Welcome, one and all. My name is Andrea. I'll be your host for today. This will be the first webinar in a series about motivation , tools,about collaboration and knowledge. I'm here with three lovely ladies to talk about, motivation and prioritization. We have Laura de la Court. She's an SDR manager for the EMEA market at OneLogin. OneLogin is a, a leader inorganizations unified access management. They enable‌ the organization across the world to access the tools that they love, in a in a simple and safe way. Welcome Laura. Thank you, Andrea. I'm happy to be here. Also on the panel today, Niamh Brady. Niamh is a productivity coach. She helps people and businesses achieve their goals and improve their work life balance through individual coaching, and the better work day program. Welcome, Niamh. Thanks, Andrea. Happy to be here. And last but not least, we have Sam Alleva, the owner, writer and engineer at Evergreen Inc. Evergreen is a technical documentation company, with an engineering degree to back it, And so, Sam helps companies develop their documentation, especially software documentation. Welcome Sam. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. How has everybody's world been affected since, since the emergency? Since the pandemic. Who is gonna go first? Alright. I'll be happy to jump in and take that one first. I think for for me, and my company, there has been some transition. So OneLogin is a global organization. We have offices globally and so a lot of people do work remotely already and they would work from home already. So it's not something that's unusual or unheard of for our company, but we are very proud of our offices, and we love spending time together as a team, you know, our diverse teams diverse countries, collaborating and working together. So that part of it and not being able to do that at the moment, is tricky. It is a challenge. Personally, I would work from home one day a week anyway, So from a standpoint of technology and tools and all the all the applications in order to collaborate online have always been in place. So in that sense, from a technology standpoint, it hasn't changed much for us. And I mean, we are OneLogin, so we would use our own tool in order to log in to our systems and it works like a dream. So, you know, that that side of things hasn't changed. I think what has really impacted us is that togetherness and the bonding of the team at the office has having the happy hour, four pm on a Friday, things like that that you now have to do virtually. It's not the same. It's funny that you say that because I find that a lot of people who work remotely, it's like going to a hotel for a night or even for a weekend and you really like it, and it's great, and you've got all the perks, and then you have to move into the hotel. And all of a sudden, you realize the limitations and you just wanna go home. And all of the people I'm talking to are a little bit like that. They're like, I just wanna be able to go home to my office to see the people because I miss them now. I'm ready to leave the hotel. I'm ready to check out, and especially those people who struggle with the blurring lines between work and home life because it's not like you're just working from home anymore. It's like you're kind of living in this alternate reality where you're still working in your home space, but now the whole world is at home too. So you've got kids, you've got partners. You've got everything where we wouldn't normally have that in our work environment. So, to your point, I think even if companies are fully set up from a tech perspective, It's the people element, both the people that you're missing and the people that you're now trying to work around. That's really challenging. And I always say that now like this is the perfect place for workaholics to hide, right? Cause like there's no one checking in on them now. Like, they can work day and night. And on the other hand, then when people are not motivated, they can go for days, you know, with no one noticing it, you know, and asking them, are you okay? Do you want to get a cup of tea? So it's the people thing definitely, I fully agree with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely even on my side too. So I've always worked from home, the technology, like you were saying, it's there. It's just that all of my roommates are here. The whole family is here. So it's trying to work with three adults, working at different companies trying to say, okay, somebody has this space during the afternoon, somebody has a meeting. We have to be quiet, and then just the background noise and everybody, getting a little caught up in all of it, not being able to go to a cafe and work for a couple hours or escape or anything like that. Definitely. That's the challenge. I will go back to one of the point that Niamh brought up. The separation, the fact that we need boundaries between our personal life and professional life, you know. And so I struggled with this particularly the first week of quarantine. But then I I started to understand that I needed to keep my morning routine. I needed to still have my morning ritual in order to be productive. What do you think about that? Why is it so important to maintain healthy habits in terms of your morning routine and the stuff that you do during the day. Even if you don't have the the morning commute anymore, for example. Yeah. It's so because in our brains, we compartmentalize different things to allow ourselves to rest in different areas. So, if we're always in work mode. We have no time for play, and for rest, and for recovery. And it might not take its toll on the first day, the second day, or the third day, but definitely as the weeks go on, you'd start to