How to successfully work remotely - Tips from the Lano Team

Depending on their personal situation, our teammates at Lano experience different situations when working remotely. For some of them, the main hurdle is collaborating effectively across different time zones. For others, it’s balancing work and childcare. And yet others find it hard to not be able to properly connect with their colleagues.

What they all have in common, however, is that they have taken a proactive approach and have developed their own tricks and techniques to make remote work work. Read on as we share the best strategies and advice for successfully navigating the challenges of working remotely we collected from the Lano team.

When your colleagues are based in different time zones, communication can be a real issue. Asynchronous communication methods are great, but quickly reach their limits when it comes to planning projects and collaborating effectively to complete complex tasks.

“It’s a lot easier to communicate if you can easily schedule a spontaneous call,” finds Pedro Miquel, Regional Sales Director Spain at Lano. Since he’s based in the same time zone as many of his colleagues, scheduling meetings is not a problem for him. 

For Glória Gruber who manages Platform Experience and Partner Services, however, it’s a totally different story. She works from Brazil and knows first-hand how difficult it can be to collaborate with her teammates in Berlin. For her, communicating scheduled absences is of particular importance.

“The whole team has to know when colleagues will be out of office, and the periods when everyone is available need to be used to work on projects together and solve problems,” Glória says. Another important factor for her is expectation management. “If people don’t know what is expected of them, it’s hard to achieve good results,” she adds. 

Did you know? Unconditional collaboration across departments and time zones is one of our four key values at Lano. Check out the following blog post to find out what drives us and what values we stand for as an organization.

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Staying focused and productive while working remotely is one of the major struggles employees face when working from home, along with managing one’s schedule independently and efficiently. Our teammates at Lano have developed some amazing strategies to stay on top of their workload and deliver great work every day.

“There are two strategies I use in order to stay productive. First, I only schedule meetings when it’s really necessary and try to keep them as short as possible. Second, I coordinate all my different activities in my calendar to stay organized and focused,” explains Jean Stora, Enterprise Account Executive at Lano.

But in order to stay productive in the long term, it’s equally important to know when to knock off for the day, as pointed out by our colleague Charlotte Klanke, Partnership Manager at Lano. “It’s super important to have a clear workday shutdown ritual to separate work and personal life.” It’s this clear separation that allows her to really recharge and be ready for the next day.

Many remote workers struggle with the lack of human connection they experience when working from home. In fact, feeling lonely and isolated is one of the most often cited challenges of remote work.

Not being able to properly connect with his teammates is also something that Pedro Miquel finds challenging. That’s why he has developed a strategy to solve this issue. “I regularly organize virtual coffee meetings with other team members. These little hangouts give me a chance to get to know my colleagues better and to find things in common,” he explains. 

Switching to video calls whenever possible instead of purely relying on asynchronous communication is crucial for him to better connect with the rest of the team. His colleague Charlotte Klanke also stresses the importance of team building and explains how she tries to foster connections with her teammates. “I’ve recently learnt that being curious and asking questions about what your colleagues do can help improve team engagement.”

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Many businesses have taken actions to support mental health in their remote teams. But the importance of physical health shouldn’t be underestimated either. Staying fit and healthy while working from home can be quite difficult. For our colleague Damian Domzalski who works as a Software Engineer at Lano, however, reaching 10,000 steps (and more) per day when working from home is no struggle at all. When participating in virtual meetings, he switches from sitting at his desk to walking the treadmill. The result is an impressive 1,000 kilometers walked in just about a year and a half.

“Walking on the treadmill not only helps prevent back pain but also allows me to burn calories, which improves my overall well-being. Moreover, physical activity during work helps reduce stress and enhances the functioning of the brain,” Damian summarizes the numerous benefits of integrating physical activity into his work schedule.

While remote work is supposed to help employees balance their work and family life, staying productive when working from home with kids can be very difficult. Kiran Saleem, Account Executive at Lano, and Anna Warchol, in charge of demand generation at Lano, both have young kids at home and successfully juggle their professional and family duties. 

“For one thing, you need to create two separate spaces at home, one that is dedicated to work and the other one for spending family time. And for another thing, it’s crucial to establish boundaries and teach your kids to understand and respect these boundaries,” Kiran explains. 

Her colleague Anna also has a few mom hacks up her sleeve that allow her to keep her 4-year-old busy. “I encourage my son’s independent playtime and rotate his toys in batches so he doesn’t get bored or overwhelmed with choices,” she explains. Another trick that never fails is to take her little one outside for an hour to give him a chance to get rid of any excess energy that could lead to tantrums.

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There are some organizations that shy away from working with remote teams because they think it’s too challenging. But considering the numerous benefits of having a global workforce, they miss out on some great opportunities.

At Lano, we work with a global team whose members come from 35 different nationalities and are spread across 22 different countries. For us, our multicultural team is the key to success. Therefore, we foster an inclusive workplace culture across borders and cherish having different languages and cultures coming together in our daily work.

Looking to leverage the advantages of working with a truly global team? Lano can help you hire, manage and pay employees in over 170 countries worldwide. Plus, you can benefit from a range of additional services for managing teams across borders through the Lano Marketplace, our growing ecosystem of partners and integrations. 

Book a demo with one of our experts to find out more.