Before I start this update: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus-support-from-business for an opportunity to contribute as a business – thank you Jeremy Rees from ExCel London!

In last week’s article I thanked the Technology Infrastructure and Business Continuity people of the world for allowing a good chunk of us to “keep calm and carry on” working from home.

On sucking eggs

This week is the turn of the multitude of online helpers who explain to us how best to handle remote working with blogs and articles.

I don’t think I am the only one to feel that the 5-or-10-point-advice often amounts to little more than “how to suck eggs”; however, I am truly grateful for the time and care people spend in sharing their wisdom – a free and simple way to create a sense of community and support across businesses.

No matter how obvious some of the suggestions may seem, it is valuable and reassuring to hear from others what works and what doesn’t.

Sometimes it’s the most unlikely detail that resonates with you.

For me, it was the virtual pizza party in this Harvard Business Review “Guide to managing your (newly) remote workers“, a comprehensive piece which one of my managers pinged me a few days ago…

On Pizza

…So, we swiftly made arrangements for our Friday Company Zoom to take place at lunch time with Pizza deliveries for all – with one caveat:

NO PINEAPPLE ALLOWED.

The discussion, this time round, focused more on mental well-being and being well organised in responding to the Public Health recommendations on social distancing – in particular when shopping.

Given it was our very first virtual pizza party, I consider it a success.

Beyond Pizza

It was clear from the outset that, for an office-based company like us, work-from-home would present a challenge in tracking productivity to maintain confidence, internally and externally, in our top-grade Service Delivery.

Three weeks in, we have good reason to be optimistic:

  • across the private system instances we run for the financial sector, more than 10,000 corporate users from 50+ countries opened tens of thousands of Operational Service and Quality-Assurance related tickets; large positions in Money-Market Transactions were risk-managed daily; hundreds of thousands of KPIs and Compliance cases processed;
  • in other industries, our smaller livedataset.com clients and partners were able to help schools optimise their curricula, lease bikes to young families, manage production orders for engineering components;
  • internally, we successfully completed our first 100% virtual hiring process: our new full-stack developer will join and start training remotely asap.

Closing statements

And now for an original, delegated ending: a pick of Krescendo “work-from-home” statements right from the horses’ mouths at the end of week #2:

  • Mahesh: the wfh experience has been smooth for me. Bigger screen abled by the monitor adapter has greatly helped. Learning to cook as a hobby is keeping me occupied on the extra curricular front!
  • Athavan: going good so far, getting used to it but realise I actually much prefer getting squashed on the tube to instead work in the office.
  • Tony: working from home is not an inconvenience for me. […] I enjoy my breaks with my cat so that’s always a plus. I am able to manage my working hours. I can always work late in the evening if I need a longer break […] For me, it is all positive so far.
  • Nick: so far the experience of working from home has been somewhat good, as good as it can be given the circumstance. It took some adjustment in the first week but settled into the routine now. Will see how it holds up in a few weeks. Getting a comfortable set up is difficult and still need to make some changes […] One benefit of WFH is that I get to spend more time with the dog.

Stay safe and Good Luck to us all!