How to work remotely 👨‍💻

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #22 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

I hope you’ve had a good week.

We had team days this week, so I thought I’d share about something a little different: How to work work well as a team when you’re remote-first.

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

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Working remote, running like clockwork 👨‍💻

When my business partner and I started Neighbourhood, we made a decision to hire based on ability, not geography.

It’s a trade off for sure, but it’s one of the best decisions we’ve made.

The team live in Eastbourne, Portsmouth, Southampton, Haywards Heath, Leeds, London and beyond.

Every month we get together in Eastbourne for 2 days.

Here’s (most) of us 👇

We don’t always get it right, but there are some things we try and do to make working remotely a success. Here are three of them:

#1 Be clear about values

Six months ago we defined our values.

I’ve had a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with organisational values in the past.

They’re always too abstract, too vague, too distant.

So ours aren’t random words plucked from the sky, they are habits we already demonstrated.

We aren’t forcing people to do something that isn’t natural to them, but highlighting good things and behaviours that already existed.

We don’t know them off by heart, we don’t write them on our office wall, but we can come back to them regularly, when we need to do a health-check of where we’re heading.

They’re a work in progress, but naming them and communicating them to the team helps us spot when something is off kilter, and we can make a plan to correct our course.

#2 There’s more to life than work

That’s one of our values.

In a remote-first world there’s no such thing as “work/life balance”.

The lines between work and home are blurred, and it becomes more about integration than balance.

Life spills over, and we believe that a strong, healthy team should care about each other’s lives outside of work, and understand that when we’re working in the same place life happens, there’s got to be understanding and flexibility.

#3 Be flexible

Even though the world works from home, our minds are still programmed by office culture.

Do 8 hours in a row. Get your job done.

It works in an office but it doesn’t work at home. Days seem longer, we struggle to focus, and we feel guilty.

We get more done, but feel less productive.

For decades (centuries?) time and output have been so intrinsically linked. We need to break that link.

Because we work hard and smart, we can be flexible when it comes to juggling life and job. The benefits of remote working should be tangible, and as long as the work gets done to a high quality, in a timely manner, people should be able to dictate their own work patterns.

We give the team full flexibility on how they do their weekly hours. Often, that does fit within traditional times, but they have the power to be flexible around gym sessions, kids shows, school runs, runs, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and anything else they have going on.

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I think it’s important to say we don’t get it right all the time.

To be honest, right now we’re in a busy month and I know we’re stretching the limits of work/life integration.

We’re not modelling these three points in the best way.

But they are a guiding star for us. We’re committed to being intentional about them, and recognising when we’re falling short.

We’re currently recruiting two roles, and if you like the sound of joining a remote team who are great at what they do, take a look.

Anyway, see you next week ✌️

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

🎧 If you like to work to lo-fi or ambient music, check out this Wind Down collaboration between the brilliant James Blake and the ambient noise app Endel.

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