Work, life balance: Is it acceptable to work from a tropical island?

The work/life blend that comes with remote work has resulted in behaviour changes among workers and employers.

Remote work has evolved over the past 12 months to encompass more than the usual industries and extend well beyond “working from home”.

It has created flexibility for everyone from doctors to contact centre workers but it also begs the question of where to draw the line when it comes to work/life blend.

Human resources and payroll tech company ELMO’s new HR Industry Benchmark Survey reveals infrastructure to support remote work is a particular priority in financial and insurance services, in which 76 per cent of HR professionals report this, as well as wholesale trade (74 per cent), administrative and support services (67 per cent), the not-for-profit sector (67 per cent) and professional, scientific and technical services (67 per cent).

Project management software company InEight, meanwhile, is also making remote work possible for construction professionals.

InEight’s Rob Bryant says remote work is even possible for construction professionals. Picture: Supplied

Executive vice president for Asia Pacific Rob Bryant says their software is used by design engineers, consultants, estimators, schedulers and project executives, allowing them to work from loungerooms, home offices and overseas.

“Particularly in the last 12 months … it’s become common for people to engage with stakeholders on projects while working from home,” he says.

“(You can create) an augmented 3D model of the asset where you can have a virtual walk through … without putting on the hard hat and steel cap boots.

“There are still realistically challenges in working remotely in the construction sector as there are a number of roles that need to be able to visit sites, but with the use of drones and cameras, a lot of that can be done virtually, even down to that on-site experience.”

Workplace psychologist Dr Amantha Imber, founder of innovation consultancy Inventium and host of podcast How I Work, says the work/life blend that comes with remote work has resulted in behaviour changes among workers and employers that are both acceptable and not acceptable.

ACCEPTABLE

Imber says working from a hotel room on a tropical island is “100 per cent acceptable”.

“The best companies that thrive in remote work – GitLab for example – have a ‘work from anywhere’ policy,” she says.

She also gives a “resounding yes” to remote workers having children, pets, partners and friends around during work hours.

“It’s just a way of life, it’s not a choice for many of us,” she says.

It’s perfectly fine to work remotely alongside pets. Picture: iStock

NOT ACCEPTABLE

Imber – who introduced a four-day work week last year, allowing staff to take Fridays off while keeping their full-time salary – says it is “absolutely not” acceptable for bosses to expect responses to emails at all hours, taking advantage of employees’ work/life blend.

“They shouldn’t expect instant responses during work hours either, because it encourages people to be tuned in to digital distractions like email and it hurts productivity,” she says.

Imber says studying or running a side hustle during work hours is not a good idea, either.

“If people have other major projects going on, they need to compartmentalise,” she says.

“Block out time for your side hustle or paid employment and be really clear because multi-tasking simply makes things take longer and both activities will suffer accordingly.”

Dr Amantha Imber advises against multi-tasking work and a side hustle while remote. Picture: iStock

IT DEPENDS …

For some workers, it is OK to log in whenever it suits their schedule – but not for everyone.

Imber says most people rely on others to do their job so deciding to work when the rest of the team is asleep, for example, will not be appropriate.

“If you are a solo worker that doesn’t need to interact with anyone and no one in the organisation needs to interact with you in a real-time way, that is perfectly acceptable, but those roles are few and far between,” she says.

Another grey area is whether it is acceptable for remote workers to use only audio in video meetings that were previously conducted in person.

“At Inventium, it’s either a video meeting and we all have video on, or it’s a phone meeting and no one has video on,” she says.

“It’s disconcerting if you are facilitating a meeting and half the people are only on audio, it can be hard to read the room and get the best outcome during that session.”

Dial-in meetings should “all in” or “all out” when it comes to switching on video. Picture: iStock

A WORKING HOLIDAY

Software engineer Ben Howl has been working from Magnetic Island, off Townsville, for almost two years.

He made the move to remote work before the pandemic but believes it has now become easier for people to ask their boss for a set-up such as his.

DigIO’s Ben Howl works from Magnetic Island. Picture: Gemma Howl

“I said when I joined that at one point I’d want to move away from Melbourne,” the DigIO employee says.

“Before COVID, you would probably wait until you had been with the company a little bit. Since COVID, I don’t think it’s as much of an issue having that conversation. Everyone has proven they can do it.”

Howl lives in Nelly Bay with his wife and their three children, which he takes to school each morning before having a coffee on the beach then starting work.

His uncommon approach to remote work has been so successful that Mantel Group, which owns DigIO, is now renting office space on Magnetic Island for other staff to book.

“We are also going to use it for bringing clients here to do project kick-offs and potentially for training,” Howl says.

“Some employees could even work there permanently as well.

“It would be nice to create a tech hub on the mainland and maybe have a small number of companies here so when kids graduate from school or university, there are opportunities (outside of tourism and mining).”

Going forward, Mantel Group plans to have staff doing as much work as possible remote then use hubs for collaboration and training.

“(We will) keep our Melbourne and Sydney offices then expand to Brisbane and Canberra then maybe have one on Magnetic Island and one in Queenstown, New Zealand,” Howl says.

Originally published as Work, life balance: Is it acceptable to work from a tropical island?