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如何在没有办公室的情况下有效工作

发布时间:2014-12-11 15:20:04 Tags:,,,,

作者:Kirill Kliushkin

一开始我们便决定不适用办公室。对于一个基于网络并专注于与IT公司合作的小型翻译公司来说,这是符合逻辑的选择。现在,在过了10年后,Alconost拥有来自世界各地超过300名员工。我们的员工非常多样化:除了翻译外,我们还雇佣了市场营销专家,上下文广告专家,销售专员,编辑,本土化管理者以及视频制作人。但尽管我们不断发展着,我们仍然认为办公室是无用的,并且我们能够坦然接受这一选择。作为我们公司的联合创始人,我将在此与你们分享没有办公室的我们是如何有效工作的。

不设立办公室对我们的业务具有较大且积极的影响。我们的客户来自世界各地,所以他们经常会在我们本地工作时间以外的时间给我们的管理者发邮件。因为时间的差异,如果我们像其它公司那样待在办公室里正常办公,我们可能需要花费好几天的时间与远距离的客户交流并解决问题。而我们并未将员工束缚在严格的8小时工作时间里,相反地,我们让他们能够在任何方便的时候快速回复信息。客户想看到的是快速的回复,即使只是“我将收集必要的信息并在明天给你答复”。客户开心我们也就开心。

我们未设立办公室并不是因为我们不想拥有一个更轻松的空间。答案恰恰相反:通常情况下我们总是需要在几分钟内,而不是几个小时内完成任务。我们的Nitro快速在线翻译服务上的一半订单都需要在2个小时以内完成。关于Nitro,我们向所有客户承诺会在1个小时内做出答复。而如果我们忠于一个固定的办公时间,我们便不可能做到这点。

office(from damselsinsccess)

office(from damselsinsccess)

我们的公式是:远程工作+员工+自由-控制

我们成功的公式是远程工作加上优秀的员工和开放的时间表并减去专制的控制。如今远程工作很常见—-即你可以在任何地方工作,只要你能够完成任务就好。对于时间表也是如此:我们并不在乎你在什么时候工作以及你完成了多少任务。重要的是你能够解决任务,并快速完成项目,不让其他员工因为你的延迟而延迟。就像我觉得在凌晨2,3点最容易写出文章,即解决了一天的所有问题后我能够用两个小时完成一整周的工作量。

我们并不会要求员工去填写工作时间记录表,在他们的计算机上安装追踪软件去监控他们的工作时间,或要求他们提交正在工作的截图。我们的方法是截然不同的。在员工身上设定计时器和日常表对于员工和公司来说都是适得其反的。如果一个人真正付出了努力,我们便可以在他所完成的任务以及同事和客户的满意度中看到答案。而如果一个人拖了后腿,我们也能够清楚地看到。我们重视的是结果而不是导致这些结果的过程。我们所感兴趣的是业务而非控制。

我们公式的另一个组件是“优秀的员工”。如果没有这些人,我们便不可能完成任何工作。而优秀是个关键。如果有人只是拥有那些想要8个小时坐在椅子上并且不关心自己到底在做什么事,他们便不可能在这里长待。如果有人只是想借此赚钱,那么这些人也并不适合我们公司。

我是如何定义优秀呢?我会在面试时询问应聘者许多问题—-有些人问题较为私人,也有些问题会让他们感到不便。在交谈的最后,我将能够清楚地看出应聘者的心理。回顾我所有的面试经历,我认为这些对话能够帮助我们辨别一个人是否适合我们公司。

当然了,我们也有可能犯错,就像有时候员工会失去动机并选择离开。这时候我们会努力争取每一位员工:我们会尝试着识别他们改变态度的原因,并激励他们回来,让他们想想那些让自己开心的工作。而如果我们未能成功挽留他们,我们也会想办法减少损失。

