Working Around The Globe
As you may know, Kielo Digital consists of a global team working remotely to create seamless campaigns and constructive strategies for scaling businesses and startups from the US, England, Finland, and Ukraine.
As the team grew this year, we took the time to question the differences between remote and traditional office work. With varying time zones and a wide variety of cultural experiences, our global team has come together to share with you, how to work remotely as a kick-ass global team Zooming in from the US, Spain, The Netherlands, and sometimes the Nordics!
Working From Home Struggles & Procrastination:
From physical pen-to-paper to digital checklists, everyone has their preference for staying on top of our busy To-Do lists. By transparently discussing our workload on a weekly basis, we have been able to navigate avoiding procrastination from home with our online asana tasks reminding the team of due dates.
“I find keeping a running to-do list on paper in addition to my online to-do throughout Asana is quite helpful, as I can physically turn back the pages to days past and see what I need to continue working on and when something was completed.”
This is especially helpful when the team collaborates on projects, keeping us accountable for what needs to be delivered, using notes on tasks as extra info. Communication is key, so finding a platform that works for your team will ensure you are on the same page, no matter how lethargic your Humpday may be.
“I live out of Asana! Giving myself due dates on a calendar with all my projects, no matter how small the task, lets me know when I’m staying on track and see the impact of my procrastination as I shift things down the line.”
How Time Zones & Affects Our Workload:
Are you in our time zone? Our team is located in 4 different time zones!
In a world where everyone is behind in time, Kielo Digital’s team pride itself on always being on top of the latest trends, news, and client projects. With an itch to travel since the world began to open up and an unlimited time-off policy, you’ll find our team is always on the move and you may bump into one of us in any corner of the world! So how does this affect our workload? Well, the flexibility to work from anywhere and have extended time off every year relies heavily on our communication and organizational skills, to ensure we all support each other where needed.
For projects, turnaround times are much faster when you do not only rely on a team in NYC between 9AM - 6PM EST, but also have a team starting the day while our New Yorkers sleep, from Europe - making our team setup ideal for startups moving quickly or clients in high-pressure industries.
“Sometimes we have larger projects or tight turnaround times, and it’s great to add 6 hours onto our “office hours” with 2 people based in Europe being able to work on pieces before our 3 NY based team members come online, who then carry forward the project after the EU team logs off for the day. We’re working on ensuring there is always 1 US and 1 European team member on each client with larger deliverables, so that there’s a team online longer Mondays through Fridays - because no, we don’t work weekends. This definitely makes us competitive if pitching a client when there are competing agencies.”
Forget working overtime. Instead, we work in our time.
With a global team, our EU-based team members can get a head start on emails, tying up loose ends on projects, and following up on tasks the NYC team needs completed before they start their day. This creates a mutually beneficial work relationship with everyone using their time as an asset to work as a team.
“Starting my day ahead of the NYC team allows me to plan out my day ahead of the generic 9 AM rush. Not only can I finish up on projects ahead of the NYC start time, but I can also work in my own time(zone) with no meetings or urgent emails interrupting my train of thought. ”
Working From Home Perks:
With growing numbers of companies choosing to work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many teams have seen the benefits it has brought to their daily work schedule. Not only is your personal time outside of work hours yours (cutting out the commute) and office rent reduced, there are a few extra benefits our team can share with you.
“I love making a real lunch during the day! It’s the number one thing I miss on days when I co-work.”
Here are our personal perks to working from home:
Tracksuits in meetings, we don’t always do this, but when we do, you’ll never know! 😉
Keeping healthy! From cooking proper lunches from home to lunch breaks at the gym, our team takes the time at home each day to put our health first, ensuring we can feel good & work better.
Keeping free time for me-time. Although we work hard, we enjoy our weekends, refresh and come back to the team with adventurous stories to share! By working from home, small tasks like laundry can get done between projects, allowing our weekends to be work-free!
“I love the flexibility offered in regards to traveling, and not having to wake up as early in the morning in order to commute!”
Work-Life Balance:
While working from home has its benefits, we understand the struggle AND need to switch off!
Our team is ambitious and brings a high level of passion to our work, in this case, we need to train ourselves to remove our attention from our projects and schedule in our personal gym/dance/Netflix time.
“Without the commute, I lose my 30-minute wind-down period and will often go straight into my other household routines. If I’m really stressed and force myself to log off, I think it’s important to go for a walk or workout to give yourself the wind-down period that used to come with leaving the office.”
Allowing your team to choose their own lifestyle through implementing flexible work hours and non-work-related calls, makes up for a work-life balance that may come more naturally if we were in the same time zone. We may not have the forced ‘work happy hours’ on Friday’s but was anyone missing them anyway?
“if you need to rearrange your schedule because of an event or flight, it isn’t usually a problem. We also do things like having a Coffee Chat thread on Slack for non-work chatting, and virtual office Halloween parties, which builds our sense of work community, remotely.”
International Clients & Meetings:
“In the past 1.5 years of Kielo, we’ve had meetings with people from all over: America, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, to name a few. The biggest juggle is just to ensure our mornings (NY time) are blocked off for European clients.”
Kielo Digital works with a broad list of industries across the international digital landscape. It allows our team to generate a vast amount of information on digital trends, always preparing for the next project, algorithm update, and growth strategy update that comes our way.
Having experience working with startups globally prior, the Kielo team allows us to enjoy a variety of client experiences.
“Although my meetings tend to generally be in the evening, I take advantage of the preparation time I have working from EU hours. It allows me to lead meetings in confidence, always prepared with up-to-date campaign insights, keeping time in the morning for strategy edits. This allows a quicker turn-around time for our clients”
“Meeting clients from all over the world with different life views and passions is fascinating. Usually, we chat a little about interesting goings-on wherever the client happens to be, and I end up learning a lot from our clients right from the start of our partnership. It is also fun stepping back from the established American norms and examining the way things are done elsewhere in order to take the best of both worlds.”
Diverse Backgrounds For Brainstorming:
Kielo’s team brings varied backgrounds in travel, education, vast industry experience, and interests allowing us to open our services to all our client’s niche industries. Our campaigns are specialized with team brainstorms over Zoom with follow-up tasks and communication.
“Being based in 3 countries on a daily basis, but sometimes in 4-5 countries with team members traveling, it’s interesting how we all absorb different marketing and social media influences based on where we are located.”
Our light-hearted approach to projects opens the space for all conversations regarding all industries. We gain access through our diverse mindsets through a different lens where we look at marketing, ads, strategy, and tactics, etc.
“It’s also interesting to be able to dip into each team member’s toolbox, based on their previous work, language skills, age, and more to find creative solutions for clients.”
“I think our various experiences bring a lot to brainstorming and also to our team culture! I think Kielo is really rooted in the “no one is above anything” mentality, and having a team of people who have walked different career paths to get here keeps anyone from playing expert or trying to dodge work they don’t feel like doing. We’re a pretty humble team that has come by our work through a type of almost “dedicated happenstance” that I think is unique to young companies and brings so much more to the table than traditional corporate teams.”