Working remotely or remotely working

We should get the next episode out. The last one. People are actually asking for it now. No.

Which is good. I can't remember if I edited it or not.

Two listeners want to know what's next.

Hey, it's two more than the previous.

Yeah, this is just building on one at a time.

Oh, nice. So it's episode five of our Managing Engineers podcast with me and Neil diving into the wonderful art of managing engineers, software engineers, just to make sure it's clear the type of engineering out there. We've had a bit of a break. It's been the festive break, so we're getting back into it now.

Downtime, always good.

Little bit of downtime, bit of process time, just to see what's going on and give us a bit of space to get some feedback, which I think is quite helpful. And this week is my turn to bring the topic. And my suggestion is around the joy of working from home, the luxury, the perk, the challenges, all of it, basically, and what it actually means to me and you and people that are in a role where you are leading software engineers as well. Like, we've got our own setup, but how does it apply to them and us between them with that relationship? So, yeah, that. That was the. The angle.

There's a lot of potential things we can explore. I'm sure we can go into some more controversial topics while we're at it as well. I think that'll be. That'll be a lot of fun. I guess it would be good for me to know because I certainly don't know, maybe the listeners. I. When do you work from home now? And if so, what does that look like? And how long has it been?

Yeah. So majority of my career was actually in house on prem. Okay. Until lockdown, which we'll get to in a moment. That was not to say I could never work remotely, but it was more. Oh, as an edge case or an exception. I've got delivery. Got an appointment. I have to work from home today. Yeah. And it was an additional benefit in a way because some people just don't get that opportunity. So, yeah, I've always worked in tech, always been enabled to do it, but generally prefer being in person personally, especially as a leader and a manager, because it gives me a little bit more visibility what's going on. But at the same time, we've had to shift, let's say, in the last six years.

Okay.

My role now is hybrid. We do two days mandated in the office every week and three days at home.

Same day for everyone. Or.

Yes, so again, it depends on the office, but we've got one office, it's two days, Tuesday, Wednesday, another office, it's Wednesday, Thursday.

Okay.

So there's a little bit of overlap and flex, but it's more. Right. Make sure you and your teams are in the office together, making the Most.

Of that FaceTime makes a lot of sense.

It does. And they've definitely trialed different models since lockdown. Like, what works, given the flexibility, minimum, one day a week, all this sort of stuff. The found that was probably the sweet spot. Not perfect, but the. Probably the best point. And I. I like it. I think when I was pitched the role, I was like, I need some FaceTime. I need some office presence.

So you. It wasn't a change. It was something that you knew was h. That was part of the role when you applied.

I. I opted into that because my previous role was once a month, maybe once a fortnight at a push. The expectation was once a fortnight, but the reality was not that. So I was like, people aren't being mandated to do this. We need more structure and discipline around it. Okay, it works for me.

Nice. I think it's useful to know that when you join, it can be quite surprising when it happens after you join, especially if you are many, many miles from the place of work. Your place of work is wherever you're working, which can be at home, the office, the formalized building that people congregate in. Yeah, I think that can be. That can be difficult, especially if companies have hired from around the country, if not also abroad, really.

And I think this is the thing I've realized through the past five or six years. The benefits of remote working and hybrid working, and how you can try and make some exceptions, depending on talent, determine on project demands, whatever it might be, but. But it generally falls down to the. I know it's a bit tribal and a bit natural, like instinct, but being together with people works best. And the ones that have to remote in really struggle to integrate.

Yeah. So I have been in a fully remote company with colleagues in different time zones around the world. And that was okay, I think, because it was at a company that was born out of COVID was fully remote, had never experienced an office, and lent very, very heavily into it from the moment the company was formed. However, we did have opportunities to meet and work together, especially localized, localized people in like WeWorks and other sort of community working places, which was really nice. And I think that the one thing that mattered the most for that company, at least for me, was the global Retreats where everyone would go away. We did that twice. Once in one year, once another year. Met my boss for the first time, for instance, in the airport. And that made a huge difference that three, four days away with a group of a lot, a big group. It was 100 people the first time, 400 people, ish the second time. So yeah, a lot of, A lot of away time made a huge difference. Made a massive difference to how you work. But that was once a year. So I could imagine you can get some. I could imagine we could have done it more frequently, but it was still needed. But it was very much a fully remote company. I've certainly seen. I think it's, it's definitely harder for a company to transition when they've been fully office based to some form of hybrid and then some form of going back to office. I think that's quite a difficult transition going one way and back. Um, I think it's definitely easier if you start fully remote and lean into it as a thing because you can build it up in terms of. You can be very deliberate about the culture you're building.

I think that's the point that I've read a lot about, heard a lot about. When it's designed as a remote first company, it's a lot more effective. Right. How it works rather than being reactive and pivoting, which was the word of the lockdown. I think we got to pivot guys. Right? Yeah. But pivot's hard and change is hard in human instincts. Unfortunately.

Yes, especially it was a reaction to an event and the event pretty much took priority rather than it being a traumatic event. Right.

It was pretty significant event. People didn't really care about their jobs half the time they did, but it was like not the first thing in their mind at that point.

Yeah. So suddenly for me, I'd never worked, not truly worked remotely before the pandemic. As you, as you said that it was a, a benefit, a luxury. I was in a position where someone senior, I guess, or senior issue in a company at that time. I don't think I ever would have had afforded the opportunity as a, as a junior member in the early part of my career. But I could have a day if, like as you said, for that doctor's appointment, for that thing that needs to happen for when you're at home. And that was okay. And I always found it a tremendous privilege to be able do so and always enjoyed it. And then the pandemic hit and that suddenly went from all the time with no contact. It was quite A stark change.

