Before the pandemic, less than 1/5th of employees wanted to work from home a few days a week but now 80% of workers are wanting that kind of flexible working. At Sapience, like many other companies, we are still taking a flexible approach to the office. To find out how everyone is embracing working from home, we caught up with some of the team on their working-from-home essentials
Faith Inch, Junior Account Executive: “I find it really important to base myself in a room that has lots of natural light, so I stay alert. I also put my laptop on a raised stand and use a separate keyboard – a bit like being back on an office desktop. This helps me to concentrate and is far better for my posture! I like to keep lots of different diaries to hand. I keep one for my day-to-day lists, another for weekly calendars and another (much bigger) one for scribbling down all my notes. My day can include all sorts of different creative tasks, so it is absolutely essential to have lots of different places to get my thoughts down on paper. However, my biggest essential has to be a big cup of tea!”
Keeping on track of work is something that the rest of the team is concerned with too!
Jessica Baird, Junior Account Executive: “A daily to do list is my number one essential. I update it every day and it saves me missing anything off – plus, who doesn’t love the satisfaction of (hopefully!) ticking off all your tasks at the end of a day? I am lucky enough to have a lovely garden at home so I work where I can look at the view. The garden view is definitely one of the benefits of working from home for me!”
Finding the best scenery seems to be a topic on the minds of other team members too.
Louie Murphy, Account Executive: “I’d say it is definitely essential to change up your scenery, especially after long stints like we’ve done here at Sapience – I’ve been working from home since September 2020, so I am definitely an expert! Changing your scenery can help to refresh your mind and I find I become more productive. In lieu of bouncing ideas off colleagues in the office, some kind of fidget toy or stress ball is useful to keep you occupied when doing a creative piece of work. As far as staying in the loop (and building good relationships with colleagues whilst we can’t meet in person), don’t be afraid to give people a call to have a catch up and align on tasks. Finally, I’d say it is essential to take breaks – even if it is just a quick walk up and down your stairs! In the office you’d be walking outside with colleagues for lunch and generally moving about more often. I find I can have a tendency to stay put at my laptop all day when WFH so taking moderately active short breaks when I can is an absolute must.”
The rest of the team has been enjoying some of the advantages that working from home can offer.
Olivia Smith, Senior Digital Marketing Executive: “Comfort is king! A pair of slippers, a good cup of tea and a candle mean I can work in total relaxation.”
Comfort is undoubtably one of the benefits of working from home and seems to be on the mind of a fair few of our team members…
Ella Hatfield, Senior Account Executive: “A good and comfy desk chair is an absolute essential. You can’t work properly if you aren’t totally comfortable!”
It is not just the Sapience team who have been enjoying the comforts of working from home – 70% of workers are not anticipating a full-time return to the office. It looks like some form of working from home is set to be our new normal. This has its challenges, it definitely has benefits too.
If you’re looking for experience in the world of comms at a PR agency that embraces new ideas then email your CV to recruitment@sapiencecomms.co.uk and find information about Sapience Communications here.
