Trust Your Workers to Work From Home

There is a peculiar trend where companies demand employees work from their office, 5 days per week, despite the best part of 4 years of successful doing their jobs from home.

I don’t understand the attitude.

During the first COVID lockdown in 2020, the video production agency I was working at had to turn on a dime and begin working remotely.

Keeping productivity up was simple:

01 The team had a call together for 10 mins every morning, and all announced what we were doing that day.

This meant the project managers knew who, if anyone, was free and could assign work.

Also, it meant no one could put their feet up and watch TV all day, because we knew what each other were supposed to be doing. If the work wasn't done, it was obvious.

I could also say it meant it was clear it was a work day, but no one needed reminding. We all loved our jobs, were paid fairly and wanted to work.

02 We were all expected to be working during the usual set hours, so anyone could phone anyone on Teams at any moment.

This might sound like a nightmare, but it was actually a good thing. At the drop of a hat you could ask your colleagues opinion on work, have a quick "water cooler" chat about something, or ask someone for help.

If someone didn't pick up the phone, you assumed they were making a coffee or in the toilet, and knew they'd call you back in a few minutes. No stress, but you didn't feel cut off from your colleagues, either.

03 The company trusted us as employees.

I remember speaking to one of the company directors, jokingly asking if they had ever thought of monitoring our web history to see if we were goofing off. He said that they trusted us, and that if a business couldn't trust it's employees, it had bigger problems than someone checking Facebook for 10 minutes during work hours.

But why is working from an office a problem?

In the UK we have a severe housing crisis. Something that helps alleviate pressure on the housing market is letting people work from home who are able to, so they can live wherever they want.

Being able to work remotely as a freelancer means I can live in South Wales where houses cost £100-150k and there is plenty of free space for new houses should we need them.

Compare that to London or other big city, where you’d be spending £350k for a flat that is above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley.

What's more, this benefits agencies. You can set up wherever you happen to be. Perhaps you'd like an office - now you can live and work in a cheaper area, and still have the same talent working from you, whether they live in London, Manchester, or Port Talbot like me!