And.

Quite a difficult one as well. I think since I've worked for a company that was fully remote after, after the pandemic, I felt it was an area I wanted to lean into and also remote also. Well, it for me equaled opportunities. Rather than looking for places of work within 10, 15, 20, 30 miles from my home and where I could get to in a car or a train or a bike, I'm now looking more globally, so the opportunities were wider. So it's certainly a choice. And now I work in a. A company that's operating in a hybrid. Hybrid function.

That and I think the other benefit we've both got in our environments as well, it's the same time zone, predominantly.

That helps a lot.

Not much flex. Same land, same country generally. So again, it just keeps it quite simple and easy to kind of make that work. But as I say, there are a lot of organizations that are truly distributed. Trying to get everyone together into the same space more than once a year is expensive. Logistical nightmare. It's all the other factors. It's not. It's not something that they probably see the value in either.

So it's not easy.

Too much time.

I remember when we got everyone together, I think we had to hire a company help us, like an events company, because you had potentially, I think we already have 16 different countries. You had all the visas to work out all the flights from around the world to one place. All that tying all that together, that was. It was quite an event. And then making sure everyone was okay when they're, when they were there. That amount of people. Yeah, it's not. Certainly not cheap. Definitely not. But arguably maybe cheaper than paying for a property in the central of London for a year, almost certainly.

I think this is what people have realized. Those that have premises and rentals and all the other stuff, leases, they're wasting money. Their rate, vacant. And that's the biggest problem we're facing right now. People are trying to get bombs on seats back in the offices in the capital, in the big cities. And people are like, but why? I'm better at home. And it's like, yeah, how do you sell that to the people that you want to see in person rather than just going, well, we got rent to pay and we want to see the value out of.

Is difficult. I'm also really mind inside of just how lucky and privileged I am to be able to work from home. And it's not something I'm unaware of, but it is good to remind ourselves. So, for instance, during the pandemic I built a little out, I'm going to call it a fancy shed, a big fat. A plastic fancy shed in the back garden where I could, where I could work remotely away from the house, away from my home, have a bit of separation and that works well for me. However, during the pandemic, I'm also aware that some of the colleagues I used to work with were, were sharing free to a property and they were all working out the kitchen or working out their bedroom. And that's not fun and not enjoyable. So where I might have been like, oh, this is lovely in my. In my building outside, where I can work and feel comfortable, that was the direct opposite for many people. And I think that's a reminder that remote working does come with a level of privilege.

Absolutely. I've got colleagues now who do have the space, they do have the house and the tools or whatever, but they still prefer to go to the office every day and they can. So again, another privilege. There's the option of true privilege of option.

Exactly.

Got my own home office. I feel more work enabled while I'm in the office. I don't like the boundaries mixed up too much. Like a lot of them are in their spare bedrooms, for example. And I'm like, well, I get it. Again, I'm very lucky. I've got a dedicated space in the house for working and then when I finish the day, I can shut that door and leave it.

When I decided that I felt that remote working was going to be an option that I wanted to explore or do more of or at least be available because of the space in the house was very limited. It was a choice to, to put some money aside to time build something outside, to, to do it as a. And again, that's. Not everyone's able to do that and I was fortunate that I had. I'm old site or older and I was able to save some money inside. And that's not true for everybody. Yeah, yeah, very much.

Who are they? Savings, property.

What's that? That's that thing.

So I think we are in a very privileged position.

Very much so.

I think we've been through the tough, the tough times, the easy times, back into some tough times. We'll get out of it eventually, but there are a lot of people that are really struggling to get through this window at the top moment.

And I wonder if, does that mean it f. Remote working favors more senior members of our, of our teams rather than the junior members. Does it impact people differently? I certainly, I certainly see a lot of there doesn't seem to be a divide for me, but I imagine that, that their home lives will, will certainly be different. The opportunities that they have at home will certainly be different. And some might have young families. For instance, my daughter is, is a lot older now, she's going to school, so I'm not looking after her as a child. That'd be very difficult if she was. If I was as well.

That's a good, interesting point. So when you say senior, we mean age, not.

Yeah, I was. Yeah. So it is possible to have someone new to their career be called a senior. But yeah, I was certainly equating senior to mean someone experienced. And that comes with age and time.

Yeah, totally. And I think, like I say, I've been, we've been through the bubbles of properties. It's a really tough time right now for anyone who wants to get in the market. But I also think that's a geographic thing as well. So again I'm Midlands, where there's probably more accessible properties, whereas if you went to a main city then it's a lot harder. You know, I was looking at some properties yesterday in Notting Hill. They're paying five grand a month for a one bed. Like, wow, how people afford that, I have no idea.

Yeah, that's, that's not sort of, not sort of prices that I comprehend, that's for sure.

No, but I know that's not. That's probably one of the more extremes in London, but it's not unheard of to spend multiple thousand on a one bed apartment. Whereas we were lucky to get a property in the noughties with multiple bedrooms for about the same price that you're paying for a one bed apartment.

Yeah, it's again fortunate and privileged. I think almost certainly it's good to.

Acknowledge showing our age and generation with.