notice it. So simple things like Monday we used to at least walk from a bus stop or from a car to the office door, and we stopped that movement, a lot of us. If we don't make a concious effort to do it. The ritual of getting dressed for work, whatever getting dressed for work means for you. It doesn't really matter what it is, but you get dressed for work, all those things prepare you for your workday. And at the other side, they allow you to leave work. So, I'm telling my clients who are working from their kitchen table to literally put a pillowcase or a sheet over their their monitor at the end of the day. I'm hiding it, try and hide it, go walk out around the corner, jump into the shower and wash off the work day to try to keep some some bit of boundary. And, Andrea, you're right, it is the morning routine, but nearly more importantly is the evening routine because you do want to be able switch off and let your brain relax and allow yourself time to to chill out with whoever we are sharing our house with or just to not be at work. Because otherwise we're all going to end up burnt out by accident. I don't know what happened. We're like,"I just ended up working for ten weeks straight. How did that happen? You know? So definitely the work routine in the morning time, but more importantly probably in the evening. What do you think Laura and Sam? Yeah. So on on my side, I take even a step further back than that. I mean, there's the whole getting up for work and commuting to work but there are a lot of parents out there that are working right now from home and their kids cannot go to school. So it's that school run-in the morning or dropping off the the kids at preschool or at a child minder or a nanny or even if you were leaving your kids maybe with your parents, during the day or during the week so that you could go to work. So it's that kind of stuff as well that breaks up during a time like this. So, your routine, like you said, is just so important, not just for work, but also for your kids and for your pets. The daily walks and all of those things play a massive part in the change in routine, if you will. So personally on my side, what I've done to kind of get me kick started in the morning is I've planned a fifteen minute stand up with my team, which is a Zoom call similar to what we're doing right now. And, it's every morning at nine fifteen. And so every person on my team knows that at nine fifteen, the day starts, and we all need to be dressed for work because we're gonna be on a Zoom video call. We need to be awake. So you have to have had your breakfast or your coffee or whatever it is that you do in the morning, your morning yoga routine. That all has to be done before that session. And then once that session's over, it's like, okay, now we can get started the day. I find that, you know, with my daughter, she'll come in to me and I'll be like, oh, yeah, I do need to go and make lunch or do something else other than work. So it's good to have those kinds of destractions during the day. And to your point, the evening is super important. I think that challenge for some of us is that we work with, with US companies or companies in other countries that have different time zones. And so we find ourselves still working at eight PM or nine PM. So, you know, those situations can be dangerous. You just don't know when to switch off. And before you know it, you can't get to sleep. Yeah. We're still working at ten PM. It's definitely important to have that routine, and to just be verbal about that as well with the people that you work with. So with my team, we have that morning, stand up, but we all we all verbalize very clearly how our home situations are. What we have to do during the day. And it's like what Andrea said as well. There's more empathy. I think we all feel that, we all realize that we have different home situations and they ask for different challenges and needs, and reactions and responses. So, it's just about being empathetic and being there for each other. I definitely agree about taking breaks too Every day at two PM, we have a household break. So we all get together. We all have our cup. They have coffee and we have little cookies that we ordered specifically for this just for this purpose. Every day at two. We all go outside into our backyard. We don't talk about work. We're not allowed to. And it's kind of easy because none of us work together. But we just talk about house things. What are you planning this weekend? What can we do? Okay. I don't know. Anything. And then, like you said as well, right around five o'clock, six o'clock. That's when we all start logging off and we're like, alright, are we all doing dinner now? It's time to get off your computer, come out of your room and socialize a little bit and maybe go for a walk or what have you. But I agree. Yeah. The nighttime routine is definitely very important and breaks throughout the day. So really interesting points across the board. I was thinking, what about the flip side of the coin? Because for those of us who are workaholics, you know, this is this is heaven. Right? It's beautiful. We work longer hours. We don't have anybody kicking us out of the office. But how do we motivate the people around us that are encountering difficulties? You know, those of us who manage teams... What have you found that has been working when you need to nudge people and get them to be more productive and more motivated? And to make the most out of a situation that has no solution until we find a vaccine twelve, eighteen months down the line. Again, I'm not an immunologist, but I think we better get used to it, even though some of the restrictions will be eventually lifted, social distancing is not gonna