WFH Continues at TimeXtender

What I thought would only be a few months working from home is fast approaching the one-year mark - and with our second lockdown in effect here in Seattle - the end is not really in sight. But if you change how you think about this, that there really is not end to this, instead there can be growth, adaptations and the cliché “new normal”. You can look at this as a bad thing or just as a part of life or, if you are having a good day, you can look at this as a time of new possibilities.

While I thought the transition would be easy and not really need much efforts from me, I quickly learned there would be some growing pains, as you can see from my first post. There are still growing pains today. I must work to make sure I start my day off right and that I set reasonable hours and that I am effective in those hours. Some days it’s easy and even fun, other’s it’s a struggle, but that really is not any different from going into the office. Some days we are very productive and others we get distracted by coworkers, stories of a fun weekend or personal issues. I continue to try to start all my days with a routine and find time to meditate.

The portion of this journey that is so unexpected is the growth we are experiencing as a company, not just financial, but our culture has grown and adjusted for work from anywhere and the exciting thing is how successful it has been. This had validated our belief that your work culture is just as important for the long-term success of a company as your product - evolving with the times. We have seen that the firm grounding in our culture at the beginning of this pandemic has helped our transition to working fully remote, as well as the connections to each other not being lost because of distance. This success has shown us that we do not need to be bound by an office or central locations to be successful. We have seen that we are still productive working remote and we still have a very strong bond between coworkers. Because of this we have opened our company to be a fully remote organization with our slogan “One Global team, working from anywhere”. We have allowed our employees to not be located near any office and when we hire, we look nationally, rather than just locally.

Since offering this change we have seen two people who have made big changes in their life and both have been very positive. You can read one employees blog posts about preparing to work remote (here and here) for more fun stories. As our company’s HR person for North America, I have also had the chance to challenge myself to grow in my knowledge of my role and in the compassion for all our employees. I even have some long-term plans of my own as I am looking to move to a warmer location. This was a dream of my husband and I, but the idea of leaving my job made that almost impossible because I love this company and could not see myself somewhere else. Now I don’t have to make a choice, I can have the job I love in the location I want!

The new world we live in will always be changing, I have learned change is challenging and scary but also exciting and full of growth. I see that your mindset in a situation can make all the difference and when you have a company with the right mindset that anything is possible - there is no stopping us!