Top Tips for Working Remotely…thousands of miles away

It’s been another busy month for me! I’ve just come back from a working holiday in Dubai and before I know it I’ll be off again – a work trip to New York is next!  Thankfully, the very nature of a ‘virtual’ assistant means that I do not have to be physically present in a customer’s workplace, or even in the same country, to carry out my job effectively.

It has taken a little while to build up my confidence to work remotely (particularly when I’m thousands of miles away from my customers) so I thought I would share a few tips that you may find useful if you are also planning on working from abroad in the coming months, yet still want to provide high quality support for your valuable clients!

Tip number 1: Be aware of the time difference (and notify your client of this too, if appropriate!). No one appreciates a 2am telephone call, and though this seems like a fairly basic point, it is easy to get carried away when you are engrossed in work and forget an 8-hour time difference!  It might be a good idea to edit your ‘out of office’ email to reflect this fact, i.e. ‘I am currently working from Hong Kong and as a result may not be able to respond to your query immediately.  I will, however, endeavour to respond to your email as quickly as possible’.  You could also consider giving your important clients a direct contact number to use ‘in case of emergency’ for immediate contact with you, something that may help to reassure your customers that you are still able to assist with urgent issues, despite the distance and time difference.

Tip number 2: Make sure that your hotel or accommodation has a sufficient internet connection and/or WIFI.  This is another factor that many people take for granted, but as a frequent traveller I can confirm that not every hotel has a high quality internet connection at the top of their list of priorities! If in doubt, phone the hotel directly.  Also, be aware of the cost of internet access and make sure you factor this in to your expenses budget!

Tip number 3: Make sure that you have told your mobile phone provider that you are going abroad, and if you plan to use mobile data in order to check emails, etc. whilst you are away, consider talking to your provider about what kind of packages they offer as ‘add-ons’ to your usual tariff to make ‘data roaming’ more affordable.  The Ofcom website has some useful hints and tips for using a mobile phone abroad – I definitely recommend taking a look! http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/phone/mobile-phones/mobiles-abroad/check-your-phone-before-you-roam/

Tip number 4: Make sure that your travel insurance is sufficient to cover the cost of the electrical equipment that you are taking abroad with you! Laptops, mobile phones, etc. – the value of the technology you are carrying about in your hand luggage soon mounts up and if the worst does happen, you need to make sure that you can afford to replace any equipment that has gone missing.  This point also highlights the need to ensure your work is backed up appropriately – either on a cloud or an external storage device.

My final piece of advice to you is this – take some time out to enjoy yourself and learn a little about the country you are staying in.  This quote explains why (far more eloquently than I could!):

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

1. Jackson Brown from the book ‘P.S. I Love You: When Mom Wrote, She Always Saved the Best for Last’

 

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If you are off on a work trip soon – enjoy yourself!

Seema

Self-Employed Holiday Survival

I’ve recently been away on holiday for a week (that’s me in Chamonix), and I must admit that as a Self-Employed person, holidays aren’t quite as relaxing as they once were! When I was an employee, not only did I have the financial ‘buffer’ of holiday pay, but there were other people that I worked alongside who could take some of the strain off me whilst I was away – answering calls, dealing with urgent enquiries and paperwork, etc.  As a Self-employed person, that ‘comfort blanket’ of financial and moral support from colleagues is stripped away.  Much as I love spending time with family and friends, there is now a constant, low level anxiety that fills my time away from the office: what if I miss an important phone call? What if I miss out on a brand new customer by not attending my weekly networking session?

We’ve all heard the old adage about how it’s important to ‘work to live, don’t live to work’, and articles on achieving the perfect ‘work-life’ balance frequently appear in magazines and newspapers, but when you rely solely on yourself and the work that you do for income it is easy to get carried away and continue to work day and night, come hell or high water!  However, despite the difficulties associated with ‘switching off’ for a few days, evidence suggests that a break from work can actually be beneficial to your productivity and general well-being.

In an article entitled ‘Psychological detachment from work during leisure time; The benefits of mentally disengaging from work’ (Sonnentag, S. (2012) Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21 (2), pp114-118), Sabine Sonnentag of the University of Mannheim collated evidence from a variety of psychological studies focusing specifically on recovery from work.  Her analysis of dozens of studies lead her to the conclusion that taking a break from work, both mentally and physically, is essential to maintaining top performance in a job role.  This not only highlights the importance of holidays and days away from the office but also regular ‘mini-breaks’ every day at work – whether it’s 5 minutes to make a nice refreshing cup of tea (or something herbal… or something incredibly calorific and topped with cream and marshmallows), or a brief walk to the post box and back to get some fresh air and exercise.

If you are planning a holiday and the anxiety has already started to hit home (‘But who will look after my clients when I am away?!’), why not consider working with a Virtual Assistant? The Virtual Assistant Community in the UK are incredibly supportive, and as a result, I have now built up a network of contacts who can assist me when I’m away.  As a VA myself, I am also in the perfect position to help you when you are away, or just to provide a ‘buffer’ on a weekly basis with the day-to-day administrative tasks that tend to pile up without warning! If you would like more information about the services that I can assist with, please head over to my website to take a look: http://www.hourglassvirtualassistant.com/.

Have a good week!