Dedicated Space

To effectively work at home full time, a dedicated office is a must. You may think you can work effectively from you kitchen table or couch, but you’re just getting by. Effectiveness requires commitment.

There is a strong psychology around why you should have a dedicated space. You need to be able to mentally transition from your home to work persona and back. If you work where you eat, and eat where you work, how can you ever tell the difference? You eventually won’t, and one or both of your personas will suffer.

There are security reasons for having a dedicated space. Many jobs require you to be able to lock the door to an office to protect equipment and files. At a minimum, most will require lockable file storage and commitment to security around protected information. If you are like me, you may also tend to raise your voice or say things that others shouldn’t hear. Ok, maybe it’s just that you talk about client information and don’t curse out-loud about the email you just received. Either way, there are likely ears that shouldn’t be privy to such things. Data you speak should be just as secure as data you write or read. You also don’t want to be an annoyance to your family or teach any impressionable people those 4-letter words.

Security isn’t always about data and equipment, it’s also about your personal security in the form of safety. When you are working, you are on the corporate dime and therefore typically covered by your employer’s Workman’s Compensation program. Your employer likely has some materials for you to sign related to the manner in which you will keep your home space organized and free from hazards that may result in personal injury or other harm. If you do not have a dedicated space, you open yourself up to more risk of injury or damage, like stepping on the kids Lego’s and dropping your laptop. You also open yourself up to that issue not being covered. Employee injury or illness is compensable under workers’ compensation if it arises out of and in the course of employment, regardless of the location the injury occurs. Employees typically have the burden of proving that the injury is work-related. “Arising out of” refers to what the employee was doing at the time of the injury, and “in the course of” refers to when the injury happened. It’s a lot harder fight this when you tell your Lego story, compared to a secured space.

Having a dedicated office provides you some financial assistance as well. You have some deductions you can take advantage of, but the reserved space really is a must. Common deductions include a percentage of your property-related payments (like mortgage interest, rent, insurance, and property taxes, office furniture and equipment, physical home repairs and improvements, business phone line, etc. The catch is, it MUST be for work! (Or you have to only deduct the portion that is.) If you deduct that new hardwood you just installed, you better not be watching Sunday Night Football in the same space.

In an upcoming post, I’ll talk about how to situate that home office to be your most productive self. In the meantime, start looking for that space you can carve out as your own. 

The Hardest Part

What’s been the hardest part, for me, about working from home?

You might think I’d say something like missing my friends, feeling lonely, feeling less engaged in meetings, feeling distant from my company, etc., etc., etc. And while those may be valid obstacles (which I like to think I’ve overcome), they haven’t been the hardest. For me, the hardest part has been taking a stand.

When I started working from home, I went all in. I wanted to do it right. Partially because I wanted it to work for myself. And partially because I had staff accumulating across the country that were counting on it to work. This caused me to place extra burden on myself to really represent. Some people’s jobs were depending on it!

This forced me into some awkward positions that can still be hard to deal with to this day. I’ve talked before about how I’m not coming in for your meeting… But sometimes that stance is really unpopular – especially with executive leadership. I even had one executive state said if you had any meetings with X-level leaders or above, you HAD to come in.

This really bothered me. What if my staff in other states had been asked to participate in these meetings? What if they were trying to move up the ladder? Would they be held back because of geography? Would it reflect negatively on them that they couldn’t attend in person because of distance? I certainly didn’t want that to happen to my people, let alone me. I felt like I needed to be overly diligent about fighting for at-home rights to protect us all.

In the short term, that was extremely hard. There’s nothing like purposefully disobeying your leadership to make a name for yourself. A not so good name. And that’s why this was the hardest part. For every meeting, I had to judge how much it would hurt me in the short term and what “trouble” I would be in for my mutiny.

I mostly stood firm, and stayed at home. I’d get called out in meetings about it. I’d get lectured. I’d get a black-eye or black-balled. Yet, I still did it. Some leaders would stop putting remote options on meetings all together trying to force the in-person transaction to take place. And for some of those, I’d ask someone else that I knew at the meeting to call me from the meeting. Yeah… that pissed some people off. And on the few occasions where I felt I had to go in or might be on the receiving end of a pink slip, it was rarely ever worth it. Nothing was so special about meeting in-person that it couldn’t have been done remotely.

