driving up and down the country for meetings and we’re a bloody telecommunications company. It’s madness, “we’ve always done it this way” is the worst reason to justify anything. This attitude has to change. It can’t not change, the world isn’t the same any more. And I’m not convinced that this is a bad thing.

I was talking to someone the other day who said they felt ‘unprofessional’ because their dog barked during a conference call. Spoiler: the entire goddamn world is in the same boat. The days of people getting sniffy about your suit not being expensive enough are, well, if not dead then at least coming up for air for the third time. Frankly they’re lucky I’m wearing pants. And I’m pretty sure my boss isn’t.

I can see the rationale behind that, but it kinda harks back to presenteeism.

If I don’t need to be in the office any day of the week, why is Tuesday special?

This is something the company I work for is likely to implement (teams decide on 1 day a week to be in the office), I think it makes sense. The main idea is so people regularly have face to face contact with the people they work with so if you have a set day you’re all there together. It’s not perfect though, in my case my team is spread between 4 different offices so we won’t all be in the same place but there’s still enough of us based at each location to make it worthwhile.

We also have some niche challenges (e.g. knowledge transfer involving secure systems with no Internet access and no on-prem Teams deployment so getting people into a secure office huddled around a secure desktop makes things much easier).

I was talking to someone the other day who said they felt ‘unprofessional’ because their dog barked during a conference call.

Our head of Engineering works from his kitchen table and every meeting has the sound of his dog very noisily slurping water, I’d probably miss it if he moved room – every call for an entire year has had it….

Keeping the “Insert” key held down, stops Teams changing your status from “Available” to “Away” when you are away from you desk.

Ive got a free app called “caffeine” running, that does it in the background.
weirdly, it didnt need admin rights to get it going, where most stuff does.

i installed it way before lockdown, cause our machines lock after a single minute of inactivity and have to have a 16 digit “not a word or sentence” password.

Frankly they’re lucky I’m wearing pants. And I’m pretty sure my boss isn’t.

I got asked to turn on my webcam – it’s on my laptop which is closed and under my desk. I did mention this but the client requesting it was very insistent.

They got a nice picture of my crotch, I told them they were lucky I was wearing trousers today. My boss was in the call and all he said was “your carpet need hoovering”

Have a search for the thread a few weeks ago about the best slippers. I’ve just got some new Rab ones. They’re ace. Like big sleeping bags for your feet.

Oh… best practice; just that you’re best off remembering to put some trainers or something on instead when you nip out to Tesco on the daily afternoon wine run

your carpet need hoovering

Lucky you were wearing trousers otherwise that could have a whole different meaning! #NotAEuphemism

There is a mindset amongst some people that you need to be in the same room to have a conversation.

I completely take your point, but I do think that you have a much better conversation if you’re in the same room.

RM+1.

I was working from home pre-covid and my main gripe was around being the only one not in the room even for things like daily stand-ups. Having everyone online is so much better but I can see it slipping back to the old ways over time. Good audio and video facilities in the meeting rooms is key.

I think comments about asynchronous communication are key but my company is so presentation based (ppt’s) that I can’t imagine it working without a big cultural shift.

There was a twitter thread (on here I think) which had loads of good – it not expensive – ideas about how future WFH/office work could look. I mentioned some of the ideas to a director at work and could tell he wasn’t listening. I fear it will be back to ‘normal’ as soon as Covid is off.
RM.

I definitely think one day per week in the office would be a good idea, at least for our team. We have a few juniors that have joined us during lockdown, and it would have been a lot easier to get them up to speed in person.

If you work for a company, then the same Display Screen Equipment (DSE) regulations apply at home as they do in the office. This will be likely under an SOP. The fact that the company has forced you to work from home does not exempt them from responsibilities. Our company gave up to £250 to purchase necessary equipment. So you’ll need a keyboard, mouse, monitor, headset, suitable desk (with specified height) and a five legged multi-adjustable chair. I don’t have the chair, but had the rest already. I like a webcam for mic and camera as it’s a little tiresome looking up peoples noses via laptop cameras. I also like proper speakers as I dislike wearing a headset for long periods.

I rather like the virtual meetings but these were nothing new to me. We have multiple sites in multiple countries.

I did find the ‘show me your home office’ thread but I’m just as, if not more, interested in the process of working from home and not just the work station. Things like how do you keep track of your employees mental health if they’re not in the office and you’re not meeting them face to face regularly…having a 1:1 or personal meeting over Teams or whatever is not the same. How do you manage meetings where some people are in the office and a conference room and some are dining in so everyone feels included and people who are remote don’t miss off conversation that might be happening in the conference room as they often do? How do you build a work culture and team spirit instead of just having a bunch of robots processing dumb numbers or forms…how do you encourage people to come out of their shell, be creative? get the best out of them etc.

