Home is where the shore is...

Our office is in the cloud which allows us to work from anywhere and at any moment we want.

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You have all heard the discussions about working ‘remote’ or ‘at the office’ or a ‘hybrid’ form of the two, right? For us at fresk.digital this is a non-discussion led by legacy thinking. What does it matter where you work from or when you work? Doesn’t it start with the employee's need first and then you facilitate as the employer?

That is why we don’t use any of these terms here at fresk.digital. We have one term: #homeshoring! Our office is in the cloud which allows us to work from anywhere and at any moment we want.

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What is Homeshoring?

Homeshoring is not remote working. Homeshoring facilitates your personal lifestyle. We understand the importance of a good work/life balance and believe this will make you a happier and better employee and that you are more able to bring high quality service to our clients.

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In the end a Homeshoring setup is very personal, and can be different for everyone. For me personally it means that I prefer to work from my house in Amsterdam at my kitchen table and do meetings either via Google Meets,  in a coffee bar, or in co-working spaces. But my home base…. is home.

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This choice has enriched my life immensely! Work is an important factor in my life, but balances better with my personal life due to the flexibility Homeshoring brings. I exercise every morning, the house work and personal chores are done during the day, and I have never been more effective and efficient in my work. This balance has given me better health and I no longer need to shake the work day off. And I am not the only one.

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From the horse’s mouth

The choice for a specific Homeshoring setup is very personal and flexible and there is always room for change. In the end fresk.digital is a digital agency #humancentred at its core. So, instead of explaining the principles of Homeshoring to you, let's ask our fresk fellows who have been practicing Homeshoring since we started this company.

I asked them: How have you experienced the concept of Homeshoring so far?

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Virginia is an Italian born Dutchie with a love for sewing, running and pottery, she explained:

If you would have asked me two years ago, I would have been skeptical about it. But I grew in it, and now I would never go without. It goes with the fact that I feel trust from the people I work with, and I have full trust in them. We know we will get things done, where and when it’s up to us. And this freedom and trust gives me a huge amount of motivation to deliver the best quality I can.

I was in Spain combining vacation and work, and it just feels normal. The only thing I need is a wifi connection, and I know I will find my colleagues. My challenge has been that I needed to learn to document my work better, as I’m used to having pieces of paper on my desk, but I want it to be accessible for the team. We have all the tools and software to support us in this, such as ClickUp which is a big ally for us. I’m happy to be learning this while doing it!

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Cyrille is a proud dad of Rae and Boïs and loves surfing and running, he explained: Homeshoring provides ultimate flexibility and focus in a way that you can be in control. For me, for example, I prefer working outside the house when my kids are home, so I usually visit a co-working space, a co-workers house or I am with my clients. It is all need-based. I have for example been travelling throughout Europe in May with my family in a camper van, which was a great experience in itself, but also in what works and what does not work for me when Homeshoring.

What does work is the freedom, the flexibility, the opportunity and the opportunity to create the circumstances to create an ultimate work focus. Because you just pick up your laptop and start working. When you are Homeshoring on a journey like this, it is very important to do some planning though, non-planning works if you work async, because you decide when you do what. But when you need to be in sync with other people, for example when I need to join a meeting with clients or my team, it may not be the best idea to be in a busy Italian restaurant or being on a campsite with children running around you. So context and planning is very important. Oh and good wifi!

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Vera is a creative free spirit who lives by the beach and loves kitesurfing, she explained:

In order to have the right balance work needs to match with my life, and Homeshoring provides that. I have worked as a designer for years. One of the reasons for me to leave my last employer and move towards a more free life as a kite instructor/freelance designer/bartender was because I could not match my need for freedom, nature and flexibility with that job. Honestly I never would have worked for another agency if it wasn’t for fresk.digital and what we stand for, and what the founders promised me is true. It provides me with the right balance I need.

I like to work on the beach, home is where the shore is for me. The open view brings me ease of mind and gives me inspiration. Kitesurfing is my life, but you can’t plan the wind, at the same time you also can’t plan creativity. Homeshoring brings me the flexibility to always be the best version of myself: more effective and happier.

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Joy is exactly like her name: a joy, and can be found on the centre stage of theatres often, she explained:

The most important thing for me is that we continue to see each other and that we maintain the connection with the team and the client. As a group we talk to each other on a weekly basis in our weekstart, and physically at our Monthly workshop / drink combination. I choose to add more connections by meeting up with my colleagues in co-working spaces and I like to visit the client's office. The flexibility to choose where and when I want to work, combined with the means to be able to do it makes me happy in my work.

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In the beginning I was searching for the right balance. I was so used to an old style of working in the office, but hearing stories from colleagues like Vera and Cyrille inspired me to come up with a version that fits me perfectly.

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Homeshoring is not remote working. Homeshoring facilitates your personal lifestyle.

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We learn by doing

While we practice Homeshoring we learn by doing and this means mistakes are made, new ideas are formed and all is evaluated and where we can, improved. In the end Homeshoring is #async and location-independent, this comes with challenges. But with all our learnings we are able to build a play book which helps us in our communication and collaboration.

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Some rules of play are:

• Wifi is life!: We are a digital agency, so this is self-explanatory, we need a good working internet connection to be able to do our work.
• Safety first: You need a safe environment for body and mind. A good screen, laptop holder, keyboard etc. are important to prevent aches and pains. And we provide.
• Communication and good documentation is key: As we work async, good documentation and communication is essential to be able to bring our clients from business concept to meaningful digital product to human centred data, design and tech.
• Level the playing field: Remember a time where you were sitting in a meeting room with 6 people looking at a screen where someone is calling in from abroad? It is a very hard setting where there is always that one person that cannot really follow the conversation. We level the playing field by either always being in the same room together, or everyone is calling in from their laptop.
• Flexibility comes both ways: With freedom comes responsibility, we are running a business so our output is essential. When expected, we work from where we are needed by our team or client and we take charge for our work.

Following these and the other rules of play we have, are of the utmost importance to successfully embed Homeshoring in our organisation and have a good balance between the happiness of our team, great quality output for our clients and a healthy financial situation.

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It is not per say easy to set up this kind of #flexibility in your work force, it actually calls for a lot of explicitness and clear communication, discipline, consistency and willingness, but once it is set, the benefits are endless:

happy and #empowered people, high quality work,professionalism, #happyclients, and happy numbers ;-).

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If you want to learn more about our organisation and how we set things up, or you believe fresk.digital is the type of company you want to be part of, whether as a fresk fellow or you see us as the right partner for your business critical challenge, just give me a nudge at [Lisa] and let’s see what we can do ;-).

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