05 Mai Testimonials on working in confined mode: it can work!

For many years, our profession has led us to provide individual support to a number of people, either face-to-face or remotely. Over the past few weeks, we have been able to collect – at a distance – the testimonials from a significant number of work experiences in confinement, which is a valuable subject to work on these days.
Among these testimonials, some of them told us their satisfaction in living through this period, and their wish to see the professional relationship evolve so that the gains observed can continue. Yes, for these people, the confinement is professionally essentially well lived.
For others, it was the opposite, and their anger, their dismay, when not exhaustion, was palpable. So what happens for those people? What makes the difference with the first ones? In a coming article, we will also report their words, to better analyse, on the basis of their experiences, what should not be done and suggest alternatives.
But first, let’s look at some of the professional ingredients for a successful confinement.

Obligation to empower and take responsibility – autonom

“One thing I notice: because of the situation, people don’t spend their time asking me to validate this or that option: people decide more, become autonomous and it works! I absolutely want to keep it going!”

Remote work may require more autonomy in finding solutions. This requirement should be taken advantage as a good opportunity to empower people and give them self-confidence. Do not forget, if they evolve, improve, to clearly congratulate them.

Taking a step back

“I take advantage of that period to give more space to my family life during the day, but also to myself! I give myself time to take a yoga class on line whenever possible!”

“The time I have recovered also allows me to think more about my job, my difficulties. It’s a period that allows me to take a step back, to reflect on things I wouldn’t normally do”

“My life partner is also teleworking. Well, actually, that’s great! We share like never before on our jobs, in a concrete way and frankly, we bring each other things!”

Confinement, is the art of mixing very different moments: a “professional we”, a “family we”, a “marital we”, without forgetting oneself, between oneself and oneself: sport, reading, manicure, do-it-yourself, etc. This mix requires communicating to give everyone a sense of what you need to achieve, of what is negotiable for you and what is not. The same goes for those who share the confinement with you; it is therefore a matter of negotiating, taking and giving, explaining and receiving explanations, understanding, etc. Life!

More anthenticity and trust

“We’ve put rituals in place: we connect together at a certain time with two, three or four people, and we ask each other news, we know more about what each of us is experiencing, it is more authentic! In fact, virtual communication generates more human beings! We manage to live good moments of discussion. It’s crazy! Thanks to the virtual mode, we know each other better! Frankly, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

This is the advantage of difficult situations: they can bring people closer together, each of whom is experiencing moments that are not simple, and in fact, out of conviviality, friendship or simply to explain their context, they are happy to talk about themselves and what they are experiencing. This is a very nice development, to be preserved when the situation returns back to normal, especially as beyond good feelings, such relationships produce trust – better perception of the other’s authenticity – and collective intelligence.

Relationship with our suppliers – better support from us

“The context, because of distancing and health risks, leads to more questions: how are you doing? How are you impacted? These questions are more sincere than usual because the risks exist and we know that many companies are severely affected. So, when we communicate with a partner, a supplier, we ask more about them and we have to find new fits in the ways we work together. As a result, everyone feels a responsibility to find solutions; we realize how much we need each other. Yes, in the end, this mess brings us closer together.”

A bit like what we mentioned above, but here facing outwards. This is how “contractor” and “subcontractor” – the words have their meaning! – become more, quite simply, partners. This, without a doubt, to the benefits of the results.

Since confinement, more closeness, exchanges: we learn to know each other

“Every day, with my boss, we take 30 minutes to take stock of the situation. This is always an opportunity to talk about context and not only professional. He has 5 kids and in a confined mode, it is not an easy task. As a result, he relies more on me, speaks more about himself, about what he’s going through; our relationship has become more human to the benefit of the mutual trust… it’s a pity that it took this situation to experience this much more pleasant closeness…!”

Yes, we can see, here again, that crisis and difficulties more generally can build real teams. These two are clearly becoming partners, regardless of their hierarchical position. And, it is highly likely that their relationship has been lastingly and positively transformed.

Collaboration tools– a more collaborative approach

“With confinement, we had no choice: this is remote work, in virtual, or nothing! It pushed us to discover new working tools – essentially videoconferencing and shared documents – and learn how to work with them. I became a champion of Z… and of G… D… whereas before I didn’t want to hear about it! In addition, these tools
develop sharing: screen sharing, document sharing… We co-create more and think together. In the end, we pay more attention to each other, to what is said, we are more focused”

And the light was! There are many advantages to this way of working, just take ownership of how the right tools work and adopt a professional attitude in line with the capabilities offered by these ingenious tools. Open your mind!

Want it to continue this way!

“So, of course, it does not replace the relationship… but frankly, I realize that you can do a lot of things without necessarily having to travel – I live at 1h15 from my workplace – Now, we are more focused on the working relationship, we listen to each other more and better, it is calmer and in the end, more efficient. The “working minute” is more profitable!”

“The working minute is more profitable”… This observation opens up many possibilities. Either, for the same amount of work, as long as you can work at a distance, the results will be better, should you take into account the fact that remote work requires more concentration and therefore generates more fatigue; or for the same results, it is possible to work… less, and to do more things during the day. To achieve this, once again, the relationship must be adapted to the tools’ capabilities: speak in turn taking care not to monopolize the speech; be kind; take into account what you hear; ensure its impact…

Once again, these testimonials are real, authentic; they show that, even if with the difficulties inhered to confinement, remote work can, for some people, be positive: trust, complicity, efficiency, cohesion, etc.
Confinement is a very difficult version of remote work. It is then necessary to take into account the personal context of your employees or managers who may be heavily impacted by the period: large family, feeling of isolation, close people affected by the illness, grief, mental load, etc.
These testimonials show that it is because all the above have been taken into account, that the professional relationship remains effective, despite, once again, the difficulties inherent to this very special moment.

Otherwise, the long-distance professional relationship can become a living hell.

Next time, we will share with you testimonials of less pleasant situations, so that we can understand their nature and origin and present ways to avoid these poor performances.