Androgogic has proudly been supporting remote working since its founding in 2005. For 18 years, we have maintained a fully distributed team. When COVID-19 lockdowns were enforced, we were uniquely prepared with the skills to separate our work and personal lives. 

But there are always ways to improve. 

Every two years, Androgogues from across Australia and beyond gather for a week of strategy, conversation, and fun. We call it Androtreat (Androgogic Retreat). It’s an opportunity to meet people in person, confirm that they are not just a square on Zoom or a name in Slack, and brainstorm ways that we can be better as a company.

Every Androtreat, we devote a whole day to talk about work-life balance. It’s important, and we designate the time to make sure it’s working for everyone.

Breaking out into cross-functional groups, we brainstormed how to make our working lives better when working remotely.

Read on to find out what we learned.

Take breaks.

Androgogues love to get stuck into our work, but sometimes that means we forget to take breaks. We committed to more walking meetings, getting more exercise and fresh air, and taking care of our mental health as a priority. 

Make effective meetings.

We all know that some meetings are better off as emails. We committed to only scheduling meetings when they were really needed and creating a clear agenda and outcome to those meetings.

Taking it slow.

Not every day is created equal, and sometimes you’re just not going to work at 100%. Androgogues committed to using the turtle emoji (🐢) as our Slack status when we’re having a rough day, and we committed to respecting it when others used it.

Reflect on your contribution.

Each Androgogue contributes something unique to the organisation. Daily operation of our client-partner systems are managed by many hands. So while a client-partner might only be communicating with an Educational Technologist or a Professional Services Technician, there might be many people working behind the scenes to achieve what we do. 

So, we made the commitment to regularly reflect on our contributions to Androgogic, to our client-partners, and to the wider community. 

Androgogic is proud to help many healthcare institutions, government organisations, and social causes in the Asia-Pacific region. So whether we’re working on the frontline of client-partner care, or we’re working behind the scenes, every Androgogue is part of the team, keeping these amazing organisations running.