There are some things that can only be done face to face so that is why I’m interested in the blend of some WFH and some office working.

And how can H&S be ‘the same’ as working in the office? that doesn’t make sense. I’m in my home. If I need a light bulb changing during office hours do I do it myself or call in a maintenance team to come round and change my bulb qs I would if I were in the office..if that then tens of thousands of employees will have all manner of different bulbs, what if the electrics in my house is not upto the same standard as they’ve have to be in the office? What about fire drills and fire safety? what about the companies policy on recycling etc.. Also working from home doesn’t mean you’re actually at home. I could be in a caravan at Barry Island or anywhere. Why not? Not good enough to say it’s the same as it is in the office. that’s a lazy Union response. If people want to and value working form home then there will have to be some compromise or level of sensible measures or it will be too impractical.

the company I work for would probably prefer for us all to come back to work. They’d be happy to rent in some musty crappy prefabs and dump them in the car park. THey’re pretty old school and like to see they’re getting their pound of flesh, but on the basis we’ve proven as a workforce we can still deliver working from home then they are willing to see what can be done once its all over. I see it as an opportunity as I’d like to have more of a blend and maybe some opportunity to mix up my leisure time with work time and get out on my bike during the day, but given our current internal processes and the culture of working I can’t see how it can be possible without some major changes. It must have been done before so just wondering what is the art of the possible. I’ve been asked to collaborate with the team and wold like to come to them with some ideas to stimulate a conversation and see what they think. If there are some examples of how other organisations do it successfully that would help.

For the office we now use;
https://www.comfyapp.com/overview-for-siemens/

If you want to work in the office or a meeting room you just book it from your phone. Seems to be working well just now.

Only log onto Skype for meetings.
Sign out of any other similar instant communication devices.
Redirect Skype calls to your mobile.
Large meetings plug in speakers instead of headphones and do housework.
Open your manager’s calendar and take breaks when they’re in meetings.

I’ve worked from home for the past few years – and my feeling is that you are overthinking this.

we do a home office health and safety questionnaire, once a year. It’s pretty comprehensive, with any issues escalated to a persons line manager automatically for discussion/resolution. I guess they key is having budget to resolve any issues that come up re: chairs, screens etc. Your main issue mandating that people work from home is going to be one of space – some people just don’t have the room for a proper wfh setup, so realistically you will have to allow these people to remain office based.

Re: meetings, its pretty simple, everything is zoom/webex by default – it’s just a case of getting used to it, so you just need to start. Even if I did work from an office – my team members are all in different countries anyway, so I would be sitting at my desk conducting teleconferences.

Oh: and just use MS teams. it does your instant messaging, telephone calls and video conferences. It does loads of other stuff too, but having those 3 things in one place, and integrating with outlook too, just makes it all easy for people.

having a 1:1 or personal meeting over Teams or whatever is not the same

Why not?

It’s different. Is it worse?

There are some things that can only be done face to face

Such as?

What can you do in conversation face to face that you cannot do over VC?

the company I work for would probably prefer for us all to come back to work.

What they prefer is irrelevant if you don’t want to do so. They have to justify a requirement.

And you’re not “coming back to work,” you’re already at work, just in a different place.

Our company have polled us to ask how many days we intend to work back in the office. Previously I worked about 4/1 in/out with the 1 being the day I went out cycling with the club in the evening. And replied it would most likely be 1/4 when we return. I’m not lab based.

Actions such as collaboration on a decent sized white board/wall helps with being in the room. Nora it with large scale project planning. Also we have leadership face to face meetings despite being based US/U.K. meeting small companies for due diligence activities I’ve found always seems to work better in the room, but that’s been a year now. And I’ve met quite a few virtually.

One thing that has just been raised in our team is what about all our equipment that we’ve taken home that needs PAT testing? And do we need to have surge protector extensions provided, if not are we liable is laptops go bang?

I’d happily be at home a few days a week, but need the office for access to a pool van and tools/mayerials store.atlewst a a few days a week.

We also don’t have much space at home so I’m at the kitchen table and have to put up and pack away each day and need a big screen for plans ect, at the office I had two big screens. Same with my wife. It also means I can’t leave projects and notes out and open like I would in the office and have to start again opening everything and remembering what I was working with.

Many of our meetings would have a table of people around big plans where we could sketch, annotate and discuss , it just can’t happen like that virtually in a free collaborative manner.

