Transcript
ZAINAB AL MUHARRAMI:
My first day of work was an induction day. It was a group meeting with myself, two of the new starters, and our HR lady, Ploy. She sort of gave us an introduction to the company, what we do, introduced us to each other, so we have people to speak to that joined the same time that we did. And then after that, I had a meeting with my manager, who sort of went through what my role would be in the company, what I would be doing, explained what the current project was that we were working on, and also sort of who I can speak to if I needed help or assistance with anything.
Then we had a group meeting with everybody across the companies because iungo was, well, quite small when I started. There wasn't that many people. But it was a group meeting just to get us all introduced to each other. And so I can familiarise myself with everyone. And it was like, sort of, if you have any questions, you can ask anybody. And they'd be willing to help.
And so the onboarding experience was pretty good. We got the information about the company itself. We got the employee handbook and just sort of relevant information about the role itself. We also got told who we can go to if we need help or support, the different emails that we would need for different contact information.
When working from home, it's important to have a specific area where you're going to work from. So I took an empty room in my house and made it into an office. I put a desk in there, my laptop, and a desk chair. And I used that specifically for work, so that I can separate my work life from my, you know, my regular life, I guess.
It's important to create a plan as well of your day when you're working from home, just to make sure you're taking your breaks at the right time. And you're working, you know, your full contracted hours without then going over that time as well. It's also important to not procrastinate and just do the work that you're supposed to do and not think, oh, I'll do that later, or I can do that later. But then you don't actually end up doing it. And then you're rushed to reach deadlines and things like that.
But it's important to also, you know, take time out of your workday to maybe go for a walk to stretch your legs, do something, because you're sitting for hours at a time with your computer. And so it's important to actually, you know, sit back, take a break, and just go from there.
All of our meetings are done via Google Teams. So you have to be able to have the knowledge of, I guess, how to navigate that, and also how to communicate with everybody online. So as opposed to in-person, where you can just speak to someone face to face, it’s more how to write those professional emails and how to set up those meetings with other members of the team.
There's also different applications that are used within iungo, especially within the tech team, that when I started, I actually wasn't familiar with, things like GitHub and the coding studio that we use. So it was quite daunting when I first started because I wasn't actually aware how to use those. But I think with any job, you'll be – if you aren't familiar with something, you can just ask and people will be able to help you. And they're more than happy to help you. So that you can develop those skills and use all of the programs that they require you to use.
Working from the office is actually a lot different from working from home. So we come into the office once a week. And I feel like when I'm in the office – well, when we first started coming to the office, I was much more productive at the office compared to how I was at home. And that was because I knew that there were other people around me that were working. And so I, therefore, also had to work.
But we did end up changing the structure actually of the meetings that we were having, so that we were having daily meetings instead. And with those daily meetings then, because you had to show your progress and sort of say what exactly what you've been doing, even when working from home, there was someone still checking up on you. So I guess with that, I became more disciplined with the work that I was doing. I made sure I set myself achievable daily tasks. So they were similar to what would be done at the office, but I could achieve those at home.
Another thing that is different to working from the office is obviously that you're by yourself, so there's not other people working with you. And it's different. And the fact that if you need help with something, you can't just go to the next room and speak to someone or, you know, ask for help from the person sitting next to you. So you do actually have to, you know, email someone or set up a meeting. So it does take longer for someone to get back to you with things that you need help, but you have to learn to be patient and you'll get those answers that you need.