WEBVTT - Set common hours 

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's tip is to set common hours. If you and

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<v Speaker 1>your team are working from home, all of you can

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<v Speaker 1>have a lot more scheduled flexibility than you could in

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<v Speaker 1>the past, but you probably still need to do some

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<v Speaker 1>work together in real time. By setting a few common

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<v Speaker 1>hours and then letting the rest be more flexible, you

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<v Speaker 1>can get the best of both worlds, cohesion and freedom.

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<v Speaker 1>Many folks have been working from home for a full

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<v Speaker 1>year now in the wake of the coronavirus. Working from

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<v Speaker 1>home is a skill, and fortunately in a year's time

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<v Speaker 1>we've gotten a lot better at it, but there is

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<v Speaker 1>always room for improvement. One of the biggest challenges is

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<v Speaker 1>figuring out how to still work closely as a team.

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<v Speaker 1>In the beginning of COVID, many companies were requiring people

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<v Speaker 1>to check in precisely at nine am. Oddly enough, many

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<v Speaker 1>of these places didn't require people to check out precisely

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<v Speaker 1>at five pm. You don't really need to think too

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<v Speaker 1>hard to figure that one out. Fortunately, most people are

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<v Speaker 1>moving away from strict time guidelines like that, which is

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<v Speaker 1>good because one of the major upsides of working from

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<v Speaker 1>home is the freedom to set your own schedule. If

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<v Speaker 1>you work best early in the morning and then want

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<v Speaker 1>to take a long midday break to go for a

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<v Speaker 1>run or take a nap, and then work some more

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<v Speaker 1>in the afternoon, well this is hard to pull off

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<v Speaker 1>if you are commuting somewhere. If you're working from home,

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<v Speaker 1>well why not. Some people are useless before ten am,

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<v Speaker 1>Yet office culture has long dick tated showing up and

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<v Speaker 1>pretending to be bright eyed and bushey tailed at eight am.

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<v Speaker 1>Without a commute, you can escape most of this. Of course,

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<v Speaker 1>none of this changes that we do need to work

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<v Speaker 1>closely with our colleagues. Email is an extraordinarily inefficient method

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<v Speaker 1>for close collaboration because it drives people to check email

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<v Speaker 1>constantly and never do anything else. Yet, when we are

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<v Speaker 1>staffed in teams, we do want to know that we

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<v Speaker 1>can reach people and get a swift response. The solution

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<v Speaker 1>set common hours. Teams that do this well set some

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<v Speaker 1>sort of core hours like eleven am to three pm,

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<v Speaker 1>or maybe ten am to two pm, or maybe even

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<v Speaker 1>noon to four pm Eastern time. If there's a large

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<v Speaker 1>contingent on the West coast that then needs to clock

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<v Speaker 1>in from nine to one. The point is that everyone

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<v Speaker 1>agrees to be available during these times for near real

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<v Speaker 1>time collaboration. You can call, you can video chat. I

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<v Speaker 1>guess you can email, although it's still a horrible medium

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<v Speaker 1>for that sort of thing. Anyway, you know that you

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<v Speaker 1>are all on together during these hours, and then for

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<v Speaker 1>the rest of the work day, people can choose whatever

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<v Speaker 1>works best for them. Some folks might want to get

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<v Speaker 1>up early and work from five am to nine am,

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<v Speaker 1>sign off until the eleven am start of common hours,

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<v Speaker 1>work until three pm, and then be done for the day.

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<v Speaker 1>Some night owl types might start at eleven am with

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<v Speaker 1>the common hours and then do their other four hours

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<v Speaker 1>from eight pm to midnight. The upside of this is

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<v Speaker 1>that when you know there are hours you can reach

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<v Speaker 1>your colleagues, then nobody needs to be pinging people during

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<v Speaker 1>non core hours, and that means you can really focus

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<v Speaker 1>on your individual deliverables without checking Slack or email every

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<v Speaker 1>six minutes. Such core hours could also work well for

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<v Speaker 1>families that are sharing childcare these days. If you can

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<v Speaker 1>arrange for different party is to have different core hours

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<v Speaker 1>than you can cover for each other and do the

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<v Speaker 1>flexible hours whenever it happens to work for your family. Now.

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<v Speaker 1>Of course, there will always be emergencies outside of core hours,

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<v Speaker 1>and sometimes people won't be able to be available during

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<v Speaker 1>core hours. Developing a culture where you only contact people

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<v Speaker 1>during certain hours is really tough. It requires advanced planning

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<v Speaker 1>and making sure when you are about to sign off

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<v Speaker 1>from your core hours that you have whatever you need

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<v Speaker 1>until the next day. I note that if you are

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<v Speaker 1>a manager, you also need to trust that your employees

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<v Speaker 1>will log the other half of the work day, even

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<v Speaker 1>if you are not actively observing it happened. However, I

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<v Speaker 1>am guessing that you didn't hire people who are trying

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<v Speaker 1>to slack off on the job. And if you can

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<v Speaker 1>make the core hours concept work, you'll be able to

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<v Speaker 1>work together closely and enjoy the flexibility inherent in working

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<v Speaker 1>from home. You might be so thrilled with the results

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<v Speaker 1>that you'll keep working this way even when you can

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<v Speaker 1>go back to the office. After all, being together forty

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<v Speaker 1>hours a week is probably overkill. People need time to

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<v Speaker 1>do their own work too, and it's best if they

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<v Speaker 1>can do it whenever they work best. So today, think

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<v Speaker 1>about whether the core hours concept might work for you

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<v Speaker 1>and your team. Which hours would work, and if you

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<v Speaker 1>have something like this running right now, I'd love to

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<v Speaker 1>hear about it. You can reach me at Laura at

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<v Speaker 1>Laura Vanderkam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of

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<v Speaker 1>our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

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<v Speaker 1>You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.

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<v Speaker 1>Before Breakfast Pod. That's B the number four, then Breakfast

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<v Speaker 1>p o D. You can also shoot me an email

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<v Speaker 1>at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.

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