I probably still have a bad reputation with some folks that have yet to get on the at-home boat. I know I ruffled their feathers. But that was a risk I was willing to take for something I believed in. Now, four years later, I believe all of those fights paid off. I believe I helped provoke a movement.

No one wants to be the black sheep. And that is why knowingly putting myself in that position was the hardest part about working from home. I risked my job for an ideal I was passionate about. Thankfully, it worked in my favor. I learned a lot about myself through that engagement:

• I am a strong person. Knocking me down doesn’t knock me out.
• I have conviction. If I truly believe in something, I will fight for it.
• I am an advocate. Advocates don’t always do what is popular. They do what is right.
• I have a lot of courage. It would have been easier to fold, but with great risk can come great reward.
• I am a leader. I work for my team, and in the trenches with them. I don’t just “manage people”.

Most of my battle scars have healed. And the result is a cult-like following of people that want to learn more about how to work at home successfully and the proliferation of the at-home program. The pain and fear resulted in ever-reaching positive outcomes. I’d say it was a good gamble.

It's all fun and games

I recently had a coworker contact me and ask what types of icebreaker games they could play at their virtual all-team meeting. Good question! So, here are a few based on your level of tools and ability to plan ahead:

Picture Pages

This is probably my personal favorite. You can make this as simple or as sophisticated as you’d like. The basic premise is to collect photos from the meeting attendees in advance without sharing to the broader audience, then combine them and present them in the meeting as a guessing game. You could do it for fun, or create a real survey-style sheet and collect the entries to pick a winner based on the most matches.

You can go simple, such as everyone send in a picture of your shoes (while on), and have people try to guess the person by their shoes alone. Or likewise with a deck photo, car photo, half of a selfie, back of their head photo, etc.

The pictures don’t have to be real! You could have people send in their favorite 80’s cartoon, superhero, video game character, board game, and so on. It’s more about capturing the personality of the individual in a manner that would provide insight into their character and not be the same across the board.

You can be as fun and creative with the subject matter as you’d like. Even better, if you have a theme to your meeting, pick a photo subject that corresponds.

As for me, I kicked it up a notch! I created a template that is a combination of many of these things and had folks find images for all of them. This allowed people to illustrate more of their personality. But, more importantly, it gave us an artifact we would hold on to and share internally so that it could be referenced later for new people or people that you didn’t work with as frequently. We refer to it as a “virtual desk”, similar to things you might learn about each other if you actually had a desk to approach for a visit. Below is mine. Isn’t it easy to get to know me better from this in quick order? And aren’t I awesome?!? ;-)

Two Truths and a Lie

Classic game of individuals supplying two facts about themselves that others may not be aware of, plus one lie. The goal is to guess which statement is the lie. When people use more obscure facts about themselves, the game becomes far more tricky, and fun!

You can wing this with no advance prep and ask people to make these statements live in your meeting, or type them into some web share (such as Lync, Webex, etc.) on the fly, and then just have others guess. Or these can be collected and collated in advance, and again a score sheet could be used to capture guesses on which item is the lie.

Tip: Having the items written, in advance or via the web share, makes it easier for people to recall all three statements and then review for which they believe to be the lie.

Buddy System

Prior to your meeting, the organizer should pair up all participants with another participant. This can be completely random, but if you’re me to go out of your way to assign people that don’t know each other or typically work together.

The assignment is easy: The pair gets on the phone and chats prior to the meeting to get to know each other, specifically some things about each other personally and their current work.

During the meeting, each person will introduce their partner instead of them introducing themselves. It’s a creative way to do intros while establishing some additional personal connections.

Story Time

If you ever went to camp as a kid, you likely played this game. Someone starts a story, then the next person adds on, and so on as the story goes. The last person brings it to a “logical” conclusion.

You can do this verbally. However, it’s even more fun to see the end product, and maybe even save it for future reference! Using web-share tools, and sharing a whiteboard or even a word processing doc, have someone start by typing the first few words. Then name someone to go next and take over control to continue typing. Some tools will make this very easy with annotation support.