So thinking about your team site is what have you seen the sort of range of feelings from other people? We've talked a little bit about ourselves, but what about other people in terms of their approach to remote work? Is it freeing for them, restricting them? Do they just hate it, love it? Do they want to be around people? Don't want to be around people. Is it a mix? Is there a theme there? I'm really curious.

Fortunately, I think it's one of those depends.

Always good.

We love in tech, so predominantly because I think we knew it was part of the deal in my current role.

Okay.

Most people have signed into it.

Right.

They will of course love it.

That helps.

Perfect balance for them. It's not a challenge to kind of go, we need you in the office one more day a week. That was just like, no problem. I live local. It's fine. On the flip side, it gives them the flexibility when they've got children needs, pet needs. Yeah. All those other things that have become factors that we don't necessarily talk about in the workplace, but they are definitely part of that culture. Previously though, when it was coming out of lockdown, trying to get people to the office was virtually impossible. It was very much. But it's going to cost me. I'm not gonna get much work done. I've got my own setup at home to get real work done, so why should I bother? And so had to again, design the days to make it worth.

A really good point. Like, it's like almost like, why am I turning up to this meeting? It's got no agenda. What am I here for? I could do get other stuff done. Like, like just turning up to an office for the sake of being in an office is like, it needs more. Right.

As for me and you, who are people, people to go, I just want to see you in person and fist bump you or have a chat and get a coffee. They're like, you. Yeah, but that's not worth.

No, it's like, that's five minutes and.

Then what are we doing exactly? Well, if only it was five minutes, then my day would be done. Great. So, yeah, I don't think I've had that challenge. But what about you now?

When I work for a fully remote company just like yourself, when you sign up, it's like, I know what I'm signing up for. I'm signing up for talking to people around the world at potentially different time zones. And I might never see my boss in person until once a year. I might. You have, if you're okay with that. I think you can. You understand what you're. You're getting into to. It's. It's less price. I think it. I've seen it be difficult for people where it's not been a choice either way. So the choice has been like, choice. Oh, we're now working remote because of, because of the pandemic and you've applied for the job and you live in Scotland and the job's in London and you're not traveling there once a week like this, you know, so you're now working remotely and if the company changes or even if it's not mandated, encourages, another of your teams are now more locally based to London. Now you're apart from them and then maybe they're seeing more of each other and you're not. So I think so when it's less of a choice and it's a circumstance, I think that can be difficult and vice versa. With, as you said, returning. Returning to office. Returning to office is certainly easier when you're close to the office in the first place. It becomes quite hard when you're not. I've certainly experienced people who value the time by themselves or value not working by themselves. They'll often be pairing and mobbing, but working in their own space.

Yeah, Extroverted. It plays into that personality type a bit more.

And allowing. Yeah. And allowing them their own space to do so. And then. And I've certainly seen. I've worked with people who really do not even with the opportunity and being allowed to and being supported, do not want to work from home even with a level of privileges that means they have a separate space, a good setup, no distractions. They're like, I can't. I just need. I need people around me to help me be productive. Like, that's how they like to work. And I think it's really hard because especially when companies change or shift in the middle, when you've signed up from it in the beginning, if you need to work in work around people, you're not signing up for a fully remote company. Like, unless you like. Not really. And vice versa. But when things change beneath you, I think that's when it can get quite difficult because you're like, okay, I signed up for something and now it's different. And this is changing about the. You know how I like to work.

Exactly. But to your point, I think everyone's got their own kind of desires, their own purpose, their own way of working. So you'd really need to kind of think about that as an organization, as a line manager. Do we have the right environment for these people to flourish and do their best work, or do we need to rethink how that applies? Roland's going, we're paying rent. We need to get bums on seats to prove that it's worth the value. Otherwise we have to close shop. Wow. What a drastic but real problem that people are facing right now.

Yeah. Do you have any hard lines for yourself or things that you think need to be true? If a company is working, let's just say in a hybrid situation like yourself, where I guess it's hybrid. Right. Some days remote, some days in person. I'm guessing the days you're in person, you're not actually people aren't dialing remotely. So you are one or the other. But is there any. Any sort of rules or constraints or things that have to be true to make that work?

Well I really thought about it as rules but yeah, maybe the wrong word. The expectations I guess was who else is going in?

Okay.

Am I going to be around the people I need to be around? And is that balanced and fair as well? Because if you've got multiple sites where they've got different days and different expectations, that's confusing matters.

Yes.

You need one single.

Yeah.

Guide to how it works. I think the fact we've designed that overlap day, the Wednesday where you could be in either office and everyone's in their office. We've, we've designed meetings to use that rather than fighting.

Oh nice. I like that a lot. Yeah. Make use of that, that space where that overlap space is. That consistency is important for people to understand.

I guess we know everyone's on site on the Wednesday. They're the days we do the big org wide meetings. That gets everyone in a room together because that's what we want it for.

Nice.

Yeah, that's worked quite well. I'd like that expectations set up front if I was to look for a role in that situation. Like look, what do you do with your office days rather than just being present?

I think that's a really good point like actually knowing why. If a company can't explain why they need or want or value people in the office then that's a bit of a flag for me at least you can't articulate it. Yeah.

Then I'd ask, well what are you trying to achieve at least because you might not be able to articulate it. You've not really thought about it. You put me on the spot there and I thought maybe something like that they might be in a similar boat. Well we just paid for rent in this office and we'd like to see everyone together once a year.

Yeah. Very, very much so.

What about you? You've been in both.

