Working Remotely and In-Office? Here’s How To Plan Your Week

June 29, 2021 - 5 min read

Shelly Madden

So, you’ve finally adjusted to working remotely. Your home office is adorned with leafy plants and your desk is perfectly positioned to catch the natural light. You even know all about the ergonomics of your swivel chair.

Indeed, the recent phenomenon of remote work has offered numerous lifestyle benefits to employees, including fewer commute hours and more opportunities to run personal errands. However, now that the COVID-19 pandemic is easing and employers are making return-to-work plans, some workers may be concerned about shifting their routines once more.

Fear not! Depending on your situation, you might get the best of both worlds: enjoying the social benefits of returning to the office while retaining the perks that come with working remotely. Luckily, the ease with which many companies have adopted a work-from-home policy has led to a rise in the popularity of flexible working.

What is flexible working?

Flexible working is a term used to describe employment situations with greater freedom than the typical 9 to 5. Employees have more choice in when, where, and how they work, meaning their schedules can change from week to week or even day to day. Some options include:

Flextime: You choose what hours to work within the week, including start and finish time
Working remotely: You work full-time from your home office
Hybrid office: You split your time between remote work and the company office

Though each employee should consider which approach works best for them, it appears that the hybrid model will be the favored choice for many office workers. Management consulting firm McKinsey & Company noted that “hybrid models of remote work are most likely to persist in the wake of the pandemic,” with Kate Lister of Global Workplace Analytics estimating that by 2025, 70% of employees will be working remotely at least five days a month.

Working Remotely and In-Office? Here’s How To Plan Your Week 2 — *(Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash)*

How to plan a flexible work schedule

You might think that a loose work structure seems messy. Surely it would be easier to either work from home or the office, rather than a mix of the two? This wariness is valid, especially after such a tumultuous work year, but it may just be that you haven’t yet experienced the benefits of a hybrid schedule.

The key to dispelling the uncertainty around flexible working is planning your week effectively. When you have a plan in place, you are more likely to feel organized and even excited to add some variety to your timetable. Here are some tips to help you prepare for your new work schedule:

1. Talk to your boss

You and your employer might have conflicting ideas about how many days you should be in the office. Professional services firm PwC recently surveyed 1,200 office workers and 133 executives and found that the two groups weren’t exactly in agreement on flexible working. 55% of employees said they would like to work remotely at least three days a week, while 68% of employers said they would prefer teams to be in the office for the same amount of time. Be sure to discuss the options with your supervisor to make sure you’re both on the same page. Once you have the green light, you can make a personal plan.

2. Create a weekly schedule

In a flexible environment, schedules are liable to change. For example, you might be able to work from home most Mondays, but are required to come into the office on the first Monday of the month for a team meeting. Lifehack.org recommends creating a schedule every Sunday evening for the week ahead. Preparing a timetable in advance will ensure you start the week off on the right foot. This way, you won’t wake up in a panic on Monday morning after realizing you have to factor in an office commute.

3. Separate your tasks

At the start of every week, split your to-do list into home tasks and office tasks. This will help you make the most of the advantages offered by both work environments. If you need to plan a group project with your team, it may be best to schedule this activity for an in-office day. Meanwhile, a solo creative project that requires silence and concentration would be better for a day when you’re working remotely.

4. Use a shared calendar

This is one of the best ways to ensure your hybrid work schedule runs smoothly alongside your organization’s activities. Add your remote workdays to your calendar so your team can easily see when you are available for in-office meetings and events. The key benefit here is that any changes will be made automatically across the entire team. There are plenty of online shared calendars to choose from, including Google, Outlook, and Wrike.

5. Add flexibility

When creating your weekly plan, leave some wiggle room for last-minute changes. Though the vaccination rollout continues to gain pace, the COVID-19 pandemic is still a concern, which is why Entrepreneur.com advises employees to anticipate new restrictions. There may be a late-stage outbreak in your locality or a colleague may unexpectedly test positive for COVID-19, so you must be able to pivot quickly if you can’t make it to the office on a certain day.

6. Use online collaboration software

To move seamlessly between the office and remote work, you need versatile online collaboration software. The idea here is that you should have equal access to files and other essential work tools in both places of work. A project management software solution such as Wrike can help you collaborate effectively from wherever you are, with features such as live editing and messaging app integrations.

By following these simple tips, you should have no problem returning to the office while still keeping one foot in the world of remote work.

Shelly Madden

Shelly is a Senior Content Marketing Manager for Wrike. Based in Galway, Ireland, she manages freelancers, blog production, and strategic projects. A former full-time copywriter and editor, her writing experience spans multiple themes, from sci-tech news to tiny woodland creatures. Her passions include etymology, color-coded calendars, and the Eurovision Song Contest.

