Work fully remote and without meeting in real life
Hello! My name is Kanekiyo. Remote work has become popular after the Corona Disaster, and now that Corona has moved to Class 5, more and more people around me are working in an environment where they can choose to work “sometimes remotely” or “sometimes in the office” depending on their convenience.
Right now mgn is working full remote. With the coronavirus disaster, there was an opportunity for everyone to meet while working on infection control at a time when the infection situation has calmed down a bit. But me, I mean, We had an event at our office last summer. I had spent more than three and a half years without meeting anyone in the company until I attended an event at the office last summer (can someone write about that too?). Can we build trust and work as a team in such an environment…?
In this issue, I would like to share my perspective on how mgn communicates and works day-to-day in a remote environment.
Working Remotely
MGN was already working remotely in late 2019 when I started working full-time. On top of that, we had opportunities to communicate with each other, gathering at the office about once a week to work and have lunch. However, I live far away from the office, neither in Tokyo nor in the suburbs, and it takes more than 3 hours door-to-door to get to the office, and I also have daughters in elementary and junior high school (all still in elementary school at that time!). I was just going to go as long as I could. As a result, I would only attend year-end parties and special occasions.
Image by Adobe Firefly
Soon after that, coronavirus spread around the world, and for a while at the stay home, we were completely remote without any other members gathering together, but even before the Corona disaster, every morning I would say “Good morning! and I would enter zoom, work online, and leave zoom when I was done, so there was no inconvenience at all in terms of work. I remember that I got used to the fact that I was always connected to zoom (now Gather) during work within a few days of starting to work at mgn.
All information necessary for work is in Google Drive, Notion, Backlog, etc., and can be viewed in text or video. If there is something I don’t understand or need to confirm, I may talk to them directly on Slack, Backlog, or Gather. I think this allows me to work as a remote worker itself without any problems.
Is communication necessary?
This is all subjective on my part, but even though I can get the information I need to do my job and work on it, the way I work, the amount of work I do, or the appropriateness of my work… I think the ease of doing the work depends on how you feel about the situation, etc. And it varies from person to person, and it depends on the situation at that point in time. Therefore, I think that just being able to share to some extent what kind of environment or situation each person is currently working in, what they are good at or not good at, or what they like or dislike, will improve the ease of working. For this reason, I believe that communication is more important than anything else. I don’t mean that we talk directly about our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes at work (or even if we do), but I think it would be good if we could gradually get to know each other and have people get to know us through day-to-day contact.
Remote Work Communication
Image by Adobe Firefly
In mgn, there are many opportunities to get to know “everyone” outside of the duties that each person has, for example, there is time just for chatting, or if there is something that everyone wants to discuss or communicate to everyone, there is time to put it on the agenda. Also, there are channels in different genres where people share about things they are interested in or like in Slack, and I sometimes get healed by cute animal videos. In my own channel, I would put in just a complaint, “My youngest son brought home a lot of friends and they are too noisy!!!!” I sometimes put just a complaint on my channel….
I can also see the backlogs and Slacks of projects that I am not involved in, and we can share our calendars so I can see the schedules of meetings with customers as well as within the company, so I can say, “Mr. 00 is busy with another project right now, so I’ll take this one. When I was unaware of an urgent call, he would notify me and say, “You’ve received a call like this! When I was unaware of an urgent call, they would notify me and help me out.
Slack, of course, is not only for things unrelated to work, but also for updates, technical information, and information on various events, which is very much appreciated by me, as I have a low antennae. Also, everything is shared, not only with members who are working together on the same projects, but also with members who are not involved in the projects, and I sometimes get a glimpse of their work… I really think everyone is great, and I have a lot of respect for all mgn members. At the same time, I feel again that I have to do my best! At the same time, I also think again, “I have to work hard!
Not all of them, but you can picture what each member likes to do, what they seem to be good at, and of course, their faces and voices. Although it is through a screen, we communicate daily in real time using Gather, and we also have an atmosphere in mgn where it is natural to think and discuss how we can make everyone’s work as comfortable as possible, and to try out and adopt new things.
Easy-to-work-remote work
Since the Corona disaster, I have been working for more than three and a half years without seeing anyone in real life. I have never felt inconvenienced by this, and in fact, I find it more often than not very efficient and easy to work with, partly because the nature of web production makes it easy to work remotely, but above all because of the trust between all mgn members. When I met everyone for the first time in a while last summer, I felt as if I was saying, “We met yesterday, too, didn’t we? It was like, “We met yesterday, too. But it is also true that I thought it was nice to actually meet and talk to each other instead of just looking at each other through a screen.
Whether you are an occasional remote worker or a full remote worker, we would be happy if we could give you some hints on how to create an environment that is as stress-free as possible for those of you who work remotely.