I’ve also had to produce a guidance leaflet for the public lately and working with our technician on getting it rigjt was a right PITA with lots of miscommunication and endless emails where as if I was there with her we could just do it together.

WFH just doesn’t suit me, or the nature of my work in planning and outdoor access.

I wish I needed to try to keep the light green, I can barely get away from my desk. I have a scheduled lunch break marked as Out of office (which I don’t often take) and use the DND / Away signs to actually force myself away and stop people contacting me – they still do so you have to be disciplined and not reply.

On this:

We’re looking at this very thing, through we’re unlikely to have any 100% home workers.
The best solution so far is to have 1 day per week when all the members of a specific team are in the office. For us that means Tuesdays will be an office day, you can flex around every other day.
This isn’t ideal as Tuesday won’t work for all, but it’s as good as we can get at the moment.

We’ve been having “no meetings Fridays” and it’s been awesome. It’s a bit like when you could go casual into the office for a day, you can stick some old clothes on and just get focused on tidying up any paperwork or writing a proposal without disruption, I really like it.

Perhaps like me if your always having meetings internally and with customers breaks and discipline around available time are important, otherwise work just blends into your life. I have 3 periods where I walk away from my LT now, 10:30 and 3pm for Coffee/Tea and 12:30 for lunch. I dont work beyond 6pm. Ok well sometimes I do to finish up but I ensure my Teams says Unavailbale.

If you do want to keep your pc active you can download and install caffeine, it essentially enters a character behind the scenes to keep the computer from going to sleep. Can be handy from an IT point of view when you’re working on the FD’s laptop, don’t have their password for security and need the machine not to go to sleep when you need a toilet break, etc…

What they prefer is irrelevant if you don’t want to do so. They have to justify a requirement

Lol, no it’s not and no they don’t

Thanks all or suggestions of IT tools and working patters etc. will look at it all and pass on to my team for them to take a look. We’re kind of wedded to our MS app platforms, but if there is something that works and enables better working then we can justify new platforms to be implemented.

The issue of the face to face vs voice call is an important one. Employee welfare is, quite rightly, one of our top priorities and unfortunately we’ve had an increase in mental health issues across the company over the last year while people have been working from home or on Furlough with a couple of people tragically committing suicide. Some people have struggled with a sense of isolation, lack of interaction, some people have home lives that are not conducive for home working, all manner of things. Also speaking personally you can’t really suss someone out and how they are feeling from a call. You have to read the room, see their body language, the small tell’s that might indicate all might not be right or they are not being completely truthful and holding something back, so hard for you to really suss out if they are struggling or not. Obviously people are different and if someone wants a 1:1 meeting over video call then as far as I’m concerned that’s their call ultimately, but I’d try to convince them that at least every other meeting should be face to face.

I’ve worked from home for the past few years – and my feeling is that you are overthinking this.

You’re probably right but having very quick and brief conversations with a few people I’ve had alsorts of issues raised like the ones I outlined. Of course some people are looking for opportunities to be on the take…like get the company to fund converting their garage into an office or something like that…we can’t go that far, but by the same token all the high standards for stuff like lighting and electrics that you’d expect in the office might not exist in some peoples homes. We’re not self employed contractors so the company should have some level of duty of care for the H&S of its employees. I think the company has to come to the party with some of this stuff and provide support for people at home, but there are obviously lines of sensibleness to be drawn.

What can you do in conversation face to face that you cannot do over VC?

Its way too simplistic to claim there is literally no difference. There are people in my team who rightly or wrongly are much less keen to speak up in front of a group but in F2F meetings I can chat to them on the side or when arriving or just before the end. None of that is possible in a Zoom meeting and their ideas are often just as good or better than the people who regularly get all the air time in a meeting on the basis they are willing to make their voice heard over and over again.

Whether that particular loss is worth going into the office for balanced against all the advantages of home working, or how regularly its worth going into the office for, is a different question though.

I joined HMRC during lockdown, and for all our faults, they have been fairly good at providing tips and support for WFH. As ever, support and advice from senior managers gets filtered through layers and diluted before it reaches the workers. Blocking out time for lunch and a walk round the block? Yeah, thats a rarity.

Key for us (both working from home) is putting kit away or closing the door when we finish. Something that came up recently is having a walk round the block or short ride after you finish in what would have been the time you commuted home. Provides some mental space to process the work day and leave it behind.

Going forwards, looks like we’ll have a monthly team meeting when we all go into the office, then 1-2 days a week in the office as required, though an office desk is there for those that can’t work from home – we have a couple already doing that anyway. Sounds an ideal balance for me.