So for fully remote. I massively appreciated knowing up front what was expected from sort of culture, a learning, a communication, being present, even things around, just being really open around like we trust you but you're going to tell us when you can't work. You're going to, you know, it was that type of level because sometimes we think there, there may be things that would be obvious but they're really not sometimes and it's good to spell it out, you know your frame of operation. Right. We, we need to be on this time and this time we trust you. To do this, and we trust you to do this. But we really need to let you know, you need to let us know if this is going to happen. So that, that I think was really important. As a bonus, they paid for my home office setup so that they pay for Internet. And because I was working from home, using my resources and that's what they paid for, which I thought was very novel but also quite appreciated.

A nice privilege. Again, it was when I was in the lockdown job. They again, they just went, right, everyone go home. It was, it was in fintech, they had extra cash to throw around a little bit. But, right, you got a grand each to get your office set up.

Nice sort of thing.

I was like, wow, a thousand pounds. Where do I start? You know, my eyes go, whoa, that's a chair. But. But part of it. You're like, well, I do need a decent desk. I needed a massive screen. Well, not massive screen, but I need a second screen at least and a decent chair because all I was working on was dining table stuff, which is fine for short term but not long term. But the ergonomics of that is terrible. Yeah.

Yeah, very much so.

Even your Internet point, the electrics, all the other utilities, the running costs, it certainly costs.

Yeah.

And that's why I think the UK government are now like, paused that benefit or something. Yeah.

You could, I don't know if you can still do that. You could at one point, with tax returns, put that in and claim that.

And I'm like, I've never even thought about it. I'm like, look, pay for this, it's fine. I don't want to make it messy or anything, but the fact that a lot of organizations go, well, we'll subsidize part of your operations at home because we appreciate we're saving it from not doing it in a big office.

Yeah. So I think those constraints, those ways of working being very spelled out remotely from a culture point of view. Learning and communication was very open. There was. And what I loved as well, around, there's nothing was really hidden. So in a, in a remote environment where you can't see people, you need to know where they're working and what they're doing. So no private slack channels, no private pages. It was all open. If you didn't want to write it down, well, you shouldn't be writing it down like it has to. Everything was shared.

Yeah.

And that was really important because you could see what was happening and it helped you connect to people and the work that they were doing, it wasn't like, oh, this is my.

Builds that trust.

It does, yeah. And that was, again, I think I learned quite a few lessons from working with that company in terms of how they promoted and what they expected you to be doing. Like, learning was in the open. You learned something, you shared it. It was. And it all felt. It all built towards that culture of actually not being on your own at home. You were on your own at home, but surrounded by others around the world who were talking and chatting and working in the open. And it felt a very connected community. And that works really, really well. So that was from the remote experience, from a hybrid one. I think what's important is, again, the understanding of what to expect. But if you're coming into the office, as you said, what day is it? Why am I coming in? What happens if I'm miles away and my team's local? Like, how are we going to work that out as a group of people, as a group of individuals in a team, how are we going to make sure that everyone feels included in the work that we're doing? Like having a team meeting where everyone's close and then one person can't travel is. Well, you're excluding that one person. So what do you do there? It's about that balance, I also think.

So we've got an example next week where I was trying to get everyone in office for our office day. One person's gonna have to be in London because they've got other stuff going on. So. Well, should everyone be online then? Because if one person's not in the.

Room, it's really hard.

They're excluded.

In a way, my default would be answered to be, yes, everyone should be on a level playing field. But I've also seen teams be quite pragmatic about it. Like, if it's. If it's not all the time and they value time together and one person doesn't mind, then that's okay. Right. Sometimes, like. And I've been. I've been in certainly times where some of my team have been on site and for reasons I haven't been able to, and I've actually preferred them to be together. Even though I'm at slight disadvantage watching a group of people interact in an office from a screen, for instance, I still see them interact and that is an important part of building a team and community.

You still see as a leader, it's easy for you. Well, it's.

Oh, and these would be my peers as well, so not even from a leader, so. But seeing them interact, of course, I think I'm at a natural disadvantage because I can't hear all the conversations all the time, the m, you know, that type of stuff.

But hard to interact.

Yeah, it is, it is hard. Hello.

Where exactly? And because we had. But I prefer it big leadership meeting every Thursday in London and a couple of us from remote would have to dial in and try and follow the conversation which was just about doable but trying to go, can I say something? You had to raise your hand in teams hope someone walks away in time. I mean moments gone mate. Don't worry about it. Yeah, so it's very difficult to get that right. I think level playing field to your words really helps.

Just. And also a team understanding of what it means like what it means to be work hybridly, what it means to communicate. When do you tell your team, how do you tell your team, how are you doing stuff in the open? Those sort of things. I think they're, they're super important for, for remote working and equally important for hybrid working when you've got a mixture of people doing different things. And the advantage for remote working is if you have conversations in the open they're recorded, everyone can see them. The disadvantage of hybrid working is if you have a conversation with someone in the office they only now have the context. Unless you go in detail what you've talked about to make sure the rest of your team members can hear about it if it's important. If you're just talking about Pokemon and coffee, maybe they don't need to know. But if you're, if you're chatting about something else after the Pokemon and coffee chat then maybe you want to put that down somewhere and it's about just being really mindful about having a shared story in a head, shared history with the team and making sure that you're not just sharing it with someone, sharing with others like you're, it's a. You're doing it together in some way.