动机vs内部危机

关于动机这一主题,我将添加一些关于在没有办公室的公司中的员工的动机的重要性的内容。这并不是一个关于薪水的问题。当你未能与老板,同事或下属待在一起工作时,你总是很容易忘记自己也是团队中的一份子。在线工作6个多小时后便会出现内部危机—-你可能忘记自己致力于一家公司并遗忘了公司文化。像我们这样以网络为中心的公司也具有自己的文化:就像我们非常重视客户,希望能够在游戏领域占据优势地位,并具有能够回答客户任何问题的能力。

并不存在任何通用技巧能够解决所有的这些电子办公问题。我们所使用的一种有效的方法是让雇员写下一篇关于媒体的文章或在会议中发言。在员工准备文本内容或展示的时候,他便会深入研究主题并感受到自己是更大团体的一份子。另外一种方法便是进行非正式的聚会,如一起喝酒之类。不管怎样,管理者都需要事先思考如何保持员工的积极性并确保他们拥有社交感。

保持与每位员工的交流并提供给他们适当的反馈非常重要。不要忘记在他们做得好的时候给予表扬,也请勇敢地激励他们做得更好—-但需要批评的时候要注意对象应该是工作而不是人。最重要的是确保交流渠道的畅通,绝对不要保持沉默。不幸的是我并未轻松学到这点。去年春天我与另外一名联合创始人Alexander Murauski一起前往黑山共和国与我们的家人共度3个月的假期。但是很多麻烦事阻碍了我们与员工的交流。结果便是我们失去了两名本来能够留下的员工。

但离开原来的国家并非与员工失去联系的唯一可能性。太过专注于一个业务元素也可能忽视其他员工。不过现在我知道这种情况的危险性了。

Trello,Skype和Cloud

比起一家员工都待在各自隔间的公司来说,确定工作流程对于没有办公室的公司来说更加重要。我们在公司开始发展的时候便意识到这点,即当我们需要雇佣第二以及第三个项目的经理去处理客户要求时。我们必须设计过程和机制以确保员工办公能够与在办公室办公一样有效率。

寻找任务管理工具需要付出长期的努力。我们尝试了Megaplan和Bitrix24,但在之后转向了Trello,因为它不仅很方便且很直观。现在Trello仍是我们的项目管理工具选择,即使我们不断改变着过程。关于大型项目表的本土化工作,我们经常在基于云端的平台上使用翻译器。而剩下的交流我们便会借助电子邮件,Skype或谷歌Hangouts完成,这也帮助着我们进行虚拟群组会议。

我们所有的文件都储存在谷歌Drive上。为了支持在线文件,我们放弃了微软办公软件和其它离线程序。这么做的优势是我们可以轻松地使用来自任何设备和群组合作/修订过程的文件。

我们同样也创造了内部维基去集中并系统化我们的知识,规则,参考内容以及程序。所有的一切内容,包括Alconost电子邮件账号和使用Trello的基本原则都储存在里面。我们会定期添加并更新维基文章,这能够帮助雇员们快速做出调整并更有效地完成工作。

自动化例行任务以及简化业务过程很重要。这能够节省工作时间,减少职员人数并为更多创造性任务腾出更多资源。每天浪费五分钟的单一任务一年将浪费一周的时间。

当然了,我建议你去寻找那些能够让你随时随地工作的工具。而基于今天的设备和手机网络,这是绝对可行的。我还记得以前的自己需要花一整天时间去编写视频脚本,与客户联系,管理公司,同时还要在海关检查对排队。而现在我所需要的只不过是一台具有5英寸屏幕的手机!

在没有办公室的时候有效办公的3大技巧

1.创造一个时间表。每天在同个时间起床并明确什么时间自己的工作效率最高。人们总有自己的节奏。

2.如果你不能在自己所处的地方工作,那就为自己创造一个适当的环境。待在一个两房且有不断哭泣和非常活泼的宠物的房间你可能会工作不下去。所以你需要寻找一个私人空间。对于我来说,那就是我的公寓中的书房。而对于Alexander,家附近的的业务中心中的一个小房间能够帮助他远离家中吵闹的两个小孩。

