Working-from-home-sick?
For almost a year now, one thing has been on everyone’s mind: COVID-19.
For the economy in particular, the pandemic has become a major problem that needed to be dealt with appropriately.
But how exactly did we handle the situation at SQIN? What experience have we had with the mobile working issue and what did we learn from it?
Especially for us as a young start-up company, which still does a lot of things independently — from product photos to shipping — the switch to remote working was a big challenge. But we quickly got to grips with it.
By now, we have part of our team working permanently from home, while the other part takes turns being present in the office. This way we make sure that personal contacts are reduced to a minimum, but the workflow continues as usual and we keep our customers happy.
In addition, four points became particularly important to us during this time:
1. We start every day with a short morning update call in the respective teams. This way, we do clarify the most important things right at the beginning of the day and not to have to wait too long for answers later on.
2. It is often better and especially more personal to spend ten minutes on a call than to write ten emails. So rather reach for the phone once more than for the keyboard!
3. Creative techniques are more important than ever to keep motivation and the quality of results high. Why not try something new, like a live poll in a meeting? Tips and ideas for this can be found online galore at the moment.
4. Most important: We take each other’s situation into consideration and trust each other. No one expects everyone — especially not the moms and dads among us — to work nine-to-five. Working from home is draining, and quick reliefs like hallway conversations or a shared coffee are not possible. So it happens that for some, working hours are very much fragmented or shifted.
However, we know that everyone does their work to the best of their ability.
That’s how our business keeps running anyway.
