Hey guys, and welcome to the symbol inside a podcast with me. Today is Emily Saboteur. She's recently joined us about three months ago in our customer success departments and least want to tell everyone what you do and where you based. Yeah. Sure. So I'm from Australia originally, but I moved to Copenhagen almost three years ago. So I'm based there. As a customer success specialist working with the sender will team in London remotely and part of my role. It is quite varied. But a lot of it is supporting coaching training our new customers and basically being their direct point of contact. It's enjoyable cool. So it most people work in an office as you probably know and you work with people every day, but we have customers in different time zones. So in Annalise is T and we have customers space in the US and we have we have members of the team who support those us customers as well. So we're trying to build a global company with a remote working culture. So we thought in this episode we would discuss what it's like working remotely how you balance sort of your work and your life and how that feels sometimes when you're alone working from home and actually deal with a remote steam. So don't you tell us what it's been like for you so far you're three months of the company. Yeah. Absolutely. So three months has has gone fast and I would kind of segment it into three different parts really, of course the first month being onboarding to send the ball and getting through the in the role and then I would say the second month is where sort of some of those challenges about remote working definitely started to head because it was my first experience working fully remotely and not only fully remote in terms of not being at HQ. But also my direct teammates also based in the US so on a completely different time zone and then on top of that my customers are spread out across all different time zones across Europe Asia, Australia Middle East Etc. So I would say in terms of of challenges in that second month was just when Kind of real transition hit and I did struggle sometimes with knowing sort of who to go to ask questions Center of sort of on my time zone because my drug teammates went online yet. And I think just getting into the groove of what works for me and what doesn't work for me to kind of keep that motivation and keep that isolation at Bay and how do you find like working by yourself? Obviously, we slack at spendable like one of my issues is that when I'm working from home. I feel like I have to be more responsive on slack and I find it quite distracting like how do You balance distractions and being focused and being available for your teammates. Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I would say I'm I always have sort of one eye on slack at all times whether it be on desktop and they obviously also have it on my phone as well. I feel like it's just about sort of your personality and that's how I sort of could see myself, you know succeeding at working remotely as because I do have the kind of I guess sort of like manic yet organized chaos approach to work and that I'm always doing a bunch of different things but What keeps me energized and motivated as well, so I wouldn't say that's that's a huge challenge but I do obviously have that feeling of always needing to be kind of like as visible and as present as possible to kind of make up for that for the distance. Yeah, and how do you like how do you know when to switch off? Like, how do you decide when the day is done when you're at home? Yeah, that's that's a good one. So I did sort of have to kind of learn that on the fly as well. And I do feel like I have a good grasp of that. Now I would say my top sort of tips or suggestions around that is Just to try and have sort of plans after works that you do have a bit more of like an end time that you that you can work towards even if that is something you know individual like going to the gym or just you know, hobby that you enjoy or of course like social plans as well. I think as well with remote working you sort of need to kind of look at your lifestyle and I guess evaluate sort of how much Social contact you have just generally because I think that really kind of balances that lack of You know interaction throughout the day. So just ensuring that you have a lot of plans and just yeah constantly sort of surrounding yourself with other people outside of those working hours. And I think as well something that has been quite valuable to me as having friends in the same industry as me even in the same role so that when you go out, of course, you don't want to talk about work the whole time but it is quite valuable to me to be able to use them as a bit of a sounding board or even just to vent, you know from the day. So for those who are new to remote working, could you describe like what your average day looks like? What what your routine when you get up in the morning? Like how do you get started? How do you settle in what does that look like? Sure. Yeah, so I know a lot of remote working articles often refer to this concept of a routine and the importance of it and I do agree to some extent but I do like to also be out of routing in a way and keep it varied because for me personally I find that monotony kind of leads to these kind of feelings of isolation. In creeping in so I would say it's more like a ritual and a routine. So generally it would be of course checking what I have on for the day making a cup of coffee going through my emails that sort of thing but generally the night before I also check that and sort of plan my day around what I have coming up. So if it's a day where I have, you know, a lot of customer calls or some sort of big projects. I want to work on then I might make the decision to