go away for the second part of twenty twenty. Sorry. That's why I think it's still relevant. And so how do we keep the team engaged and motivated? It will be my next question. Who wants to go first? Oh, well, I'm a workaholic, so I have to say something on this one. I'm a recovering workaholic, thank you. So, I suppose just to make the point on the workaholic thing though, Andrea, first of all, it's kinda dangerous enough for people. As I said, they've got the perfect place to hide. They can throw themselves into the ground, but we also have the workaholics who now have got the kids at home. Because they might be running to their safe place where they can control everything, which is in the laptop. But they now have to try to deal with everything at home as well, and that can be quite difficult. And then, of course, as you said, you've got those people who seem to have all the time on their hands and they're like, what am I gonna do and how do you find the balance? What I say to people is, believe or not, when we're in the office, we only work for about three hours a day on like the really productive work. So all of the time is meetings and breaks and checking email and doing all those other things. So for people who are either working too much and need to protect themselves a little bit or for the people who can't get motivated at all, I always say step with the three hours that will cover your most important work. So if you're a kettle, your job is to boil water. That is your main job. It's your function. It's why you're there. Spend three hours on that. And if you're getting up, you've at least done your main job, you know. And then no matter who you are, trying to get motivated or trying to pay back, you can work with three hours, right, split into six half hours, and it's flexible around most people's day. So that's definitely my two cents on that in terms of motivating but I may find that they get better work done, under less pressure. Because, like, three hours, I can do this, you know, We never worked for eight hours continuously in the office, and I think it's an unreasonable expectation to think that people would do it now. In fact, I think probably quite bad for people. You know, I can see you vehemently nodding there. Sam, do you agree? Oh, yes. Definitely. I am a huge proponent any progress is good progress no matter how little it may be, especially right now. It's, you know, a global traumatic event. It's not a good thing. Everything everybody is suffering in some way or form even if nobody you know is sick. You know, you still can't go outside. That's a huge issue for everybody facing it. So you may go days and even weeks feeling, oh, I'm fine. I'm motivated. I'm working. I'm going. I'm going. And then the next day, you know, just fall back into the spiral of, oh, no. The world is falling apart kind of thinking. So it's important I have my days structured every day on my whiteboard saying, alright, if I get these three things done, that's a perfectly acceptable day. That's super successful. I can sleep at night knowing I've done at least those three most important things. So I agree completely, start with small increments, work your way up, you know, each step is a step towards the right way. Right? You know, this is a question maybe for the technical writer in the room. The importance of knowledge management. And, I've seen a lot of businesses that are going back into to to rewriting processes. Definitely. Standard operating procedures are all nonstandard now. Basically, they're trying to change them up and the difficulty will come when somebody has to leave for illness or drop back for a couple weeks or to take care of someone or whatever. And that's gonna be the toughest part I think for most of my clients, anyways, their groups, trying to bring anybody new on will be impossible. They won't know what to do because there won't be any documentation or any kind of standard process to follow unless somebody is there to help them along. So it's really important now for all companies, I guess, to just take a look at their processes and say, okay. These are invalid now. We can't, like Laura was saying, I can't sit next to my new employee and show her the tips and tricks and where everything is and say, oh, no, you don't wanna do it this way. It's gonna take twice as long or whatever it is. So you have to look back and say, okay, now we have to rewrite them and say, instead of doing this, this and this, we'll have a Zoom call in the meeting. Like Laura was saying, a stand up meeting. We'll check back in around lunchtime and make sure you get something to eat, take a break, and then say, here are the next following procedures that I need you to follow, or whatever. It just needs to be revalidated, I guess, and tested and tried in this new time. But I think you're probably seeing this because procedures get stale and new people, a new blood comes into a company. And when we're faced with a challenge like this, it really does bring out the creativity in people and the problem solving. And in people as well. So I suppose a lot of people are changing their procedures and their onboarding and just ongoing training, right, and ongoing on-the-job support, but some of it's not gonna go back. Right? So a lot of this has changed for good now. And even with the Zoom calls, because so many people do flex a bit of work, even if they're not at home all the time, people are saying, do you know what? We're gonna have these more often even when we're back in the office and we're going to make decisions about what we're gonna keep with us. So I I do think that with the support and stuff, people kinda really take advantage of this time and maybe do things for the better, and improve onboarding from now on. Which is going to be really great. I mean, Laura, I'm sure you agree with that you've you've seen some great ideas come out. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. You know, to both of you, Sam, and me, both of you have hit the nail on the head really because I don't think I've reviewed processes as much as I have now in the past. Six to eight weeks because we were looking at things. They were like, we're required to travel for this, and we're required to go and do a b c d for that, and it just doesn't make sense because it it's not feasible now in this time, but then also you look back and you think, was it ever really necessary? And, you know, that kind of makes you think as well. You really rethink, how have we been doing things in the past? What were the reasons we bought some of those processes that we put in place, and do they still make sense in the world that we live in today? I think a lot of things we do them out of habit and tradition and culture. And, we all said, oh, well, if you don't meet the customer face to face, you'll never close the deal. And it's like, we're closing deals now and we are not traveling to go see them. So, there's a lot of those kinds of things that are now completely being reviewed, being looked at again to say, is there a different way that we can handle those engagements and, change the way it works. And, for the benefit of everyone and our planet. The only the only concern I always have for people who aren't work at home is the blur, the blur between work and life. And because as this goes on, like it's easier in week one, week two, week three when it into week four, week five, week six. It is, I think, for people who aren't used to working from home, there's a struggle So, I've been telling people to keep a daily log of when they took their breaks, when they moved, and when they did their work just to try to keep them some way aware, because there is a a risk that this will just all merge into one continuous line if you work, sleep, and repeat, which isn't healthy either. You know, it's the other side of the motivation piece. Like Laura, I'd say you have some really motivated SDRs who want to really do well, and they could probably work, especially if have any or a lot of commitments. They could work twenty four seven if you let them right? Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. So, you know, I've got a couple that were already like that before. I'm still online working beyond that. And, I'd have to get on to them and say, look, you need your time as well, like switch off. So it would be already difficult back then. It's even harder now. They they can easily switch off their average of tools, and then I won't be able to see if they're still online still working, you know, still working on their emails or scheduling things due to go out the next day. So, yeah, it is very difficult to manage a team from that aspect and and trying to keep them motivated, but at the same time remind them to take their personal space. And it is a blur. I think that's more important than anything else. And, it's important that they look out for themselves first. Because if they don't do that, they can't perform their roles. They can be the best friends, the best partners, the best housemates, the best pet owners, the best pet parents, they have to look after themselves first. They're not doing any justice to anyone else if they burn the midnight oil. So, I always try and take it from that perspective and remind them that they're not doing anyone any favors by adding an extra two hours to their work day. But I find it interesting how you said me earlier about not wanting to go back to the way things were before. Even though the the work and the personal life a better balance as we're getting more and more used to this kind of a life. So I suppose I'm probably okay at it. I should be at this stage because I whenever I give people coaching or classes, I remind myself and I continually refresh myself, but saying that, Laura, what I found is a lot of people are actually far more motivated and energized in the afternoon and the early evening than in the morning. And so those people would have worked nine and a half and until five, and they would have been the people then continuing on to work until six, seven, eight, nine. And I'm actually like that. Like, I really get into my stride around three or four in the afternoon. I get really creative and I could stay there, whereas in the morning, not so much. And what we're finding is walk or whatever, or they might just go do their exercise. Around eleven o'clock, and they're finding their balance in their own way. But they're kinda doing it after first understanding their boundaries. So there is this really kind of nice concept that you should have like minimum time for some things a maximum times for another. So I'll spend a maximum hour, a maximum forty hours a week on work. And I'm gonna spend a minimum of one hour a day on myself, you know. And once they start to make boundaries, then yeah, then we start to get more flexible. Then we start to make the blurs work for us. So that we can definitely work to our best cycle without burning ourselves out. So you're not working nine AM to nine at night now. You know, you're finding the flow in between. I'm a morning person, so I like to wake up early. I like to start stuff. And then I usually peter out around, like, three, four in the afternoon, and then I start my own personal life. When I first started working though and I had all these clients coming in and it was a new job to me. So I was like, alright, I wanna do the best that I can. Right? So I would start, you know, seven, eight AM, and then I