Actually that's an interesting point. The idea of like well we've got water cooler chat which is equally as valuable as all the other business related conversations. So what I'm trying this quarter from a one to one perspective is alternating in person and online. So the in person one is much more personable. Just gonna have a chat, catch, catch up, maybe a couple of business topic points but it doesn't matter. The one online with merry much around. Anything we need to do together, what how you get on with your development plan, how do we help you with your development plan and then we've got the benefit of AI potentially keeping track of that stuff for us so it doesn't lose traceability. But we're all opting into this as a. This is a benefit. We can use both environments to our advantages here rather than just going, yeah, we'll work it out. Which is mixed results.

Yes. I like the ability to switch. If I could. I can't do that so often at the moment. One thing that I only did once last year and I wonder if I could do it a bit more this year was even though I'm remote going on a remote walk one to one with someone. So instead of just in the office having a chat over a video mobile. Yeah. And just walking down the road and chatting like a. Like a possessed person.

Because if you got headphones in, it's quite a thing now that you just.

Chat to someone and that could be quite nice. Like actually going out and experiencing the outside together and describing what that looks like to each other but while also talking about things that matter.

In different spaces.

Yeah, in different spaces. I think, I think that mixing that up. So if I can't always be in person, I'm not always in front of a video camera.

Yeah. I think there's benefits and pros and cons to this because it's just like having a phone call. Before we had video we used to do this all the time. And it didn't mean you had no connection, you just had to do it in a different way but for the.

Benefit of the listeners who may or may not be able to see this depending on where it gets. But SI is doing the universal symbol for phone call with his hand.

With the hand, with a finger. A finger in the thumb baker.

So side note, that symbol no longer works with the modern phone generation who hold. It's like it would be thumb to mouth with a microphone outward, sideways, not ear and not ear and mouth anymore.

Yeah. What happened to the floppy disk save icon?

Every now and again I just let people know that I'm quite old via my references.

But yeah, I like your idea of going for a walk chat on a call, you know, not necessarily on a video but at least you're breaking the environment out and you're not going onto video camera. Which is a different dynamic as well.

Is the. We're both in a community, Agile and ether and there is a remote based community and we. There is a great channel which. What is it? Photo of the day.

I think it's called the outside photo.

Yeah. And what I like about this is it's not taking pictures of like your Home or anything else. It's actually outside, which is quite universally shareable for people. And it could be a tree or a plant or anything else you feel like, but it's. It's bringing that connection. Yes. A wheel bearing. Any connection that you. You want to other people. And that helps build a culture. I think that's important for remote working as well, that people see more than just who you are in front of a screen.

Even in this conversation now. Right. I'm quite happy to have like a background. My real background. I might blur it just for visual effects rather than anything.

Mine's quite blurred, let me tell you.

Gray background, which a lot of people do as well. They put like a virtual background on. Oh, even better. But I'm. I don't see it as a bad thing. It just. It paints a picture of their personality in a way. It's like, I'm a bit more private. I don't want to show everything off in the background. I'm like, yeah, I was just bought. Load of props. Everyone goes, oh, you play guitar? No, that was a lockdown investment.

Mine's full of very junky out at the moment.

There's another reference I'll put.

I'll put the gray background on because there's lots of. A lot of crap behind me.

I know, but. But it builds that picture, right?

Oh, it's important.

Yeah. You want to kind of go, who are you? Where are you? What you're happy to share with me. It just gives me something.

Connection building and that.

Yeah.

Can sometimes be easier in person for some people and can sometimes be much harder. Remote mic for some people as well. So it's about. And working out what works. So I've got a. A topic that I've certainly seen come up in the news. Not recently, but it was certainly the years following Covid where people were working from home. And that was the surveillance of people working from home. It was like, how. How do I know that you're being productive unless I monitor what you're doing on your laptop? And I remember stories coming out about excited managers using tooling to. To monitor and then equally staff using tooling to some supper convent. The monitoring.

Exactly. Do you remember the home?

Is that still a thing? Do we still see that tooling around? I mean, unfortunately, I've never been in a company that would use it, but yeah, the home of pecking. But what are your thoughts? Is this a thing now or was it just a bit of a. A land grab by people? After.

After Covid, I'm gonna be Careful what I say here. But. Oh, do you have monitoring tools? No. Oh God no. So but I can see, I've seen organizations do it okay. Yeah and then instantly people re engineer it to get away with it. Right. So it's just like it's never going to work. But it goes back to that word I said earlier, trust. Right. If you've got trust in your people to do their job, why do you need to monitor them? Do you just kind of go right, what's your plan for today? What's your plan for this week? See you then and that's it. And they do it in their own time, they make it work and if they get it done earlier, I trust them to go fix it, boss, what's next? You know, and that's how I've generally gone into it. We do daily stand ups. I kind of get an idea what everyone's going to be working on. I can see where they might have some challenges. There's public private channels where you can see chat going on. So I can just kind of go how they're getting on. I'm not monitoring, I just wanted to see if they need any help. So from my level I'm quite happy with that and I just like go look, I'll see you tomorrow unless I hear otherwise. And that's worked quite well. I think when you start putting things in place that say we're watching what you do, their minds change and they don't feel trusted.

There's so quick, quick Duck duck Go Search informs me that not Google.

What's wrong with Google?

