Working anywhere with AnywhereWorks

By Ben Walker on 11 July 2019

More employees than ever before are now working remotely, with an expected 30% of the workforce working from home by 2020. AnywhereWorks is here to make remote working easier for everyone.

AnywhereWorks is a company that promotes working from, quite literally, anywhere. They aim to make it easy to connect with your team and contribute to ongoing projects when you’re working remotely. Their state-of-the-art AnywhereWorks app is an instant messaging service that allows you to break down the barriers that often come with working from home. Their bespoke ‘Teleport’ platform even enables you to conduct group video calls with your team and share documents.

Their Edinburgh Hub, which opened at the beginning of 2019, is based in a four-story townhouse on Rutland Street and provides seven rooms which are available to rent. They’re not your regular office rooms though – each one has been individually designed to be both highly functional and welcoming, with bespoke interiors that reflect surroundings such as a bothy, library and even a games room. Some include Teleport booths, which allow you to have a bit of extra privacy during video calls, and if you fancy a bit of friendly competition after a team meeting, one room has a table which you can transform into a game of table tennis!

Since becoming one of our clients, AnywhereWorks has been a huge driving force in Firefly’s decision to embrace remote working. Each member of the team now aims to work remotely at least one day a week, and the app makes it just as easy for us to catch up and discuss ongoing projects as it is in the office. As an organisation, we’re on a mission to do all we can to give back to the planet and reduce our emissions, and working remotely is one of the first steps in this process.

The perks of your team working remotely

Remote working has become extremely desirable in recent years, and any company willing to offer their employees the flexibility to work from anywhere is ahead of the curve. If you’re debating making this decision, here’s a few advantages to working remotely that we’ve found, which we think might help you decide:

• No commute: Not only is it much better for the environment but your employees are likely to start their day much happier and less stressed. There’s no need to hurry to make the train, no fighting for a seat and no ending up resembling sardines if it only has two carriages! Whether getting the train, the bus or driving, cutting out the morning commute even just once a week will help to reduce emissions.
• Better work/life balance: Working remotely provides enhanced flexibility to employees who have children or people to care for, which is extremely valuable. It can also give disabled employees the chance to work again when they didn’t think they could; a benefit that a number of employees of AnywhereWorks can testify to.
• Increased productivity: Employers who trust their employees to work remotely can often find an increase in concentration and productivity. A quiet work environment with minimal distractions allows you to get more done; a Stanford survey found that employees who work remotely are as much as 13% more productive than employees who work in the office.

Tips to help you stay productive when working remotely

Transitioning to working anywhere can be a bit of a shock, especially if you’re not used to it. Here are our top tips for working remotely, tried and tested by the team at Firefly:

• Take regular breaks: Stretch every 15 minutes and get up from your workspace every few hours. It helps you unwind a little and stops you overworking yourself; set an alarm if you need to remember.
• Set yourself goals: Even if you have no firm deadlines, setting your own can be the push you need to tick off your to-do list. It’s easier to be productive when you’re working within a time constraint.
• Pick a good space: If you can, create a dedicated office space that is separate from your living space. It helps you get into the correct mindset for working, and at the end of the day you can enter your living space without still being in the ‘work’ mindset.