How did teleworking become the new normal?

These are exceptional times. Like many other companies, we at Blic have moved to teleworking to minimise the risk of infection in our offices. Teleworking has always been an integral part of our working culture, which is encouraged by our values of openness and trust. We have used a variety of technical solutions to make our work very location-independent - whether you're in a café in Helsinki or a cottage in Joensuu, you can get the job done in the same way as in the office. The current situation has also forced many of our clients and partners to switch to teleworking. It has been a pleasure to see how well meetings and information exchange have worked in the new situation - perhaps even better.

Of course, good connections and software are only part of a successful teleworking package. The biggest challenge in teleworking is the social contacts of employees. How to maintain coffee table chats and informal exchanges in a telework environment? How does an organisation keep its finger on the pulse of employee well-being now that there is less human contact at work than in the past? Our work relies heavily on a variety of internal meetings and client teams, whose members interlock and collaborate with each other. So working together and constant communication between team members is built in. In addition to teamwork, joint informal morning coffee mornings serve as the start of the day, and our strong tradition of a joint end-of-week "Friday night snack" has also been implemented online. By challenging colleagues to different activities and through weekly "buddy chats", we have been able to continue the sense of community that is so characteristic of us, even when working remotely.

But what about the future?

Needless to say, teleworking will continue to be more common and, above all, more acceptable. This exceptional situation has eased many of the stigmas associated with teleworking.

However, companies should continue to pay particular attention to fostering a sense of community in the workplace in a telework environment. Community has a significant impact on the appreciation of the work done by oneself and the team, as well as on the meaningfulness of the work. However, with the reduction in teleworking and social contact, we have already seen a range of new innovations to fill the gap and facilitate the interpretation of signals from the work community.

I look forward to seeing what new innovations and ways of working we can make use of in the future.

Samu Niemi

The author is a management coordinator at Blic and a teleworking advocate.