would go until, like you're saying, seven eight PM, because I wouldn't have anything planned. This is it. This is my day. I need to do this, this, and this, and that's all I need to focus on. And I started burning out very quickly, obviously. So within the first month or so I figured out, okay, if I have something planned specifically at four PM, for myself going for a walk or watching a movie or, you know, whatever it is, starting dinner. Then I will stop working and I will do that thing, but I need to have something planned. That's why my days are so incredibly structured because I'm definite. It's not the way to think about it. You gotta think about, okay. My brain is done. My levels are out. It's time to go and refresh them on my own in my own personal life. Whatever that may mean for the individual. Yeah. I I think so. I, like managing a team, or you find that come up like that some people are trying to work on this evening and then others maybe they probably would benefit from maybe having a longer morning, to kind of get their exercise and then they'll perform better in the afternoon or vice versa. Yeah. So I've never been a micro manager. So I I that's one of the things I've vow to myself, I never do. So, there are certain things that I need the team to do every day and certain KPIs that I need them to hit. I do know that I've got a couple of reps that are workaholics and I need to remind them to look after themselves. But I also have a couple that would maybe fall on the other on the other end. And, I have to go, well, you didn't quite hit that metric. So, what's going on you know, is there something in your way? And, you know, and then we try and look at what that what the cause might be. And most more often than not it's something to do with what helps them get motivated. Do they need to go and have swim in the morning, or do they need a run, or, you know, sometimes they need something extra outside of work to get them going. So, yeah, it's like he said, everybody has own way to figure out what that is for them and do what's what's best for them. Yeah. And I think the goals is absolutely key at the moment. Without a doubt, your point in terms of because you can't micro manage even if you want to. I mean, there's no way you could do it. You would be running yourself into the ground, and it wouldn't be benefiting people because I probably promote something called, a pyramid approach. So, to your point exactly, actually, we can have your key metrics for the team have to be hitting them. But, like, what does that do for supporting you? So, it's honestly supporting your personal life in some way. They give you the a professional goal or a financial goal or personal goal that by working and doing your job, you're helping to achieve And on the days that you're not at all motivated, what's the really short term thing that you want that, like, getting the job done when you like, do you wanna buy the case? So, sometimes we need.. company metrics are good enough. All the times we need our own personalm medium term growth. And then other days, we just need to know if I go to work today, I can buy shoes. And I think especially in COVID 19 times, a lot of people have a lot of those days, you know, and because we're going back to survival mode. And sometimes it's the basic stuff like that that actually does get us out of our pajamas and and into the desk. Andrea. Hey, but you noticed did you notice I was gone? Yeah. We had a great time. Yeah. I was about to send you an email. I think it's, it's unfortunate. Again, my wife, I had a little bit of a relapse. Any last closing remarks or if you've been doing that while I was gone? Any of we left out perhaps? Or Well, I think myself and I think Laura was just about to kind of go into that space. I think the most important thing at the moment is to be kind actually, to be kind to yourself and to be kind to others you know. We're all going through our own situations and it's absolutely okay if someday you work a bit too much and someday you feel a good time a little bit more. You're definitely not the only one. So behind yourself, the understanding of your own needs, and definitely continue listening to others, listen to them. Sometimes they might need help, and sometimes they might just watch a little bit of head space. But I think if we do nothing else for that, I think we'll all be just fine. So that's it for me. Being kind, being empathetic, just knowing you're not necessarily alone in your situation, even if it's very personal situation or an individual's perspective. It's okay. Just like you said, it's alright. Yeah. I love what both of you have just said. I think that's what it's all about. You know, at the end of the day, we're all human beings. We all deal with situations in our own ways. No person is the same as the next. We're all unique. So, yeah, just having that empathy and understanding for others and remembering, you know, why it is that we do what we do every day. And just putting our our best hat on, as often as we can. And if we do have those low days and those bad days, which we have regardless, You've been an awesome speaker. It's been a beautiful session. I wanna thank you, for taking the time and contributing to this project, what can I say? No. Seriously, it's been so natural this conversation and so great. And interactive people won't even notice that I was gone for ten minutes. Oh, thank you very much for having us. It was really nice to meet you guys as well. It was just so across the world, meeting someone in the same situation, just dealing with it. And yeah. It's so cool to make new friends. Yeah. Exactly. What are we doing virtual drinks, guys? Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye.