At the Remote Worker Awards

The Grand Connaught Rooms

Last night I spent the evening at the Remote Worker Awards which was held at The Grand Connaught Rooms in London. My business writing practice, The Otobos Group, was a finalist in the freelancing category. I didn’t win, but it was a good event.

I met some really interesting people including the CEO of YuuGuu, a web conferencing tool. I’m also excited to see the new laptop bags from Girlstravelclub.co.uk which are coming in next month. I came straight home and went on to their website, and am particularly taken with the Reisenthel suspended travel washbag. OK, it’s not like I would use it for camping, but when I’m travelling for work a girl can never be too organised. Becci, the company’s founder, won the BT Home Business Award too.

It was very telling that all the winners were women – although it was a gender-neutral awards event open to all. Women are in the majority when it comes to grasping the opportunity for flexible working, because we are still the primary carers for children and ageing parents. Remote and flexible working provide the opportunity to combine employment with other commitments and contribute to a good work/life balance.

However, when flexible working is on offer everyone benefits, don’t you think?

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Tagged as: girlstravelclub, remote worker awards, yuuguu

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http://fearnoproject.com Bruce

Wish I could have gone to the awards (But Texas is a long way from London) as I am glad that more focus is being put on creating better remote/virtual work environments.
I enjoy your blog (even if I am not a female) and thank you for the effort you put into it.

Bruce
PS – I wrote a couple of posts on virtual teams if you want to see my perspective: http://fearnoproject.com/2009/07/17/project-management-keys-to-managing-a-remote-project-team/

http://www.elizabeth-harrin.com Elizabeth

Thanks for the link, Bruce, I will take a look. This is the second year of the Remote Worker Awards and everyone seemed to think they would be even bigger next year, as companies really start to embrace this way of working and the benefits it brings.

http://www.yuuguu.com almellor

Interesting point about the gender split and child-care motivation.

I’ve observed quite a resistance to remote working in the field of software development. The reality is much of this work could be done remotely, yet it isn’t. In the places I have worked in the UK, it has been pretty much male dominated – for reasons I’ve never understood – and I’ve often wondered if that has anything to do with it.

Everyone involved in developing Yuuguu software (yes, you guessed it – all male) works remotely using yuuguu itself to manage the day-to-day interactions and management of it all – so it’s not that the idea doesn’t work. It’s our first choice. I believe we actually have an office somewhere … but I’ve never yet had need to go to it.

Speaking about child care, I can’t resist a shameless plug for my most recent yuuguu blog post starring my little lad http://www.yuuguu.com/blog/2010/09/its-nice-to-be-able-to-do-this I know it’s bad form to cross post like this in comments, but well – I think it underlines the point you make quite well!

all the best -
Al from Yuuguu.

http://www.elizabeth-harrin.com Elizabeth

Al, thanks for your comment! I hadn’t realised all the Yuuguu staff were remote (or male!) workers, and it’s great to see that there are companies out there making that model of working work. And thanks for the link!

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http://www.mikogo.com/ Andrew Donnelly, Mikogo Web Conferencing

Hi Elizabeth,

After last week’s tube strikes, I wrote up a blog post about using collaboration software to work from home and to raise a few questions about why this option was not a better alternative for so many Londoners who then had to battle the terrible commute during the strikes – http://www.mikogo.com/2010/09/07/work-from-home-avoid-tube-strikes/

Consequently, it’s nice to read your blog post in support of remote work. I particularly liked and agree with your closing question. Working from home with the assistance of online collaboration software is a great option that many are taking – but I wonder why more didn’t try it last week. Perhaps it is lack of knowledge amongst firms across London or lack of trust in their employees. Whatever the reason, I hope that companies will utilize remote work options better in the future to avoid such loss of time again.
If you have any questions about Mikogo for remote work, please let me know.

Regards,
Andrew Donnelly
The Mikogo Team
Twitter: @Mikogo

http://www.elizabeth-harrin.com Elizabeth

Andrew, you would have thought that businesses would have caught on to the benefits of remote working after the snow earlier this year (and previous snow and strikes). I’ll email you about Mikogo. Thanks for the comment!