Gerben holwerda
Working from home and being indispensable, how do we do that at KH Engineering?
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, our colleagues have been working from home since mid-March to minimize the risk of infection. With some 600 colleagues and three locations in the Netherlands and Belgium, this seemed like a big challenge at first, but we were fully mobilized remotely in a short time and that is fantastic. In recent years, we have invested in a good IT infrastructure, so that activities such as 3D design, consultations / meetings, managing teams and drinks are all possible remotely and work well. Of course, in this fairly new way of working, we also had the necessary challenges. For this article interviewed our copywriter Gerben Holwerda a number of colleagues to share their home-working experiences with us.
Kevin Bollaert: ‘A lot of work can continue as normal’
‘I hardly ever worked at home before the corona crisis,’ says Project Account Manager Kevin Bollaert . ‘I've been doing it for five weeks now, and I have to say: I really like it. Except for contact with colleagues and customers, because that's really different via video calling.’ Immediately after the work moved home from the Antwerp office, Kevin decided that he wanted to stay in the same rhythm. So he gets up at 6 a.m. and sits behind the computer at 6:45 a.m.
‘A lot of work can continue as usual,’ says Kevin, ‘for example the work for a large oil refinery. They have partly opened their document system to us, so that we can pick up the drawings from that, because we are currently not allowed on site. We must therefore assume that the situation is “as built”, which we need to double-check locally later on in the process. We have made good agreements about this with the customer.’
Kevin expects that he will work more at home after the crisis than before: ‘A 50/50 balance seems good to me. The working days at home are a bit longer, but on the other hand you can finish something in peace. Lunch with the family is also special and fun, during this period. I think working from home will have a greater role in the future. My advice is to ensure a quiet workplace. During video meetings I sometimes notice some buzz from the other participants.’
Niels van Dijk: ‘The switch was a bit of a compromise’
‘Before the crisis I worked at home every Friday afternoon,’ says Niels van Dijk, Process Engineer. ‘So I already had all the ICT facilities at home. But of course the corona crisis and the associated permanent working from home came very unexpectedly.’ Since Niels' wife is a math teacher, the transition required a lot of energy of the whole family. ‘My wife had to turn her entire curriculum upside down, I also needed more time to get the job done, and our daughter of three and son of one and a half needed care and attention. It took us a couple of weeks to find our bearings.’
Niels therefore experiences the lockdown period as “compromising”: in addition to caring for the little ones, he and his wife can work on/off for a few hours at a time. ‘I took a desk from the attic and moved it to a room on the first floor, and the dining table also serves as a flex workspace. After all, we also have to keep an eye on the children.’
‘There are also benefits to working from home,’ says Niels. ‘This way I can spend more time with the children and because of the moving between my home workplaces, I have noticed that the Wi-Fi is doing better downstairs than in the attic,’ laughs Niels. ‘Another advantage is the travel time. Normally I go from my house in Rijnsburg to our office in Amsterdam and I travel by public transport for an hour. That's why I am thinking about working more at home than half a day a week after the crisis.’
Annemieke Stierum: ‘Running every now and then’
'I used to work from home sporadically,' says Discipline Manager CSA Annemieke Stierum. ‘I only did that when I had a job that I had to finish in peace and quiet and on my own. Working from home has now become the standard working method and it really takes some getting used to. Mail traffic increased enormously in the first week, but it has now stabilized. I try to keep in touch with the people in my department as best I can. It all is done online via Teams and that makes real contact sometimes difficult. To compensate for the physical contact, I try to make an email every week with all the facts and then I send it around to the people, accompanied by a funny video. There are a lot of positive reactions to that.’
Annemieke keeps the same rhythm as when she was still working at the office, ‘only I get up half an hour later because I no longer have any travel time. I think it is good for everyone to keep your structure as much as possible. I also find an advantage that you can organize your time differently from time to time. Filling a washing machine in between, or even a run is possible. So there are disadvantages, especially the lack of real social contact, but also advantages.’
Finally, Annemieke would like to compliment: ‘Hats off to all colleagues with children. Sometimes they really had to bend over backwards to combine all tasks. But also all colleagues who made the switch to working from home from one moment to the next. I am really proud of that flexibility!’