#Future of Work #Remote Teams #hybrid & flexible working

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Working Across Borders: How COVID-19 Shattered The Confines of Physical Locations and Work

For many global employees, work has traditionally been a physical location upheld by norms around attendance, communication, and collaboration. Over the course of the COVID-19 crisis, as swathes of global office workers transitioned from physical to remote work attendance, many attitudes around work have evolved. From reigning in an out of control “always on” culture to prioritizing workplace flexibility, employees are exploring new ways of managing work. As organizations pay special attention to hybrid and remote-first hiring, it has become clear that our collective understanding of where work can take place is changing, too. Distributed work before the pandemic Though COVID-19 significantly increased the number of people working from home on a regular basis, remote work has been on the rise for years. Improved infrastructure and work management innovations have enabled digital nomads to travel while working or connecting with teams from decentralized office locations. Remote-first organizations are hardly a COVID-era phenomenon, either. Companies like Hubstaff, Doist, and Zapier have been remote-first pioneers for years, highlighting the cost and talent acquisition benefits of distributed hiring. “We can hire people wherever we want to. We don't have to compete for Bay Area talent, and instead, we get to hire the best people all over the world,” wrote Zapier co-founder Wade Foster back in 2020. “Not only does it increase the size of the applicant pool, but it adds a layer of diversity into the company.” The steady rise in remote work has also made the modern workplace more accessible overall, allowing workers with varying needs and backgrounds to access opportunities they might otherwise have missed out on just a few years ago. The structures that make distributed work possible have been a long time coming. However, if 2020 taught businesses and their employees anything, it’s that “making it work” could also mean “making it work remotely.” [caption id="attachment_466235" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash[/caption] Reconsidering work and where it happens “Effectiveness can’t be measured by the number of hours people spend in an office,” Spotify wrote in an announcement for their distributed-first work policy, Work From Anywhere. “Instead, giving people the freedom to choose where they work will boost effectiveness.” In February 2021, Spotify outlined their decision to allow employees to choose “whether they’d prefer to work mostly at home or in the office — as well as their geographic location.” Spotify’s WFA policy is by no means the “norm” for enterprise or even the company’s industry peers. Still, it does underscore the idea that work potential and effectiveness are not tied to a physical location. Employees know this, too. Many have spent the last year doing jobs they were previously told could only be done in an office. Now that tools like Slack, Zoom, and Wrike have empowered digital workspaces, organizations are adapting their approach to hiring in an environment where workplace flexibility (geographic and otherwise) is a top priority for jobseekers. Distributed hiring LinkedIn data offers additional insight into how organizations are approaching remote and distributed hiring. As of May 2021, the career networking site said that the percentage of paid “remote work” job listings on their platform was up by 457% from the previous year. The industries that saw the greatest percentage of remote work growth, according to their data, include media and communications, IT, and corporate services. Presumably, these jobs won’t just disappear once the pandemic is over, signalling a shift in how companies are thinking about talent acquisition over the next few years. In one survey of US-based HR professionals, one-quarter of respondents said they’d be willing to hire fully remote workers anywhere in the country (up from 3% pre-pandemic), with 7% saying they’d even hire globally for open roles (up from 2% pre-pandemic). Even as global vaccine rollouts see more and more office workers returning to in-person and hybrid attendance, the last year has certainly tested the strict geographical limitations of the pre-pandemic office. Looking beyond local As with any complex conversation about the ever-evolving workplace, there’s much to consider beyond changing attitudes. COVID-19 may have impacted the way we think about where work gets done, but experts warn about the tax implications of an increasingly remote workforce. Even Zapier’s Wade Foster calls this the “compliance and regulatory elephants in the room,” noting that hiring, payroll, and taxes for teams in multiple jurisdictions can be a huge undertaking. Still, we are witnessing a real-time evolution in how organizations and employees view work and where it happens. Gradually, many are moving away from the idea that you have to travel each day to a physical location to achieve work goals or connect with colleagues. By revisiting ideas about strict in-office attendance and creating more remote opportunities, organizations can access a wider talent pool of workers and increase opportunities for diverse and more inclusive hiring. Building the workplace of the future with collaborative work management The tools we use to meet objectives, collaborate with co-workers, and manage tasks are more important than ever. Wrike’s collaborative work management features empower an increasingly hybrid and dispersed workforce to manage tasks, collaborate in a flexible environment, and build systems and workflows that reflect how they achieve their goals. Learn more about how Wrike helps teams adapt to the evolution of work by creating digital hubs for innovation and enabling work management from anywhere. Try a free two-week trial and discover why 20,000+ teams trust Wrike.

