At Sassafras Marketing, we know a thing or two about working from home. We’ve done it for the last 15 years and at this point it’s like a well-oiled machine. It allows us the opportunity to attract the top talent no matter where they’re located and gives employees more flexibility and family time.
We found it interesting to learn that even before the pandemic struck, remote work was accelerating in the U.S. Over the last five years it grew 44% and between 2005 and 2017, there was a 159% increase in remote work. Today, 4.7 million people work remotely, or 3.4% of the population. Virtual high five!
If you’re trying to find your groove in the uncharted waters of the virtual world, take it from us, the benefits far outweigh the struggles. (Unless, of course, you’re also balancing homeschooling your kids. That’s a different topic for a different blog.) Here are a few benefits of working from home we thought would be helpful to share.
Technology Brings Us Together
Technology has made it easier than ever for our employees to coordinate across a variety of physical spaces. Even in an ad agency world that stresses the importance of creative collaboration, we’ve found that the processes and tools we use allow us to be just as collaborative as a traditional office and twice as productive! Even those meaningful conversations that happen on the fly and face-to-face problem-solving challenges are captured through video meetings and touch bases.
Advocates for the idea of virtual work, fueled by tools that have emerged or evolved in recent years for real-time teamwork, hope the coronavirus response might mark the turning point when companies stop worrying and embrace the virtual office. We hope so too!
Culture? We have the best there is.
Many companies have been reluctant to embrace remote work because they worry they might lose the culture they’ve worked so hard to build. We get it. It does take hard work and dedication to ensure culture stays intact across multiple state lines. Here are a few ways we keep our culture in check:
Local work sessions—small groups of employees gather around free wifi and snacks and work in one space. This, of course, only works when multiple employees live in the same city. Lucky for us, a lot of ours do!
Morning call—each morning we start with a collaborative touch base with our creative team and finish up with updates and questions for the account team to stay on track.
Chat rooms—these are added based on common interests and projects for a quick way to ask questions, discuss, or start a video dialogue.
Team meetings—quality time together is how creative ideas and goals are formed, so twice a year we get together for some uninterrupted, in-person team time.
Productivity and Accountability
Work flexibility and lack of a commute, plus creative ways to stay connected to the rest of the company, increase our productivity at Sassafras. We believe that productivity and culture actually go hand-in-hand. When the team feels empowered, has a great support system, and puts their clients first, productivity will come naturally.
We remain dedicated to our virtual environment and our systems and support have not been interrupted by the changes occurring in our world today. We are very well prepared for the impact that this is having as the world does business, and are here to assist if you have questions on how to navigate the remote working world.
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