I've switched nowadays and there are still very popular software like I won't name them out loud actually I should not do that. But there's a number of still very popular software and the sort of key features between them are things like time tracking, monitoring breaks over time, application usage, websites. That's pretty relatively common anyway. Productivity reports generates reports on employer productivity and engagement levels and yeah compliance.

We have some people watching the commit histories of engineers over time going why is that senior engineer done any commits in like a past month? Do you know what senior does? Well, write code. Right. Have you looked at the competency recently? It's very little hands on code. Now why is this person removing different environments, different organizations but it's the fact that someone wanted to go. The commit history looks a bit quiet for that person. Why are you looking?

Yeah, that's. I think any, any measure like that are inherently dangerous. I would not be comfortable being asked to have that enabled for anyone that I Work for, for instance, I, I would have a real, a real problem with it.

I think I can get why people would start to think they need something like that.

Yeah, I can understand how you get to that place. I.

But I would like, I'd be asking questions as to why do you think people might be going down that route. Ask yourself that question first before you start going asking all the individuals.

I think if your answer is monitoring software, you have a different problem to solve.

Yeah, but that's easy for us to say. Right. Through very good, healthy organizations in the trusts. Right.

Very much so.

And we don't do time tracking. We don't do timesheets. It's very much just like what's on the jury board bus. All right, I'll put that on next. Cheers. And actually on a meta level for me, my work is not on a jury board, so I have to be a bit more intentional about telling people.

What I'm up to. Yeah.

Or the outcomes of what I'm doing so they don't go well. What do you do all week? I'm like, well, I can show you my calendar to start with and then I can show you some way to do items I'm going to be working on. Is that enough or do you want a bit more?

I need to better at that this year. I think be much more open about the stuff I'm working on. I think I'm not too bad, but I could definitely be better. And it's something I, I think is important in a position of.

I know I can be a leadership.

Where maybe some of my worst stakeholders.

That want to know how things are going more than if it's not for tracking, it's just more like, do you need any help what's going on?

Yeah, I think that's. It's a really good call. Especially people in leadership position being able to make themselves available and transparent. I have started experimenting with switching my 1 to ones with for one week and then advertising that like, this is my focus for this week. This is the people stuff I'm working on. This is what I'm trying to do for all you folks. And this is the times where I'm going to be free for. For you all to make sure that I have time available. Like I've started to try and be really deliberate and then the following week it's like, this is my strategic stuff. This is where I'm available. But I'm also concentrating on these things and just trying to be very. Because I will not always be working on the Right things for everybody. And I won't know that unless I tell them.

And that's why I want to be more intentional with what I'm doing because I can get challenged on it.

Yes.

I'm like, oh, good point. No, no, you're right. I should prioritize that first and then I'll come back to that when I've got the capacity. You know, if there's a big org wide initiative that I'm like distracted by because I'm excited. But then I go, there's a big fire of esi. Have you helped us on that? I mean. Nope, sorry. Let's sort that out first and I'll come back to that after.

So let's. Let's say that someone has a level of opportunity, privilege or support from a company to work from home, either financially or otherwise. What what might good look like? What might a good working from home? What do you need for it to be successful? Does it vary? Yeah, I like just. I'm just really curious what matters for you. But I'm also wondering if Ollie, our listeners might get some. Have some own. Have some of their own ideas of what works for them. And I'm sure what works for me may not work for you or other people.

Well, this is it. I mean for those that do watch this. I've got a really high quality microphone here on a stand that I can use for content and I'm actually using my iPhone camera on a mount right in front of my video screen so it looks like I'm at eye level with you. I'm doing that intentionally because I want to look like I'm talking to you, not down you or up at you. Nothing wrong with webcams, by the way. This is because I spent a lot of time having conversations like this. So I want to make sure I've got the set up. I've got a second screen, notes there other things going on. It's a standing desk as well, which is also useful for my health. But as I said earlier, my desk setup was a little bit sure got money. I got a captain's desk and an old chair that just looks beautiful but not practical.

I feel like that is definitely your vibe. Sigh.

You know me now. Looks beautiful. Beautiful, practical. That's my new tagline.

That's a good one. We'll put it in the show notes. I think I've learned what it works for me and it's adapted over time and that's probably important for. For other people if they're just going into working from home. Remote working for the first time, like relatively comfortable needs to be a thing that you need to be. If you're in a place you're working for seven, eight hours a day, you need to be comfortable. And what, what comfortable means for me might be very different for other people. So for me it means the reality to move a little bit while I'm standing and have a kneeling like chair because I don't find sitting very comfortable anymore for periods of time. So being able to move is important. But that might not be true for everybody. Thinking about looking around my sort of space, it's also quite a space I want to be in which is important because it's here for seven a bit hours. I think if it was a, a darkly lit room and I didn't want to be in it wouldn't encourage me to, to, to come to work. I want to feel like it's a space where I can, I can do my best. So for instance, lots of distractions behind me which is fine. I, I need to be distracted and not rabbit hole too much but no distractions in front of me. So when I'm working my disc clear in front and a complete distraction hole behind me which is.

Oh yeah, I've got no picture frames by the way. They're all that side.

Yes.

I don't want to.

Yeah, I need to look behind to get distracted and that's okay. I feel like that's a nice balance and it stops me from a, from a tech sign of view. It's pretty simple really. I only have this fancy microphone in front of me because of the podcasting. Normally I would just use my headphones but I really appreciated.

Fine. By the way.

