How is PeoplePerHour dealing with remote working during Covid-19?

2 Apr 2020 (updated 27 Sep 2021)

3 min

PeoplePerHour by nature is all about remote working. We empower collaboration in an efficient and cost-effective way. However, as a team, we’ve been used to collaborating in our offices and meeting up in person to work on the next campaign or product update. Given the current situation with Covid-19, we’re now two weeks into adopting remote working full-time. Even though many of you are experts and have been embracing this for years, we thought it would be nice to share how we are coping and staying productive.

1. Facilitate comfortable workspaces

It all starts with having a dedicated work area. Even before the government guidance in the UK and Greece, the PeoplePerHour teams packed up and decided staying home was the best option. Everyone was encouraged to take whatever makes their office desk comfortable at home. Monitors, keyboards, laptop stands, plants and cafetieres were packed up and hauled home and everyone settled in. Look for yourself how some of us have settled in.

2. Start the day with a quick stand-up

The key thing is: staying in touch. A daily 30 min stand-up is an engaging way of discussing how everyone is feeling, what everyone is working on and if we need to shift priorities or help someone out to meet deadlines. We set discussion topics upfront to stay focused and ensure everything is covered. It’s a great way of knowing what everyone is working on in the smaller teams and wider organization.

3. Allow flexible working hours

These are strange times and everyone needs to shift their focus to their work and private life. We’ve never believed in the standard 9 to 5 and do even less so now. Everyone has commitments, if you need to homeschool your kids, go queue up for groceries, check-in with family or just take some fresh air (following government policies) – go for it!

4. Get your tech stack in order

Company-wide we all use the same tools. We run meetings on Google Hangouts, we chat via Slack to reduce internal emails as much as possible. Trello is our preferred way of planning & prioritizing projects per team. For detailed project outlines, we rely on Confluence. Google Drive allows us to collaborate as a team on documents without having to track different versions or sending an email with big attachments. Our UX team designs on Invision.

Using the same stack means everyone is familiar with how the tools work and we can easily find information without having to ask others. This way we save lots of time.

5. Create space for coffee breaks

We stay in touch all the time. On our company Slack channel, there are several threads and one of them is a place to vent, share something funny or a news update. We used to catch up over a cup of tea and a biscuit, now we have a virtual break. Anyone can check-in and say hello, there’s always someone around.

6. Keep everyone informed

On a bi-weekly basis, the different teams update each other on projects that are going live, results of new campaigns and what’s coming up next. As we have our team spread across the world this was already in place, but now more than ever it helps to keep everyone informed and feel involved in the company’s performance.

7. Have fun with a weekly happy hour

Last but not least, create time to unwind. Every week, we all grab a beer and have a chat about anything but work. After all, our London team do miss the pubs!