Safiyah Hajjaj, 23, a media planner for Mediacom, is working from home for the foreseeable future. So what does this look like in practice?
On Monday all our UK offices were informed by our CEOs that we would be open as usual; we could either work from home or the office- whatever we felt comfortable with.
And then at 5pm Boris Johnson made the announcement that all unnecessary travel should be stopped and if you can work from home then you should. So I did. The office remains open for those who want to come in.
I work at Mediacom’s London branch as a media planner. This entails helping clients develop and grow their brands for optimum outreach such as on social media platforms, bus and tv adverts. We rely on face-to-face meetings with our clients to build strong relationships and maintain a good rapport with them. However, during this period most offices are closed, and external meetings have been banned.
As a result, conference video calls are to be the new norm and so far, it is working, although it is not always easy.
Usually, being in an office is handy as it makes collaborative work easy, you can just pop over to someone’s desk if you need them. Due to coronavirus this has all been thrown out the window and there is a certain level of uncertainty on the long-term impact that this will have for office workers.
At the moment most of the people from my company are working from home due to Covid-19 continuing to spread across London and the rest of the UK. I will be working at home for the foreseeable future until we are told otherwise, and only when the severity of the situation begins to calm down.
Before the coronavirus we did have a flexible working structure. However, there had never been an instance where all of our UK offices worked from home at the same time. We weren’t sure whether our work systems could handle thousands of people using it all at once.
Finding ways to remain productive has been important for me as being at home there can be many distractions. Ensuring I have a routine has been invaluable to me not only in making sure my work is done but also ensuring that I am maintaining good mental health. I’m making sure I’m going out in the mornings either for a run or to go to the shops, using Pomodoro Technique to stay focused, and making sure I’m taking a lunch break.
At the moment everything seems to be at the discretion of individuals or the companies which only adds to the confusion of whether we should be self-isolating or self-distancing to try and curb the spread of the virus.
And this is problematic. There is not one clear message from the government stating what we should all do and the measures we need to take ourselves. There have been many U-turns.
With so much uncertainty I guess I am fortunate that I am able to work from home where for others, this is not a possibility. Something needs to be done to protect those that are particularly vulnerable to the disruption and chaos that the virus is causing. The best thing we can all do is to try and not panic and keep each-other safe.