3.当不存在固定的时间表时,你的工作时间便是个变量。你的个人时间和工作时间并未像办公室职员那样具有明确的划分。有些人可能会因此感到疲乏,这便说明远程办公不适合他们。当你喜欢自己的工作时(游戏邦注:如果这是你真正愿意付出热情去做的事),那么不管你选择在一天中的哪个时间段去完成它都不再重要了。我并不是在“工作”,我只是在生活并追随着我的业务。这种设定让我很开心,并成就了我的生活。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转功,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

300 Employees On Multiple Continents: How We Work Without An Office

By Kirill Kliushkin

We decided to go office-less at the very start. For a small translation agency focused on working with IT companies via the Internet, this was a logical step. Now, ten years later, Alconost includes more than 300 people worldwide. Our staff is diverse: besides translators, we employ marketing specialists, contextual advertising experts, sales staff, editors, localization managers, and video production pros. But despite our growth, we still think that offices are inefficient and we feel good about the choice we made. As company co-founder, I, Kirill Kliushkin, would like to share about how we make the absence of an office work for us.

Not having an office has had a large and positive effect on our business. Our clients are located all over the world, so they often write to our managers outside of our local working hours. Because of this time difference, an ordinary, office-bound company would take days to communicate with distant clients and resolve issues. But not us. We do not hold our employees to a strict eight-hour regimen, instead asking them to answer messages quickly whenever they have the opportunity. Clients truly appreciate fast answers, even if it is just to say that “I will get the necessary information and write back to you tomorrow.” The client is happy, which means that we are happy too.

We have gone without offices not because we wanted to take a more relaxed pace. If anything, the answer is the opposite: often tasks need to be finished in minutes, not hours. Half of orders on our Nitro rapid online translation service are completed in less than two hours. We promise to reply to all client questions regarding Nitro within one hour. If we were stuck to a fixed office schedule, we could never attain the responsiveness that we have today.

Our formula: remote work + people + freedom – control

Our formula for success consists of remote work plus excellent people and an open schedule, minus overbearing control. Remote work is common enough these days – work wherever you want, as long as you get the job done. The same goes for the schedule too: we do not actually care when and how much you work. What counts is that tasks are resolved, processes launched, projects completed quickly, and the other employees not waiting because of any delays from you. Often I find it easiest to write articles or scripts at 2 or 3 AM, when the day’s problems are finally set aside and I can get more done in two hours than I have during all of the last week.

We do not ask our employees to fill out time sheets or, even worse, install tracking software on their computers to monitor time worked and get screenshots of what they are working on. Our approach is fundamentally different. Standing over an employee’s shoulder with a stopwatch and a calendar is counterproductive both for the employee and for the company. If a person is putting in the proper effort, we can see this by the tasks that get done and the satisfaction of colleagues and clients. If someone is lagging behind, we can see this too. We value the results, not the processes that led to these results. Business is what interests us, not control.

The next component of our formula is “excellent people”. Without them, nothing else works. But “excellent” is the key part. If someone just wants to sit in a desk chair for eight hours and does not care what they are working on, that person would not last long here. If work for someone is exclusively a way to earn money, that person would not fit us either.

How do I identify excellence? My way involves asking a lot of questions at the job interview – some of them personal, some of them uncomfortably so. By the end of the conversation, I have a high-resolution psychological portrait of the candidate. Looking back at all of my interviews with potential employees, I think that our conversations have usually allowed figuring out right away whether a person is the right one for us.

Mistakes can always happen, of course, and sometimes employees lose their motivation and start to drift. We battle for each employee: we try to figure out the reason for this change in attitude, inspire the employee to get back “into the groove”, and think of interesting work that could excite him or her. If we still lose the battle, we cut our losses and part ways.

Motivation vs. internal crisis

If we are on the topic of motivation, I should add a few words about the importance of motivation for employees at office-less companies. It is not a question of salary. When you are not sitting side by side with your boss, colleagues, or subordinates, it is easy to forget that you are part of a team. After working online for six months or so, an internal crisis sets in – you can forget that you work at a company and fall out of the corporate culture. Even Internet-centric companies like ours have a culture: in our case, one of care for the client, the desire to be a step ahead of the game, and the ability to answer questions that the client has not even thought of yet.

