Complion Insights: Mobile working on flexible time at COMPLION
Flexible work schedules and home offices have become both salvation and memes in the pandemic. While it's clear that many companies have both saved lives and kept their businesses afloat by switching to home working, jokes along the lines of "home office - I'll live in the office from now on" aren't without their shred of truth either. How to find the right balance between relaxed productivity and home office burnout is often determined in large part by corporate culture. In this blog post, you can find out what this looks like at COMPLION with regard to mobile and flexible working.
COMPLION is a management consulting firm and management consultants have a certain reputation for being workaholics. Working from a home office can dangerously easily foster such dispositions. After all, one has constant access to work materials and the way to the "office", even after work hours, is only a few meters. So any thought on the sofa binging Netflix can be turned into an all-nighter in front of the laptop in the blink of an eye.
A corporate culture of understanding can counteract home office burnout here. At COMPLION, this culture exists. In this article I would like to tell you about my three years of "Flexibility at COMPLION".
Why don't you work wherever you want?
Since the company was founded in 2018, the COMPLION team has been working decentrally, as befits a decent IT startup. In concrete terms, this means that while we have daily access to the offices of our subsidiary COMPENDION in Cologne, Munich and Hamburg, each team member is free to work from home as well. And "home" in this context doesn't even have to mean "Cologne, Munich or Hamburg", but can be any place with a good WiFi connection. For the last three years, I have been working from Flensburg, two hours (if the Deutsche Bahn is gracious) away from the nearest COMPLION location.
Meetings with clients are either held via communication platforms, such as Teams or Webex, or the COMPLION consultants work directly on site at the client company. While we are not at the clien site, we are basically location independent, and this even stretches beyond Germany. Thus, COMPLION offers the possibility of working from home, and if Germany is too gray and cold, you can pack your suitcase and work from Southern Europe for a few weeks.
About trusting bosses and life hacks for the home office
Decentralized digital work means that supervisors do not always have direct access to their team. Micromanagement is only possible to a very limited extent, but is not wanted anyway. This requires a certain amount of trust from supervisors that the team will follow work instructions and take care of completing tasks independently. At the same time, team members also need a penchant for self-organization and self-motivation in order to successfully manage the home office. Working in your pajamas with your laptop in bed sounds pleasant at first, but it can severely damage productivity and mental health in the long run. My tips from three years of home office are therefore:
- Create a regular routine: Eliminating the commute does mean that you can sleep longer, but you shouldn't necessarily max it out completely. Getting out of bed and into Zoom Call without a camera, without first taking the time to properly wake up and getting ready for the day, for example, created frustration for me, rather than making more alert through the extra minutes of sleep.
- Set up a distinct workspace: The mental demarcation between work and personal time can become blurred in the home office, which can have a direct impact on well-being. This needs to be avoided through spatial separation. So that home office doesn't degenerate into "I live in the office," it's helpful to create a place in the home that is only used for work. I have set up a corner in my living room that is only used during working hours. A separate study is, of course, the best solution. Here you can close the door after doing your day's work and leave work behind.
- Collaborate as often as you can: The home office can be a lonely place. If you're lucky, your partner also works from home, which at least gives you someone to talk with during your lunch break. But as soon as you sit in front of the computer with your own tasks, you are very busy with yourself. Here it is important not to forget: You are not alone. The COMPLION team has managed to maintain a very good collegial relationship despite frequent physical separation. Colleagues are often only a phone call away and can provide feedback and support in all work matters. The flat hierarchies and personal interaction with each other ensure that every person in the team is available for a discussion. It is important to take advantage of this to avoid becoming lonely and despairing of one's own work.
An ode to the right balance
Basically, the home office and flexible work hours can be a powerful tool for satisfaction, productivity and self-development. The elimination of commuting and (ideally) distraction-free work hours can skyrocket your productivity to previously unimagined heights. However, there is definitely a risk of working too much or becoming lonely at home. Regular contact with the team in the real world as well as a good awareness of work-life balance are particularly protective here. A good balance between productive solitude at your own chosen working hours and collaborative get-togethers between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the office, as well as a clear separation of work and private areas in the home, are the clear key to success.
If you want to have this flexibility, which we have considered our work philosophy not only since the pandemic, also in your everyday work, then be sure to check out the entry-level opportunities with us at the following link: https://complion.de/wen-suchen-wir/dein-einstieg-und-deine-entwicklung.
Author: Tobias Philipsen