ClearlyBlue

WFH Processes…An Ode, A Rant and The Nitty-Gritty

How Clearly Blue is soldiering on in the times of Corona: No COVID19 is going to beat down this feisty set!

The Blue Way to Getting Things Done: Jump in, the Water’s Warm!

The Ode

What are they, you say?
Well, m’lady, tools just aren’t enough
To make you productive
In this wfh age of corona cough
You need to be reactive!

When a PM sends an email
Asking for an after-read ack
You better do so pronto
Or else, you may face the sack!

Alright, I’m just jokin’
But you know what I’m sayin’..
Effective wfh requires many virtual hands to shake
Every email, hangouts message or ping
A prompt response to make

Login at office open time diligently
From your work desk at home, away from all the din
[Yes, we know kids are home for the summer, and so is the spouse, so are the kin!]
Fill your tracker with your tasks for the day
And get started, while the office time sun shines, make hay!

Schedule Zoom meetings when you need formal interactions
Casual “Hi”s or queries can happen on Hangouts
I know you love the Whatsapp
But I’m pushin’ you towards the Slack!

Try and get some fresh air after lunch 
A short walk or (heresy!) a cat nap? Just a hunch
Hey, both are OK in my book
As long as you get the work done, by hook or (and hopefully not) by crook.

Be in touch with your PM
And our Watchful Lady COO
We have customers to account to
And deadlines loomin’ too

This corona don’t know nothin’
About us or our way of workin’
We’ll beat it, as we will master the game
Of effective WFH in its name!

The Rant

One of my PMs was frustrated today. A writer wasn’t responding on time to Hangouts pings. Was she online? Was she working? Was she ok? Such questions can drive a diligent PM batty and make her want to run back to office, Corona or no corona. As I tried to soothe her and make the writer get back in line the thought of documenting this bloomed.

This is the reality of working from home in the age of Corona. Under-communication can be a major deterrent to wfh, which we must work towards eliminating.

Vanshika Mehta tagged me on LinkedIn asking about WFH processes, which I thought was serendipitous as I put this together. My previous blog spoke about tools – video conferencing, collaborative tools; and some processes – set office hours, encourage employees to be professionally attired, and so on. 

Employers and managers can set a ton of policies and guidelines, but at the end of day, the one person who can make it work is YOU – the new-age-white-collar worker-from-home.

YOU need to be –

  1. Proactive – ask questions, respond to emails, login to video calls, just as if you were at office
  2. Disciplined – ensure you maintain office hours
  3. Empowered – with all the tools, technology and internet speed you need
  4. Unperturbed – despite all the ambient noise from others at home or on the street
  5. Inspired – overcome the comfortable environs of home to give your best
  6. A contributor – suggest ways to optimise wfh and make it more productive for all.

Sounds like a lot to ask from an average office goer?! But that’s what we’re asking of our teams today – this epochal year is all set to transform the way we live and work. If we’re going to keep the engines of our economies chugging across the world, virtual logins will be de facto from now. 

We’re in this together! Enough rules I say! We’re all adults. Let’s get to work, no matter where we login from and let’s GET IT DONE!

The Nitty-Gritty

How do information and decisions flow while the entire team is wfh? It’s quite simple really – the same way they do if the entire team were at office: 

  • Every piece of content, design or collateral we send out is checked thrice – by the writer/designer before submission via Google Drive or other cloud platform, the editor and the PM (both on the Cloud). Many-a-times, four times as I do my dipstick checks
  • PMs call virtual meetings of their teams to allocate tasks and get updates
  • Our weekly team meeting has moved to Zoom
  • Team members use Hangouts for ad-hoc queries, clarifications and conversations
  • Team members are expected to be ALWAYS ON during office hours with email, Hangouts and Whatsapp.
  • Phone calls handle all other exceptions
  • All meetings with clients and vendors are on Zoom
  • Restrict all meetings to 0.5 hours if possible – whether internal or external.
  • Online trackers ki jai!

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