Yeah, I really appreciate the microphone now and I use it all the time in work. Is a. I felt but it's, it's an investment I had four years after starting working remote. So it's not something I'd recommend that people go straight. The standard sort of mouse and keyboard normal whatever suits you. A monitor that's a reasonable size. But the same requirements would be that if you were in an office. So you're not working off a, a 10 inch monitor in an office and you wouldn't be expected to from home, for instance. And yeah, I think that's. Apart from that, that's pretty much all I really need. I mean there's a Pasimo coffee machine behind me, but maybe that's stretching.

I mean it's convenient.

Yeah. But it makes me not happy.

That's a good point. Actually. I intentionally don't Put anything in the office for a potential break because it'll make me get off my seat, go to the kitchen, get a drink or whatever and come back. If I had that on tap, literally, it would be dangerous. I would never leave and my posture would be bad. My watch would be saying stand up. Sigh.

The important thing for me is because I'm not particularly dedicated when it comes to not working, is that the place I do work is the outside. And unless I unplug my laptop, which is currently plugged into a plugged in and on clamshell mode, unless I pick it up and take it into the office and then take my mouse and keyboard with me and monitor stand, I like I'm not working inside. So when I finish, I finish for good. And if I, if I think, do I need to do that work, I have to leave the house, go through the dark, get to the shed and do some work. And it's a real forcing function for me. But it also highlights how I'm lucky in that sense. But I think I would also achieve that, as you said, like if I had a room or a space in the house that was only that, I'd shut the door at the end of the day and that'd be it. Be. It wouldn't be a dual purpose room. It would just be where I work and it would try and have a separation from the rest of the house.

I mean, rewinding back to the lockdown time again. My wife and I, we were sharing the dining table and it was, it had pros and cons. It was lovely. I could sit in the same space with her, I could listen to some of her conversations, vice versa. It wasn't perfect occasion. Like, we both got meetings, we're talking who's going where, how are we doing this? But at the end of the day, down, down we go, close the door, get out. Because otherwise it blurs the boundaries. So you're like really important. Don't put it on your phone, don't take it to the living room, keep it really intentional where you work, it does increase.

So there's one of the downsides or the potential downsides of working remotely is it enables you to work more, has the like if the only time you could open your laptop was in an office that you needed to travel to and your space work did not allow. Yeah, did not allow like VPN connection. Anything else. And that's certainly been the. Some of the cases I've worked for. You were only working in the office and now there's a potential of working anytime if you wanted to. There's real simple. I say simple, really useful hack that I've used once or twice for some, but not all the time that someone describes me. And what they did as a way of reminding themselves is just by a bundle of candles, big long life candles that would last them, you know, buy them on mass and they would start a candle at the start of the day that was signified work and they would blow it out when they were finished and only when the candle was lit were they working. So it was a real significant light. Finish the day, blow out the kern door, that's it, I'm done. And it was very. And they said it was just a really useful like tiny habit to build up. And they said it really helped them. And I thought what a great, neat, simple way of just signifying I'm done.

Symbolic.

Yeah, yeah, really good.

You know, it's beautiful.

I like it. And ice and simple. I'm sure there are more fancier, more elaborate approaches, but I really like that. Just, just like a candle.

But I think it's habitual. That's the point of what they did. It was like they made it habitual. It's something you. It's hard to break, actually. And I remember speaking to someone way before lockdown that was quite disciplined with working remotely. They had a. A shoe bat outside their office, in their heart, in their house, but it made them take their shoes off at the door and put them back on to go in the office because it was mental. Things like, I've got my work shoes on business time.

So if we have time. I've got another thought that I've been pondering recently that's related to remote working is we have both gone through a period where remote working was less of a thing, or not even a thing to where it is a thing. But we have the benefit of, of knowing what it might look like to work in an office space. And there'll be many people who have started their career during. Many developers that started their career during a pandemic during lockdown and have never had the opportunity to know what it might look like from an office space. And I wonder like, are we missing something? Are they missing something? Are they missing the opportunity to make. So I would. I imagine that I've learned a level of discipline from being in an office, turning up at a certain time, being present, being trusted. What does that look like without that? Does it not matter? Can you gain it? Are you missing out on something? I. I really do wonder. From a generation that has maybe not had that. What we might be missing.

Yeah, it's something I speak to my son about actually, because he's gone to university now. He's at that age, he could be getting a job. And he's intentionally connecting with people in the real world because he realized how bad, bad the experience was during lockdown. From an education perspective, from a friendship perspective, all these factors, it, it negatively impacted him. So he's even got him to support himself a dumb phone over Christmas. He's got a Nokia. No Smart. But that's so he can get hold of anyone in an emergency. But I don't want that distraction. But he is absolutely getting into the university lifestyle. He's not on screens, he's out mingling libraries, all the real stuff. And he has told me a lot of times, him and his generation are going back to a lot of old ways. They're getting hard media, they're going to a pub or a club or a cafe. They are going back to basics in a way because that generation have had enough of tech. They are had, they're done. And I'm. A little bit of me is like, hope, is this the time that we're going back to some good times where people actually knowing how to network with each other?

It is.

Again, I sound like a proper boomer.