There is no one-size-fits-all technique for fighting off these teleworking blues. One effective method in our toolbox is to ask the employee to write an article for the media or to speak at a conference. While the employee is preparing the text or presentation, he or she dives into the topic and feels like part of something bigger. Another way is to simply meet and socialize informally, maybe drink a little whiskey. One way or another, managers need to think proactively about how to preserve motivation and help employees to feel socially needed, so that they do not suddenly snap one fine day and jump ship for a company with a plush office and after-work drinks on Fridays.

It is absolutely critical to be in contact with every employee and provide them with proper feedback. Don’t forget to praise a job well done, and don’t be afraid to say if a job could have been done better – but critique the work, not the person. The most important thing is to keep the lines of communication open and not be silent. I learned this the hard way, unfortunately. Last spring I traveled together with the other co-founder, Alexander Murauski, to Montenegro (another advantage of remote work, incidentally!) for three months with our families. All of the hassles of the temporary move distracted us from communication with employees. As a result, we lost a pair of workers who, if we had been “virtually” at their side, could have stayed, had we been able to help them in maintaining their motivation.

Work-Motivation.jpg

But leaving the country is not the only way of losing contact with employees. Simply concentrating too much on one aspect of the business can leave other employees feeling lonely and uncared for. Now I know how dangerous this can be.

Trello, Skype and The Cloud

Setting up workflows is much more important for an office-free company than it is for a company with employees housed in a giant cubicle farm. We realized this right away at the beginning of our company’s growth, when we needed to hire a second and later third project manager for handling client requests. We had to design processes and mechanisms to make telework just as efficient and seamless as working with a colleague at a neighboring desk.

Finding task management tools was a long effort. We tried Megaplan and Bitrix24, but later migrated to Trello, which is both very convenient and intuitive. Trello remains our project management tool of choice, although we continue to refine our processes. For localization of large projects, we often work with translators through a cloud-based platform. The rest of our communications go through email, Skype or Google Hangouts, which allow sharing screens in virtual group conferences.

All of our documents and files are stored on Google Drive. We forego Microsoft Office and other offline programs in favor of online documents only. The advantages are that documents are accessible from any device and the group collaboration/revision process is convenient.

We also have created an internal wiki to centralize and systematize our knowledge, rules, references, and procedures. Everything is in there, from step-by-step setup of Alconost email accounts to basic principles for working in Trello. Wiki articles are regularly added and updated, which helps new employees to get oriented quickly and makes work get done quicker.

Automating routine tasks and simplifying business processes is key. This saves work time, reduces headcount needs, and simply frees up resources for more creative tasks. A monotonous task that eats up five minutes every day will consume almost a week over the course of a year.

And of course, I recommend acquiring the tools you need so that you can work anytime, anywhere. With today’s devices and mobile Internet access, this is eminently doable. I remember when I spent an entire day writing video scripts, communicated with clients, and managed the company as I was waiting in line at a customs checkpoint. All I needed was my mobile phone and its five-inch screen!

Three tips for those working without an office

First: create a schedule. Wake up at the same time every day and figure out which times are most productive. People need rhythm.

Second, if you cannot work properly where you are, create the right setting so that you can. You simply cannot be productive in a two-room apartment with screaming kids and hyperactive pets. You need your own clearly marked, private space. For me, this is the study in my apartment. For Alexander, the other Alconost co-founder, the solution to two noisy children is a small room at a nearby business center.

And third: when there is no set schedule, your working day imperceptibly begins to “morph”. You do not have the clear division between personal time and working time that an office gives. Some people become fatigued by this, which is a sign that remote work is probably not right for them. When you like your work – if it is something that you are passionate about – it does not matter which of the day’s 24 hours you choose to spend doing it. Personally, I don’t even like the word “work”. I don’t “work”, I live and simultaneously pursue my business. It makes me happier – and lets me truly live.(source:gamedev)

 


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