At Petadiri Leadership Development, we are really passionate about helping leaders unlock their full potential. Our goal is to help you achieve your goal! To advance in your career or achieve your dream ambition, your health must be your priority, especially during these trying times.
In this blog, a video where Coach Wendy and Wisha discuss some useful tips to help cope with the stress of work from home is included. If you prefer to read, the transcript is included below.
Transcript
Wisha: Hello, everyone! Welcome to Petadiri. A little intro of ourselves is that we are Petadiri which stands for Peta which is map and Diri which is ourselves. So basically we are looking into ourselves, we are looking for a way into ourselves. Today, we're joined here together with our esteemed coach, Coach Wendy!
Coach Wendy: Hi everyone, good afternoon! I'm Coach Wendy and I'm very excited to be here today and to share with you some of our tips and tricks that may help you in your daily work and to help you grow as a leader! And with me is Wisha!
Wisha: Hi, we're looking forward to this session. Are you stressed out by working during the lockdown? Don't worry, we have just the tips that will cheer you right up and get you back on track.
Coach Wendy: Right on!
Wisha: So do you miss having face-to-face interactions, a structured work environment, and maintaining a proper work-life balance? We have just the tips for you!
Coach Wendy: So if you're missing the face-to-face interactions, I'm hearing a lot of our associates, and a lot of people say that they do miss the coffee time, just to meet with someone and talk face-to-face, or just even meetings. Now we're missing our meetings where we can be together in the same room just talking about strategy together. It's such a fun time to be together! We do miss are face-to-face interactions but don't worry, we have some thoughts for you on that one. So this is a very simple one but it's very powerful. It's called the three C's. It's contact, connect and communicate! Because sometimes we're physically apart but we can still connect and share our great thoughts. Don't forget to keep in touch with your family, your friends, and also your colleagues. So colleagues are not just for work okay but sometimes "How are you?" You know, and just find out how their doing as it makes their day a lot brighter! Don't you agree, Wisha?
Wisha: Yes, technology has given us so many platforms to use. We can use them to communicate and make sure we're still connected, although we are physically apart.
Coach Wendy : Yep, so don't forget the three C's! Also, sometimes we miss having a structured work environment. It is always nice that when we come to work, we can put our bag somewhere, we know where to put our phone, our files are in the right place. Everything is structured perfectly for us, even the photocopy machine is available all the time, right? So sometimes we are missing the structured work environment. And it can be hard when we are at home. Don't worry, we've got something for you as well on that one. So for this one, although our home is a place where we live and relax. Sometimes it's helpful if we do miss the structured work environment, to have a designated place that you go to every day at home. A designated place, like for me this is my space where I can focus. So this will be the go-to place that is structured for you to focus. Make sure that you've got a good chair, a good table for you but not expensive, just good, alright? You just work and focus on the things that you have to do every day that sometimes help keep your minds focused. Like okay, this is the workspace and this is what time to do work. Anything to add there, Wisha?
Wisha: I think this is the most useful tip ever because we need space. We need a designated space to be like, "Hey, this is work time when you're in this space!"
Coach Wendy: Yeah, it helps us switch on the work mode. And the third one I hear a lot of people struggling with is what they call the work-life balance. It's hard because the lines are now very blurred. Like, it's all mashed up together. So we shall, what do we have for them?
Wisha: For this, we suggest to encourage safe conversations and a better understanding. So what we mean here is that we communicate our needs. So hey, I need to do this, I'm doing this at this time, so can we work at this time? Have these safe conversations. So your employees or colleagues know that if we set a meeting at a particular time it will work for this person or might not work for this person.
Coach Wendy: Yeah, so basically, to find ways to connect and keep productivity high, but also allow us to do all and take on the responsibility that we all have. Apart from work, being a mother, daughter, child, and all that, we have various roles. So sharing this with our colleagues, and to be committed to high performance, high productivity, and also respecting and allowing each other to have the space to take other roles as well and make it work for all of us.
Wisha: Yep, that's very, very useful! So although the pandemic has taken a lot of things from us, we have also gained some opportunities! Who would have thought that we could save money on traveling our daily commutes back and forth with reduced time travel? I mean travel time and cost. We also have the flexibility in terms of time and digital globalization.
Coach Wendy: Yes, I think we show you're so excited about time travel. A lot of distance travel time and cost. If we time travel back into remembering those times where we did not like the traffic and the road rage, right? All this for now, for now, limited time only! It's gone for a while. So we don't have to spend time in traffic, think of the hours that we save in our daily commutes. Not only time, but we also save money. And we also save the environment, in a lot of ways the pollution is also dropped a little bit, the fact that we're all not traveling so much. So let's enjoy this! Because it's not going to last forever. For now, we get to save time, save the environment and save a little bit of money.
Wisha: Yes, definitely! We need to enjoy this. Because how often can you just wake up and slip right into work or slip right into a class without getting ready.
Coach Wendy: Now is the time! Limited time only. So the second benefit we have is flexibility in terms of time again, that's so important! Time is a limited resource and we again alluded to this just now. But we wanted to focus on and to celebrate the fact that we have more control of our time to do the work and we can layer our things. For example, what I mean by that one of the things that we have to do sometimes is just stretch, right to exercise a little bit and now, because I'm at home, for example, I exercise by mopping the floor, and drying the clothes, you know, but these are all little exercise that helps me do my chores. Plus, also give me a little bit of movement. Because in a pandemic like this, sometimes we need to move about a little bit more. And that helps. But remember, we are also committed to doing great work for our company and our colleagues. So we just need to be flexible about it and to find the right way to try and get the most important stuff done ourselves, for friends or colleagues, and the business.
Wisha: Definitely.
Coach Wendy: Last but not least, we thought we were thinking about what we celebrate? And one of the things that we celebrate a lot is digital globalization. The quality of digital, for example, now we're talking on zoom and the quality of zoom is improved tremendously, Microsoft Teams and all that now. It's because there's a lot of focus on this area. So we'd like to take the opportunity to appreciate this, to appreciate that we can work from home, and it's workable for a lot of us and also the way we learn and grow. For example, online classes and all that have become so much more accessible and easy for everyone.
Wisha: Yes, technology has made it so much more accessible for all of us to still stay in touch and make sure that we are still be moving, we are not static. We're still working, kids are still studying but it has just shifted online.
Coach Wendy: Yeah, in a different way. Right. So we also wanted to celebrate and appreciate that part.
Wisha: Yes. This concludes. Although there are a lot of things that we missed, we need to appreciate that the pandemic has allowed us to stay at home more often, it has allowed us to shift our online. Who would have thought that we could be doing all these things here with the comfort of our own home? So let's look at the bright side, there's always a silver lining and it all comes down to perspective.
Coach Wendy: Yep. And so we hope that this little presentation that we have prepared for you is helpful. You can laugh with, you know, we're a bit comical here. All to the fact that work is fun and fun is work. We hope that you have a great day and a great week ahead. Enjoy working and enjoy being at home. Stay safe!
Wisha: Yes, stay safe everyone! Take care!
Coach Wendy: Bye!
[End of Video]
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