go to my co-working. Space and then if I have a day where it's more sort of internal meetings, then I might work from home that day and have a bit more of a casual day. I guess you can say have some nice music going that always helps as well and other any signals like when it might impact your mental health, like what sort of things should people look for when they might need to see more people or get out of the house that kind of thing. Yeah. That's so that's a great question and it was actually well mental health day yesterday. So when we recording this so very Timely I would say there's a few things. I think it's also up to sort of your teammates as well because I can definitely notice that if I am having a bit more of a down day or a down week that it does come across when I am on my internal like video calls with some other colleagues. And so I feel like I also do rely on them to kind of notice that and for them to check in and see how I'm going and I think as well when you just feel like you're not really being as productive as you could be and just yeah getting a negative. A negative space which is why it's so important to share those things during your one-on-ones and to have one-on-ones of course with your manager as well. Yeah. So is anything that a manager of a remote workers should be looking at for should be doing maybe some examples from your current manager of what she does to make it easier for you guys. Yeah, that's a really good point actually because I do feel like you do need to have a manager that has either had experience, you know managing remote workers before or at least open to it that makes a huge difference. Once and I am very lucky and very grateful that my current manager is a huge supporter of it and is a remote worker has Soul. So she does understand the challenges. I think that from from what we have developed together is we have sort of increased our catch UPS. So we did used to just have one daily stand-up but now we've increased that to catch up sort of yeah a little bit earlier than that as well just to kind of follow up on anything that could be acted on before the standard at the end of the day for me anyway. That's helped a lot. And I think just having a really open open report open relationship where of course they are your manager, but they all are also their kind of as a mentor and you know, even a therapist on difficult days and is it is it difficult at all with her being obviously your manager is based in the US the she overlap with your time zones or two Farms a period where you can't contact her and how do you manage those periods? Sure. Yeah, so there is a little lapse I guess. The first part of the day for me being based in Europe. Obviously. She's asleep. She is quite a gym Enthusiast. So she does get up quite early and and jumps on slag. So I do have that Advantage. I guess that the way that I manage sort of that lapse between the day or between the hours when I'm not able to reach her. I drew really rely on my teammates at HQ. And and again, it's just it's a huge advantage that they are so supportive and happy to jump on a call with me. Even if I'm not Directly in their team or Department go and you mentioned before that. You have some internal buddies to get in touch with over slack and like have water cooler chats. Can you describe what that looks like? Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely have you know, like a handful of sort of go to people that aren't actually in my team. I often would go weeks where I wouldn't actually have any interaction with them in terms of sort of my work tasks. But I think that's what makes it so valuable that we do just jump on slack and talk and talk about random things in a talk about Last night's episode of Great British Bake Off or talk about the weather or what we've got planned for the weekend. And I think you know, it can be very easy to not be in the habit of doing that or to not even to have those relationships. So I think if you are a my worker that does get the chance to go to HQ really use that time to develop those friendships when you're there so that when you leave and sort of continue the conversation continue building on that relationship and I guess for the listeners if you heard the first episode of the podcast we spoke about remote working and how one of Our principles are rules was to always have videos on when you're on video conferencing cause do you find that that's the rule that's kind of been followed by a team mates and something you live by or yeah. That's a that's a good one. I would say at least 80 to 90 Pips types. And the time we do have video on I think the only times we don't as if we're experiencing some sort of Internet difficulties or you know in a busy cafe or something like that. Does it help to think having videos? I'm yeah. It really does. I noticed that when we do switch them off, whatever. If it's because of you know technical issues or whatever that you do you do lose something, you know, and I really value being able to see people sort of expressions and mannerisms and especially I find for myself. I'm sort of like a talk that uses their hands a lot. So I find that really valuable. Yeah. One thing I want to ask you actually like when we have Town Hall meetings or all-hands meetings. How do you find that experience because I mean for me obviously you'll be here for the last one but whatever is involved in a show and tell whatever it is. How do you feel remote workers are involved you feel like they've given opportunity to be involved to take parts or do you feel yeah, actually, I think I was quite surprised actually how seamless it is in terms of we've had for example, like knowledge sharing presentations and people are you know, switching their screen and everything? It's been quite seamless. I think the only sort of barrier or sort of hurdle that I can see is that people are not so maybe willing to or comfortable to ask questions because there's so many people online. And I think as well everyone is maybe this is a British thing, but very polite and conscious to not speak over somebody else to the point where I think just nobody contributes a wants to be the first person to speak. I think the issue is where I guess when you're presenting you can always see who's in the audience exactly Zoom call because there are so many. Yeah. I have no idea who's actually watching or listening. Yeah that whereas if you look in the audience, you can see their reactions in real time. So I find that a bit difficult because being a presenter not seeing the audience. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, I guess. Yes more to come on that or we can continue learning curve. Yeah, is there anyone or any company that you've sort of follow that's helped to influence how you've overcome by isolation issues with remote working and embracing it, you know from your perspective not a particular company, but there is I guess you could call him a LinkedIn influence side least in Copenhagen. He's actually from South Africa interesting enough. His name is Shamil Jansen. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but actually ran into him or me. With him at a like a local sort of startup remote working event. And yeah, I found that he had a lot of great insights to share and also on his own like LinkedIn page sharing a lot of tech meetup events, and I think that is a good way to sort of alleviate any kind of feelings of isolation by not necessarily, you know meeting up with your own teammates, but at least kind of being part of an industry of network a community and meeting up with people that have similar interests and stories and what led you to like looking for a remote. Job, originally. Yeah, so coming back to I guess that what we're discussing around mental health. I definitely felt like I got to a period in my in my career. Let's say where I was feeling burnout that I had, you know put in a lot and it wasn't it wasn't leading me to kind of the life that I was wanting to lead essentially. So I really sort of took stock re-evaluated and tried to figure out how I could balance my love of working which can lead me to burn out but also have down time and just a more rounded Balanced Life. Well in general and that's what kind of led me to the idea of remote working and I think as well sort of taking the strengths that I felt that I had in terms of being independent having initiative and I felt like that would allow me to be quite successful in right working because I when I'm working I do like to be sort of head down productive not have too many distractions. And so I felt like that was a good path to take so obviously we're in the process of hiring more remote workers. I'm sure they'll be listening to this episode. Soda, when it comes out of any lessons that you could share with them any tips for those new to remote working anything they can take away from your experience. Yeah. Absolutely. I think just to be open to it and to expect some challenges, you know, nothing's ever going to go as smoothly or according to plan as much as you can plan for it. So I think just to just to give it a go and if you do start to experience some sort of negative impacts or challenges just be open with it. I think you know Nibble is so supportive of remote workers. And you know, this is kind of the way for the way of the future and the only way it can improve its to share. So just be open to it. No one's going to judge you if you are having you know some some down periods or whatever and there are a lot of resources out there as well like podcast for example, so all you can do really is just give it a go learn and build on it from there. Really. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Elise if you guys have any questions or any feedback Please send your emails through to Insider at center.com. Well, you'll see a link to a voicemail in the show notes and can contact us via that see you soon. Thanks for having me by.
Most companies require that their people commute to a physical office where they get to interact in-person every day. But, if you listened to our first episode, you'll know that Sendible has recently adopted remote working in a big way. Remote working has a lot of positives for both employees and employers, but it can also be challenging for those who are new to it, especially when your co-workers and customers are in different timezones. In this episode, Gavin talks to Sendible's Customer Success Specialist, Anneliese Sabitzer, about some of the challenges she faces as a remote worker and the tactics she uses to maintain work/life balance and mental wellness. In this episode, we have a candid discussion about:   How to maintain mental wellness as a remote worker  Tips to overcome the feeling of isolation  How to know when to "leave work" when you work from home  The importance of establishing a routine that gets you out of routine  The distractions that come with having to be more responsive on Slack  And much, much more... Links and resources:   Shamiel Jansen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamieljansen/  Remote Work Guides: https://twist.com/remote-work-guides   How I keep myself motivated as a remote worker: https://medium.com/swlh/how-i-keep-myself-motivated-as-a-remote-worker-907de1c0335d   Connect with us:    Discover Sendible: https://sendible.com/why   Connect with Annelise on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneliesesabitzer/  We want to hear from you    Send an email to insider@sendible.com or leave us a voice message! 