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Lessons from Remote Working We Shouldn’t Forget

It’s been almost 15 months since the WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, the US borders closed to much of the rest of the world, and around 42% of 157 million US workers (almost 66 million) switched to working remotely full-time. While some experts argue that this has led to an unhealthy always-on culture and the rise of Zoom fatigue, we have learned a few very important lessons from remote working that we need to keep in mind as some of us choose to return to work in an office setting. As a result of the flexible remote work policies that have remained for many post-pandemic, many workers are moving to more affordable parts of their metro areas. In the cities of New York and San Francisco specifically, they are leaving the city completely, ditching high living costs for more affordable locations. But it hasn’t been the only major change the remote work revolution has brought. Even before the pandemic, achieving work-life balance had become the second most important factor for US workers in relation to choosing a company after compensation. And the blurred lines that a year of remote work (along with closed schools) brought have forced that further into focus. As Forbes shares, the increased acceptance of working from home may help our workforce to finally gain a better work-life balance. It’s no doubt that a year of remote work has changed both our lifestyles and our priorities greatly. So, what have we learned from the advantages of remote working? And what impact will that have on our decision of whether we want to be working from home or the office? A flexible remote work policy is a must for employers An interesting trend emerged when younger generations entered the workforce – they weren’t afraid to prioritize work-life balance. But what is even more important is that older employees are just as likely to want flexible working — they are just less likely to ask for it, according to The New York Times. In a report by Harvard Business School, the vast majority of the 11,000 workers and 6,500 business leaders surveyed listed expectations for flexible, autonomous work, better work/life balance, and remote work as the development most urgently affecting their businesses. Only 30% cited that they were prepared for these. And according to The Times, 50% of employees would quit if denied a flexible remote work policy, so it’s a shift that employers will need to pay serious attention to. Teams need the right tools working from home or the office Leaning into a year of remote work made it blisteringly obvious that not all employees had access to the right software. According to a report by Deloitte, employees who worked in a culture that encouraged innovation and had access to collaboration tools were 34% happier than those who did not. And although a third had requested better collaboration tools, only a third of these received a positive response to the request. Interestingly, when employees used the tools they were familiar with at home in the office, they reported increased productivity, higher engagement, and improved morale. [caption id="attachment_466139" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash[/caption] Achieving work-life balance is more important than ever When many employers initially feared that a move to working from home would lead to lower levels of productivity, study after study has found the opposite – employees get more done but only because they work longer hours. In fact, US workers are working on average three hours extra a day. The long-term result of this? Higher levels of burnout and decreased productivity. And in the short-term? Half of us (54%) are checking our devices more outside of work hours, feel more alone (24%), have gained weight (22%), and feel a decrease in our mental health (21%). The impact of these worrying trends from remote work has revealed that achieving a work-life balance is absolutely paramount for our health and happiness. It is vital that employers need to do what they can to encourage and promote this for their employees. Remote working has proved not every meeting is necessary Like it has done for achieving work-life balance, remote work has made it glaringly obvious that we need to use our time at work wisely. And often, that means clearing our calendar of unnecessary meetings. Recently, investment bank Citigroup announced a ‘Zoom-free’ Friday to ease the video call fatigue associated with our new ways of working. A large-scale study by Microsoft found that in about 30% of video meetings, employees interacted with their emails, while in 25% of meetings, they worked on other files such as documents. This was especially true for longer meetings and meetings held early in the day. Possibly the most important finding was that attendees of meetings that lasted 80 minutes or more were six times more likely to multi-task than those who were in meetings that lasted 20 minutes or less. Whether we are working from home or office, we need to be selective about how long our meetings need to be (or indeed, if the discussion requires a meeting at all). Employees need the choice of working from home or office It will come as no surprise that sharing a workspace with your children, pets, or spouse (sometimes in very small spaces) is not for everyone. The Society for Human Resources Management reminds that some employees are uncomfortable with the isolation of remote work. They share the example of The New York Times’ newspaper unit who prefer working from the office as it is what they are used to. According to The Wall Street Journal, around 25% of work time will be from home (versus 5% pre-pandemic). Meanwhile, Forbes shares a lengthy list of employers that are offering indefinite remote work. The main takeaway is that employees will inevitably have different preferences – the most important thing is that they are given a choice. We need to rethink how we use office space As a result of this choice and the reality that fewer employees will be in the office, organizations will no doubt need to rethink how they use their office space. And let’s face it, it’s a massive expense for employers – it can cost up to $595 per square foot. Even pre-pandemic, it’s estimated that around 30-40% of desks were typically unoccupied anyway. A study by WeWork found that post-COVID, most employees will want to split their time between the office, home, and other locations such as co-working spaces, libraries, or cafés. ComputerWeekly shares that a quarter of employers are planning to reduce their office space, while almost three-fifths say they planned to change meeting room layouts to make it easier for remote staff to participate in discussions, while 55% would add video-conference rooms. The biggest lesson from remote work whether we are working from home or office? This year of remote work has been the catalyst to readjust our relationship to work and how we work. In the next normal, employers will need to give employees the opportunity to decide where and how they work, prioritize work-life balance, and get the flexibility they need to do their best work.

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Working Remotely and In-Office? Here’s How To Plan Your Week

What is flexible working?