How to thrive in a remote working environment

You’ll start this section by spending some time reflecting on whether this is an environment that could work for you.

Will it work for you?

Your ability to work from home effectively and happily can also depend on personal characteristics. While anyone has the potential to work successfully from home, some individuals may struggle more with certain aspects and need to put the right tools in place to mitigate against those challenges.

In a blog for live chat software company Olark, Emily Russell suggests 5 ways to know if remote working is right for you:

• Are you self-directed? Working remotely requires self-discipline and motivation.
• Are you comfortable working alone? If you know you’re the type of person who will feel lonely – make sure you have plans in place to meet your social needs.
• Are you an excellent communicator? Learning which tool to use for what (e.g. email, instant messaging, web conferencing, etc.) and communicating clearly are vital. When much of the communication is in writing, you won’t have body language or facial expressions to help you convey your message.
• Are you capable of maintaining a healthy work/life balance? If you are someone who can’t switch off from work – you’ll need to work harder to set work/life boundaries.
• Does your employer offer a healthy remote culture? For example, making space for employees to foster connections remotely.

Now watch this short video in which one employee describes their experience of working from home and the things they’ve learned about making it work for them. His emphasis on separating work and home life, even when it comes to where you sit to work or relax, is great advice!

The NHS also makes a series of recommendations for healthy home working, including the following:

• Set and stick to a routine
• Give yourself breaks throughout the working day
• Stay connected to others
• Set boundaries with family and friends, but also with work colleagues.

As you saw previously, a key challenge for the homeworker, particularly if the majority of their time is spent away from the office environment, is how to combat feeling disconnected or lonely. Watch this short video from Survival Corner for some tips.

Looking further

If you feel remote working could be ideal for you, you may have already explored some of the recruitment websites that specialise in these opportunities. While there are usually a small number of UK opportunities advertised, these sites currently tend to focus more on the US or elsewhere in the world. Software development company Wesrom provides a useful list of the sites that do include UK roles. Browsing through will give you a sense of the employers and sectors that already value this approach.

Well-known jobs boards such as Indeed or TotalJobs also allow you to search for home working roles in the UK (or even in North Yorkshire), but the search engine depends on the wording used in the advert so you might need to vary your search terms.

For the moment, most SMEs are unlikely to use remote working websites to recruit, so a better approach might be to raise the possibility when talking to a potential employer. You’ll explore communicating with SMEs next week.

Over to you

Take a few minutes to reflect on whether you are someone who could work well from home or whether you might feel particularly lonely or isolated. Not all SMEs work in this way, and not all roles within SMEs will be suitable for hybrid or remote working, but knowing your preferences will be helpful when it comes to selecting which jobs to apply for.

A quick online search using your preferred search engine will bring up lots of useful information about combatting the sense of isolation you might feel when working from home. Spend a few minutes researching the issue and if you come across a particularly useful website or video, or some advice you think is really good – share it in the comments below.