I am finding it possible to be more efficient whilst also unlocking family time that I had no chance of unlocking previously due to the commute and with young children; this feels invaluable.
On top of this, I find I am more efficient at home as my role involves a huge amount of interaction with a broad spectrum of the team – so in the office this equates to being interrupted every 30 seconds making it hard to make progress on specific tasks, instead via Teams I still feel the direct and flexible contact with the team but can manage how it interacts with specific things I am working on.

The challenges of working and managing the team through Covid when remote working was forced upon us, is etched in my memory and it has really made me value the flexibility that I now have. For me, I find a level of inspiration from joining colleagues in the hustle and bustle of the city and the office but I value the upsides noted above of being at home. I think this is the future of work – and we should make the most of it.

As a certified workaholic, I find it hard to put my work down so am pretty rigorous about managing my diary for short blocks (say around dinner/bath or bedtime) to ensure that there is clear delineation between home and work time – it’s important for your mental health and clarity of thought to be able to segregate home and work sometimes.

I am also a huge believer in the power that a team can bring to solving problems that we face, so being remote while maintaining close connections with the team and ensuring we maintain the flexibility to get together in groups is valuable to me and something I work hard to maintain.

Establish what working pattern works for you and your role, and do some thinking about how you work best.

You may, for example, need some solid periods where you block your diary to do admin/avoid distractions. Conversely, at times, you may feel you need to get better connected with the team, and arrange to work together to brainstorm a particular issue.

Don’t be a wallflower – if you are in a meeting, you are in it, so be present, camera on and engaged. Colleagues understand this goes wrong sometimes, so don’t be ashamed to flag that you have technical issues/need to be in transit for a meeting. Better to be honest than someone leaping to the conclusion you’re not interested in the subject. Oh and if you are not interested in the subject… consider why you are in the meeting and whether you should be in the future (same applies for both ‘remote’ and ‘in person’ scenarios).

I value the office space, I make sure that I am attending the office for good reason and that I am there at the same time as key colleagues that I want to spend time with. I think it is really important for mental health, engagement with the business and our mission that you get to be amongst the office buzz periodically.

The flexibility is great so when I or a member of the team needs to do something during the day we find a way to make it work but we all know what needs to be done to keep the business firing on all cylinders so we find a way to catch any lost time/momentum up later. This helps us all to trust each other and deliver our best work.