Richard Hay | Mar 11, 2020

From: https://www.itprotoday.com/collaboration/6-remote-working-tips-continued-productivity?NL=TECH-005&Issue=TECH-005_20200312_TECH-005_22&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPNET000011455463&utm_campaign=24556&utm_medium=email&elq2=4024726f006c47e7bba798c57e6a8a65

“The COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak is forcing more employees to work from home, many for the first time. How to approach a work schedule when we work in the same place we live is challenging and requires some new habits.

Even with a disciplined approach, suddenly being required to work from home will throw things off kilter initially, but you can still make the best of the current situation and learn to work from home efficiently.

Dux Raymond Sy, the chief marketing officer for AvePoint, a company that helps organizations find solutions for maximizing collaboration between employees, is well-versed in remote team collaboration and productivity. Here, he shares six remote working tips:

1. Establish guidelines and boundaries: Working remotely is not too different than working in a physical office. It is essential to establish clear communication and collaboration practices. Essential guidelines include:

• What are the standard working hours?
• When will you take breaks?
• What technologies should be used for meetings, group collaboration or asynchronous communication?
• Be it a desk or an extra room in your house, designate a space where you work. This helps set a mental and physical distinction of “being at work” and also helps set expectations with others that may be with you at home.

2. Get comfortable with the technology: The key difference between working in an office and working remotely is that you will rely on technology more to communicate, collaborate and engage with colleagues. Be open and learn how to best maximize these technologies

3. Encourage video calls: Nothing beats face-to-face interaction, but if you’re working remotely, seeing each other via video calls can be essential. Not only does this foster a closer work culture, but it also allows everyone to see important non-verbal cues.

4. Ensure mobile access to corporate resources is available, if possible: Mobile devices today are our secondary work tools. It is critical that remote colleagues can easily communicate, collaborate and have access to relevant corporate resources from their mobile devices.

5. Extend grace and accommodate for the unexpected: If working remotely is new to you, it’s also new to people you work with and live with. There will be occasional distractions such as unexpected noise, technology hiccups or unreliable internet connectivity. As such, be patient and show more grace to colleagues as they adjust to this new mode of working.

6. Set remote work goals as a team: Focus on the work output and deliverables by setting goals for the day, the week or the month. This way, similar to what you would do in an office, working remotely with your team is still driving towards a common outcome.

Those are Sy’s top remote working tips. Ultimately, the need to work remotely due to coronavirus will come to an end. This experience, however, will provide many with an awareness of the challenging aspects of this form of working. Hopefully, that will lead to overall improvements in the remote working process and potentially a more regular use of this option for companies and their employees.”

Good Job Example: Senior Cloud Developer

Specialism

IFS – Information Technology (IT)

Management Level

Senior Manager

Job Description & Summary

A career in Information Technology, within Internal Firm Services, will provide you with the opportunity to support our core business functions by deploying applications that enable our people to work more efficiently and deliver the highest levels of service to our clients. You’ll focus on managing the design and implementation of technology infrastructure within our company, developing and enhancing both client and internal facing applications within our company, and providing technology tools that help create a competitive advantage for the Firm to drive strategic business growth.

Our Information Technology Development team helps develop and supports internal information technology systems and applications for use by all staff levels. You’ll help our team develop programs and applications that cater to our company’s strategic technology needs using your knowledge of technical domains of application.

To really stand out and make us fit for the future in a constantly changing world, each and every one of us at our company needs to be an authentic and inclusive leader, at all grades/levels and in all lines of service. To help us achieve this we have our company’s Professional; our global leadership development framework. It gives us a single set of expectations across our lines, geographies and career paths, and provides transparency on the skills we need as individuals to be successful and progress in our careers, now and in the future.

As a Senior Manager, you’ll work as part of a team of problem solvers, helping to solve complex business issues from strategy to execution. Our company’s Professional skills and responsibilities for this management level include but are not limited to:

• Take action to ensure everyone has a voice, inviting opinion from all.
• Establish the root causes of issues and tackle them, rather than just the symptoms.
• Initiate open and honest coaching conversations at all levels.
• Move easily between big picture thinking and managing relevant detail.
• Anticipate stakeholder needs, and develop and discuss potential solutions, even before the stakeholder realises they are required.
• Develop specialized expertise in one or more areas.
• Advise stakeholders on relevant technical issues for their business area.
• Navigate the complexities of global teams and engagements.
• Build trust with teams and stakeholders through open and honest conversation.
• Uphold the firm’s code of ethics and business conduct.

Job Requirements and Preferences:

Basic Qualifications:

Minimum Degree Required:
High School Diploma

Minimum Years of Experience:
6 year(s) of progressive roles managing IT system/software development and project management processes

Preferred Qualifications:

Degree Preferred:
Bachelor Degree

Preferred Fields of Study:
Information Technology, Computer Systems Analysis, Management Information Systems

Preferred Knowledge/Skills:

Demonstrates intimate abilities and/or a proven record of success as a team leader in the following areas:

• Developing applications in serverless cloud environments;
• Possessing experience with Google Cloud, AppEngine, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Kubernetes, Datastore, Firestore, Cloud SQL and/or BigQuery;
• Working with AWS serverless services such as Lamda, Edge, Fargate, S3, EFS, RedShift as well as Heroku or Azure;
• Designing and building container based apps;
• Working with docker images, kubernetes, microservices architecture;
• Possessing experience with Devops and Continuous Delivery and Integration;
• Writing and automating test code for high levels of code coverage;
• Working with Google Cloud Build, AWS CodePipeline or CodeBuild, Jenkins, CircleCI, Gitlab, or similar; and,
• Using web services and APIs (e.g REST) and their application to serverless cloud environments, preferably Google Cloud.

Education (if blank, degree and/or field of study not specified)

Degrees/Field of Study required:Degrees/Field of Study preferred:

Certifications (if blank, certifications not specified)

Desired Languages (If blank, desired languages not specified)

Travel Requirements

Up to 20%

Available for Work Visa Sponsorship?

No

Government Clearance Required?

No

Job Posting End Date

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race; creed; color; religion; national origin; sex; age; disability; sexual orientation; gender identity or expression; genetic predisposition or carrier status; veteran, marital, or citizenship status; or any other status protected by law. We are proud to be an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. For positions based in San Francisco, consideration of qualified candidates with arrest and conviction records will be in a manner consistent with the Fair Chance Ordinance.