- Welcome
- Flexible Working Hours
- Working Remotely: An Introduction
- Working Remotely: Expectations
- Things you’ll need to work remotely
- Contributing
We’ve put together this guide to make sure everyone is aware of and understands the expectations around flexible working hours and remote working. This document does not supersede your employment contract, it’s here to help you get shit done, wherever you choose to do it.
We’re always open to feedback and to evolve how we work to improve productivity.
Remember, Flexi-time is not Remote working.
We know life can get hectic and sometimes you need to go to the bank or leave early to beat the traffic. We have flexible working hours to let you manage your day so that your work time can be focussed and productive.
Take responsibility to make sure the team knows if you’re going to come in late (after 9:30) or leave early (before 4:00pm). You need to notify fellow colleagues involved in the projects that may be affected or your lead mentor and Dave (Product Owner).
Flexible working hours are available to everyone so long as you’re getting your work done. Remember that it’s designed to maximise productivity and minimise distractions and wasted time.
We understand that sometimes the best place to get work done is not the office, especially when you need uninterrupted concentration time. We also trust you to make productive use of your time when working out of the office. We do however have some expectations for those of you who choose to work remotely.
Working remotely is different to working flexi-time. Remote working means that for the agreed period your office desk is off site. You are however expected to be at your desk (wherever or whatever that is) working, accessible and delivering as you would, were you in the office.
There’s no one size fits all. Every one of us fulfills a different role in the team and will require different levels of team face to face or client interaction. This means that remote working will be practically implemented differently with each team member.
Short answer – Anyone. Remote working is available to everyone on the staff. However, how often you can work remotely depends on your job role, the projects you’re working on and the phase of the project the team is currently in.
- As you would with flexi-time, do the same when remote working.
- Make sure you communicate what you plan to do and what you’ve got done.
- Make sure you understand and have set deliverables for the project you’re working on. Ticking off things on the to do list makes it a lot easier for you to communicate your productivity.
- If there aren’t clear deliverables for the work you’re busy with, speak to Dave or set your own and share with your project leader.
- It’s your responsibility to ensure that the team knows what you’re doing, where you’re doing it and why you’re doing it.
- If we have a sprint or project catch up at the office it’s important that you’re at the office – if you aren’t then you have to get approval beforehand and be available for any video catch ups if need be.
- We’re not big on bureaucracy, but we do want notice at least the day before (Before lunch) working remotely. ie.: If you want to work remotely on Wednesday you need to let us know before lunchtime on Tuesday.
- You need to get approval from your project manager.
- If you’re not going to be working the hours you normally work, over communicate this to the team by posting in Slack (e.g. “Going to the gym for an hour”).
- Nothing is more frustrating to team productivity than chat messages like “Has anyone seen X?” “When is X getting online?” “Can someone else take this bug? X isn’t responding.”
- Try not to pop in and out. Work sustained sessions with only a few significant interruptions (e.g., lunch, dog walking, gym, light-saber fight with your nephew, the cops are outside laying low for an hour…).
- This means somewhere with a proper chair and desk. Preferably a room where you can close the door and get work done without disruptions. Remote working isn’t there so you can multitask ie: move and code, paint a deck and write a screenplay. Take leave for that.
- No child care responsibilities during working hours. You can’t take care of kids and work at the same time. For some of you this refers to Fiffie the poodle.
- Make sure you have the tools you need; your charger, the software, the code base, etc.
- Access to Slack.
- Webcam and able to connect to whatever video chat the team want to use. This will usually be shared via Slack.
- You’ll need an internet connection that can handle uploading and downloading of the files you need, as well as being able to handle Slack and Skype.
- You cannot work remotely on code without access to internet.
- Make sure all your code is committed on GitHub or your work is in Google Docs. Make sure the files you’ve been working on are available to other team members.
- Should we need to contact you, you must be contactable.
The people you’re going to be around might not understand that you’re working at home and yes, you will actually be working. Make sure you set the right expectations with your spouse, girlfriend, flat-mate, kids, Mother in Law, etc.
Pants are optional. Just don’t get arrested. If you’re about to get arrested remember to commit that code :-)
If you’ve found this book helpful, awesome. If you think there are some additional things we should add to it, even better. We want joining next to be as seamless an experience as possible. To make a suggestion add an issue, or submit a pull request on GitHub. If that’s confusing, send a mail to [email protected]