
Canary Wharf, London, UK. One of these huge buildings contains the UK HQ of a global bank. It also contains deskspace for 8,000 bank employees. But no fewer than 16,000 people are ‘attached’ to this office. So it seems the world’s local bank has at least half its UK HQ employees anything but local. We can tell you more about remote working and how we manage it. Remote working allows us to radically reduce our overheads and pass the very real savings on to you. We get the most talented professionals for the project in question and actually take advantage of time differences. Ask us how
Do You Manage Remote Workers Like a Boss?
With a bit of asking around and a smidgeon of judicious analysis, we found that bosses fall into three main remote-working-acceptance camps — or not.- Don’t like remote working, don’t want it, and don’t accept it.
- Have to accept it as a sign of the times but remain slightly suspicious.
- Happily embrace it. It’s more time and cost efficient. And it’s proven.

True story (as if we’d lie to you…). Friday morning conference call on a big project. A dozen people in the catch-up including some pretty high-level stakeholders. As the call goes round the houses (literally), a mobile phone goes off with a suitably embarrassing ringtone. The would-be recipient of the call pipes up: “I’ll just stuff that under the duvet. —Er, I mean a cushion.” Did we really care that she was still in bed with her laptop? We didn’t, don’t and shouldn’t have. What matters is that the work gets done to an agreed or better standard and on time. Keep an eye on it. Some people are better at remote working than others.
Collaboration Won’t Happen Without Communication
By virtue of being virtual, remote workers can’t shout across their desks or have a watercooler moment when a question comes up or they have an idea to share. And whilst it’s beyond the remit of this article to start recommending communication and collaboration solutions per se, just make triply sure that they work both corporately and for the people that are going to be using them. If the enterprise solution you’re landed with isn’t doing exactly what you and your users want, it’s not a solution. Worse (or perhaps better, depending on your point of view), it will not take long at all for the prescribed system to be circumvented if it’s difficult or restrictive. Users will find a way round. To push the point, no matter how corporately illegal you make it, if what’s perceived by your users to be ‘private’ messaging on their social platform of choice lets them start talking about your next IP goldmine more easily… Well… Users almost always take the line of least resistance. If your remote staff are pushing sensitive information about – either yours or that of your customers – it’s always worth making sure that every data pipe is leak-proof and firewalls are, well, metaphorically fireproof. It might not even be your responsibility. But you sure don’t want it to be when there’s no one else to blame. All the technology in the world won’t completely eradicate what somewhat sarcastically the nerds used to call meatspace. At times, there’s no substitute for real, face-to-face interaction—keeping distancing in mind, of course. But tech now has already reached a level of maturity where it can and does help reduce the time and cost associated with running a business of any size, from SME to supercorp. Lastly, if you get really desperate, there’s always picking up the phone and actually talking to somebody…“Get Back To Your Offices,” says the PM
“No,” say we, “because we haven’t got any and never will have.” Only because agencies with bricks and mortar are more expensive. Plus, we find we get more out of our creatives when they work in the environment of their choosing, rather than it being some sort of imposition.UPDATE: 22 Sept 2020—Don’t get back to your offices, says PM
Virus taking hold again. Work at home if you possibly can. And the restaurants and pubs will all have to shut early, despite what we said a week ago…We’ve Made Remote Working Work. So Can You.

Your correspondent, one of Digital Luminance’s writers, explaining a bit of captivating content strategy to a Malaysian marketing bod, in a coffee bar in Bandung, Indonesia, for an American client, who’s based in Tuscany, Italy. And where is he writing this article? Does it matter? Actually, just outside Christchurch, New Zealand, thanks for asking. Remote working works. And the whole of Digital Luminance is living proof.