I'm like this really back to the LPs, but I do, I do wonder, right, is some of the, some of the, I do want like some of the behaviors of working and being responsible as a worker, as someone employed, right. As my first job, are we just not teaching people deliberately or just, or just by chance not teaching people what might be expected. So I remember in my first job, if, if I didn't tell my boss I wasn't going to turn up for work, oh my word, I'd have been in so much trouble. But I learned that like, that was just a thing. I knew that that was a thing the hard way. Yeah, yeah. And whereas now I'm sometimes surprised if I, if I hear stories around people, like just not mentioning it to their teams and, and then being surprised for being called out because. And I wonder, it's like just, have they not had the opportunity to learn this because they've never worked in an office to know that actually maybe you should let people know and you just. And we have. We're not being very deliberate about those unwritten rules that might have naturally just happened in an office.

I think there is something in that. But again, I think it depends on the environment. The team the relationships you have, you know, through some of the sort of workshops that we do, it's like, right. What are our agreed ways of working?

Yeah, I think that's really important.

Yeah. How do we communicate what our expectations are every day and how do we make sure that we're all together at the right time? So if you are off sick, you just let us know.

Yeah.

And I. I do get into a habit now, especially when I'm matrix management, for example. I'm like, just tell your team if you're off me. Second. Because they're the ones that matter. I can do the admin for you after, but it's more like, please remember the best practices, the manners that we developed back in those days. You just seemed like a normal thing to do back then.

Yeah. I think that's probably what I was getting at in terms of. Almost certainly back in office days, we would have had similar ways of working, but I don't think anyone would have ever called out. Just let your teammates know because it would have been so obvious when you're not there, you know, like, that it didn't need to be called out. And I think now we just need to remind ourselves that we need to call some of this stuff out. That would have just been.

It happens, right?

Yeah.

You join a digital stand up in the morning. You're like, where's Bob? Don't know. Sorry. If you heard anything. Nope. Has he not messaged anyone yet? But that's the thing. Like, it becomes a thing if it's obvious, but if it's not. Yeah, it's. It's like quite quitting. I think that's a thing.

Office Life brings some of that out naturally and it exposes it, brings it to light. And I think with remote working, you. I think the key for me is you. You need to be much more intentional and spell it out.

It's hard.

Yeah.

I think going back to this whole episode that we're talking about this, I realized we've got into a privileged situation where we get to do this. Not everyone's got it right. We haven't. I'm not saying we're perfect by any means, but I'm definitely learning. I want to share that out to see what others are doing, how we compare, and hopefully someone else gets something out of it.

Yeah, I. I definitely miss. If I was closer to where I work at the moment and had the opportunity to go in more often and we had an agreement with. With the team I work with that we'd have two days, I'd Be happy with that. Like, I do not, however, need to be in an office five days a week. But I value. I would value the time to be in a couple of days a week if it didn't involve, you know, six hours on a train. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that fortunately, public transport is the main blocker here, right?

Yes, very much.

Yeah.

We.

It's been really good chatting about this. So I'm like, it's definitely an ongoing problem that we need to kind of revisit, I think.

So it's important to keep talking about it. It's important to. For people to be. Keep talking about it with their teams and what it means setting out some. What works for them as a group of people and what might happens if one person's remote in a situation. Just understanding that and then. And leaning into what could be a difficult situation and just coming up with some agreements, I think is a great place to start.

Feel that trust. I think, you know, if you want to take away from this one episode is like, how do I establish trust and make sure that my team and I are following the best practices that we. We agree on. You know, have that conversation like you just said.

Yeah. It's important and. Yeah. And appreciate that not everything will work for everybody and sometimes it's a compromise.

Totally awesome. Suck it in C and go from there.

It's a good chat today. It was good getting back into this. I'm looking forward to the next one.

I've missed it as your topic next time. Can't wait to find out what you come up with.

Okay. I. It would be wrong of me to suggest that I have something ready, but I will definitely have something ready by the next time we talk.

We have our list.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll go through some. I've got. I've got one or two that are coming up now, so I think I might want to get your thoughts and ideas on that as well.

Yeah. Nice. And I also want to thank. There's a few people that have been sending some feedback. You've got it all. I've not had anything. You seem to be our marketing guy right now.

By purely by accident, I think people, some people at least have appreciated what I would describe as two men in a pub having a chat and. And appreciating the style of conversation that we had.

Maybe we need a point just to break that down a bit.

Yeah. It's also our openness when it comes to our own experience. It doesn't mean it's the right experience and it doesn't mean it's the right experience for other people but it's just us sharing some views and of also people have appreciated when we've challenged each other and also getting like getting to know us as. As co hosts as well. Appreciate that as well.

Cells. Right. There's some things you've mentioned there went.

Good question.

I need to find that one out.

Yeah, I think that's. And I think we're going to continue to do that. That's something that we're going to. That we value material for ourselves as well, right?

Absolutely. No, but it's great stuff and it's lovely that people are listening and having and it's sparking their ideas. It doesn't mean that we're getting answers but it's making them think about stuff. The hands on topics seem to resonate with a lot of people which I thought wicked. It's not just me.

I was generally surprised about that and I think that's. That's all I asked for is like I really enjoyed the conversation with you. It sparks an idea in me always if it has sparked an idea or a thought in someone else. We've done our job.

More than my job for me I just want to sit down and have a chat with you mate. And it's nice that we can lock in an hour of Fortnite.

Speaking of which, we've done a good hour today so we should definitely call it.

I think we've just hit in our market so we're good. If you are following along, give us a little like and subscribe and all that good stuff. Send us any more feedback, what you think, reach out on LinkedIn. We're both on there and yeah, we'll be back in two more weeks.

Definitely.

Absolutely. Cheers guys. Thank you, Neil.

Have a good one.