A Year In A Basement Home Office And You’d Be Dying To Hop On A Plane Too
Mark Leger is the editor and part-owner of Huddle. This is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region.
I sat down for a meeting with a colleague recently, and we realized it was the first time in weeks we’d met face to face. Our interactions had all been through phone calls and video meetings, e-mails, and text messages. We sat across the table with a protective clear plastic shield between us. I moved my chair over a couple of feet so that I was no longer looking through the shield. “Is this okay?” I asked. “With the shield, it feels like one of us is visiting the other in prison.” Of course, she said, we just need to be six feet apart.
We proceeded to have that kind of vibrant, productive chat you can’t have in a video call and identified issues and solutions to problems in the business that needed to be resolved. We had breakthrough moments that just hadn’t happened in video calls, phone calls, or e-mails.
We have spent the last year learning about the value of remote work. People don’t have long commutes; they can often be more productive without many of the distractions of the office environment; they can arrange their workdays in ways that make sense for them, like working from home if they have a sick child.
I’m a social chatterbox in the workplace so the pandemic has taught me something about the value of working from home and being more productive by cutting down on office chit-chat. But I’m tired of video calls (too much screen time) and have a renewed appreciation for the value of formal and casual in-person office interactions.
On the next “Home Office” podcast, you’ll hear my conversation with Allen Lau, the co-founder and CEO of Wattpad, a digital publishing and entertainment platform with headquarters in both Toronto and Halifax. Wattpad was recently acquired by a South Korean company, Naver, for more than $600-million (U.S.) but it remains committed to growing the Halifax headquarters, which was established more than a year ago and currently employs around 20 people.
Lau and I talk a lot about the balance of remote and office work as we emerge from the pandemic, and the need to travel again to see clients and employees in person, not just on video calls.
He’s been working in a basement office at his midtown Toronto home for too long, he is eager to fly again and get back into his office downtown.
Any frequent business traveller, they always cringe, saying, ‘I’m on the plane again, really?'” he says. “But after 15 months working in my basement non-stop, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m dying to hop onto a plane.”
Wattpad’s downtown Toronto office employs around 200 people and it’s been closed since the early days of the pandemic. It’s been another year of accelerated growth for the company, but he says a largely remote workforce isn’t part of the long-term plan.
“We are all social creatures. While you can be very productive working at home, it’s impossible to build a good relationship, a strong relationship. For this business, it’s about technology and media, and both require a lot of collaboration … it’s impossible to build a strong team [only working remotely],” he says.
“You can get by with everyone working from home for a period of time, but that’s not going to be productive in the long term. I truly believe that we need to become a hybrid company and take the best of both worlds.”
So while they don’t have an office space in Halifax because of the pandemic, it’s still part of the plan. He says it will likely be at Volta, a downtown innovation hub with co-working spaces and offices for companies like Wattpad. He anticipates people working from home two or three days a week and coming into the office to socialize and collaborate.
Lau says Halifax has the right set of characteristics that complement the big city Toronto office. It gives him the flexibility to recruit people that want to be in a larger urban environment or a smaller one like Halifax, with its shorter commutes, lifestyle and relatively lower living costs.
It’s a true second headquarters, he says, not a secondary or back office that only employs a certain type of employee. Having big-city and small-city options makes it easier to find the right person for a job, wherever that person is or chooses to locate.
Atlantic Canada could use more outside companies that recognize this advantage to setting up an office here.
As an employee, I certainly recognize the advantage of working in a small city for a company that has already embraced a hybrid work culture. There’s an easy fluidity between my home office and work because they’re so close to each other. I usually get up in the morning and do a little work after the kids go to school, then pack up for the ten-minute walk to the office on the days I’m working from there.
It also turns out I can make up for my organizational shortcomings, and not miss a meeting I suddenly remember if I’m in the middle of a subway ride to the office.
One day this week, I was heading out the door and heard an alarm on my phone for the start of a video call. Oops, forgot about that meeting, I realized. I dropped my bag, pulled out my laptop in my home office and quickly jumped on the call. They had no expectations of me being at the office, so I acted like I was awaiting their call.
And no one is any the wiser – until they read this, of course.
Search for “Huddle Home Office” on podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple or find it on the Huddle website here. The episode featuring the conversation with Allen Lau will be available Tuesday, June 8.
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