As the Polish government decided to ban public gatherings, close all schools, and shut down both public and private facilities, Evojam has joined the movement to prevent the virus from spreading and protect employees from possible infection. We’ve introduced mandatory remote work for at least two weeks, starting from Thursday, 12 March 2020. It may be extended depending on the situation.
Impact on Our Work
We don’t expect this change to have a direct impact on the delivery of our software projects. Although we all need to adapt to the situation as individuals and temporarily turn a part of our homes into an office, switching to fully remote work hasn’t been a challenge for Evojam as an organization. In fact, it’s been a smooth transition for the following reasons:
Remote company - in Evojam, we have always been remote-friendly. Our team is located in two offices, one in Warsaw and one in Rzeszów. Such a setting requires online cooperation between the two branches. Also, some of the employees work remotely full time.
Remote clients - nearly all of our clients aren’t located in Warsaw, Poland. They’re spread across the globe, and it’s always been the case for Evojam. For this reason, our tools and processes are set up to serve both local and offshore clients. We have even given some speeches about building remote software teams.
Remote Fridays - we have a long tradition of making every Friday remote, and most of the Evojam’s staff seize this opportunity.
Remote work guidelines - we described our work guidelines and best practices in the company’s Wiki. To make sure the instructions are precise and explicit, we fine-tuned them over a couple of years.
In other words, our workflow and output in Evojam are the same as before the quarantine started - we do our dailies on Zoom, organize our work in JIRA, and connect on Slack.
Update 17 Mar 2020: This week we introduced a company wide ‘Evojam Coffee Zoom’ call each day at 2 pm. It’s optional with no agenda, just to drop-by and have a chat about random stuff and have an opportunity to see each other.
If you want to check our availability or have any questions, email us at hello@evojam.com, and we’ll be happy to help.
Tips From our Internal Remote Work Guidelines
If you have no experience managing remote teams or using your home as a workplace, check Evojam’s remote work tips and best practices to make the most out of this experience.
Use Effective Communication Tools
In the times of COVID-19, we can’t afford to engage in face-to-face interactions. Thankfully, the digital era offers other solutions, and you can move your business conversations to a number of different media.
For guidelines, official announcements, and long descriptions, you should stick to an email and Wiki.
Meetings can be held via Skype, Zoom, or Google Hangouts as all of these software products enable you to see other participants through a camera.
If you want to keep up casual conversations or pass on a brief message, choose an instant messaging platform, such as Slack or Google Hangouts.
Whichever tool you decide to introduce, make sure that all the employees have access to it and know how to use it.
Keep Everyone in the Loop
Remember that not being in the office makes it more difficult to follow other people’s schedules. For this reason, it’s important to inform all involved parties about your plans, tasks, and breaks. You can do it using a calendar. To mark short breaks, you can also set an appropriate status in the IM service of your company’s choice. This way, your coworkers will know what your agenda is and when they can reach you.
Have Office Equipment Ready
If you expect your employees to take their professional obligations home, you need to equip them with all the necessary tools. Check whether they have a reliable internet connection, computer, and all the devices that are specific for your sector. In case anything is missing, facilitate the transport of the equipment from the office to their houses or give them access to the mobile internet.
Draw the Line Between Work and Personal Time
While working remotely, it’s easy to mix your private time with your “office” time. To avoid doing laundry during your working hours or replying to emails when you should be relaxing, you should plan your day in advance. Decide on your working schedule, publish it, and stick to it.
Create a working space in one of the rooms, preferably far away from a sofa and bed, and leave it whenever you decide to take a break. It’s a simple technique that will make your brain switch into work mode whenever you approach the workstation.
Remote Work in the Long Run
The inability to travel, meet in person, and attend a conference will definitely affect the way we do business. We need to keep a close eye on how these changes impact our work and adapt accordingly.
We wish you all a smooth transition to remote work! We strongly believe that good remote work principles are simply good work principles in general. We hope you’re going to be fine and healthy in the upcoming time and that we will all come out of it stronger and smarter.