Try putting a limit on it, such as writing only three or five words, before passing the story on to the next person. As the facilitator, you can start the story using words related to your theme or topic to relate it back to your meeting if desired.

Would You Rather…

Put together a slide or two in advance asking people if they would rather do X or Y. In your meeting, display this page and ask people to put a mark on their vote. You can do this with a word processing doc and just collect X’s or names. However, I prefer this in a tool with annotation ability, especially those with pointer arrows that include people’s names. It’s prettier and more fun for the user, usually easier to allow people to edit all at once, and also easier to reset.

You can set the X and Y parts of the game to match the theme of your meeting, or just silly concepts to break the ice. For instance, would you rather:

·         Be invisible or read minds? (Me: Read minds)

·         Eat nothing but sweets or nothing but savory? (Me: Sweets)

·         Give up TV/Internet or give up books? (Me: Books)

·         Swim with dolphins or ride an elephant? (Me: Dolphin)

·         Hike or swim? (Me: Hike)

·         Take a European vacation or Caribbean vacation? (Me: Europe)

·         Have more time or more money? (Me: ummmm…. Time?)

·         Talk like Yoda or breathe like Darth Vader? (Me: Talk like Yoda I will)

Tic-Tac-Toe

Draw up some tic-tac-toe boards. (You know – those giant hashtag looking things?) Assign a pair to play and let them go. You can make the boards in advance, or do them on the fly in your meeting. You can use tools like paint or word processing, but again I prefer web share tools with annotation abilities. It’s just easier for multiple people to engage at once, and tends to have more flexibility. You can keep track of winners and turn it into a bracketed tournament if you’d like. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it gets people engaged in the presentation medium. (And tic-tac-toe smack-talk can be a brutal and fun side conversation taking place!)

Pictionary

You’ve all played Pictionary, right? Pick a word, draw a picture of that word, and see if your team can guess the word you picked. Same deal, only virtual and using the tools to your advantage. Divide your meeting into two teams. The meeting host supplies the word to ONE PERSON on one of the teams, and gives them sixty seconds to draw. The others on the team are guessing out loud. The drawing works best with a nice annotation feature, but paint or other similar tools will also work in your web share. If the team gets it, they get a point. If they don’t, the other team can guess and steal that point. Rotate to the other team. Then rotate to the next player on the first team. And so on. First team to X wins.

If that feels like too much work, just share your whiteboard and have people draw. Pick out a theme and have them create a collective scene, building off each other. Maybe a summer’s day, a picnic, a snowy day, the zoo – it’s all in the engagement and banter.

Hangman

Is that name even still politically correct?? I’m using it anyway…

The host gets most of the work on this one, but it doesn’t require much-if-any advanced prep. Standard hangman rules: Draw the empty gallows, and draw the word or phrase as a serious of blank lines (“Wheel of Fortune” style). Take turns guessing letters. When the letters are correct, fill in your blank lines. When they aren’t, draw more body parts on your hanging dude. It’s up to you how elaborate you make your person. Decide how you want to declare a winner – it could be just for fun, or you could make teams like Pictionary with a steal option (after the dude is dead).

You can make the words and phrases related to your topic, or something silly. The best part is that everyone will get to see your awful computer drawing skills!

Quick Questions

Think of a silly question to ask the participants in your group. Have them share aloud or in writing through your web share. This is the simplest way out, but can be just as fun! Some ideas:

·         If you had a theme song play every time you entered the room/a meeting, what would it be? (Mine is the “Night Court” theme song… Inside joke!)

·         What should I never ask you about? (Don’t ask me about Apple/”i” anything. I’m a Windows and Android gal!)

·         What was the last concert you attended? Or what is the next one on your list? (I’ll be at Alice Cooper this weekend!! We’re not worthy!!)

·         If today were like High School, what superlative would apply to you? Most likely to succeed? Best dressed? Class clown? (I’ll go with cutest couple for me. My hubby is my prince. Awwwhhh…)

The bottom-line is that there tons of games you can play with remote teams depending on your goals and time available. The most important thing is to try. There are creative ways to turn almost anything into a virtual game if you just give it some thought. See how much you just learned about me?