The alternative for the new reality of working from home #WFH
Discover lo-cals, a solution for all remote workers out there
The starting point
How many of you haven’t wondered a million times if your upstairs neighbour has a bowling court installed in his house?
I used to have extremely noisy neighbours, (typical building block in the center of Madrid), and with the new Covid reality, and having to work from home, I wondered quite often: seriously, don’t they hear their kid screaming? I’m pretty sure the whole road can!
In this state of mind, I was moaning to a friend about it, and she had a similar problem but with her boyfriend: they both had to work remotely now, on top of it her company had realized they didn’t need such big offices anymore, and she was finding herself trapped in a mini apartment, not prepared at all with a good chair, table or noise insolation, and in an infinite circle of calls both of them.
The result? She hated her job, her boyfriend and her house (not being dramatic, her words!).
So that’s when it hit me: we are facing a new reality with work, but are companies really offering solutions to motivate their workers? Is remote working a good thing and actually helping to boost productivity or is it happening the other way round?
Research
My initial hypothesis was that indeed working from home was generating lots of anxieties, but also we had to bare in mind this was not anymore a temporary situation, seeing that according to Economic World Forum, 84% of global employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes, with the potential to move 44% of their workforce to operate remotely.
Digging deeper in other studies, I could immediately find other numbers that supported my theory:
According to Telus International, 45% of 3000 remote workers claimed to feel less healthy mentally when working form home.
Le Novo’s global survey of 2000 employees and 1000 managers, showed that 63% of them reported feeling much better after getting some fresh air.
After reading all of this and doing a profound benchmark of digital products for remote working out there…
I decided to lead my own primary research with a survey that had one key question:
What is the main thing you miss from going to the office?
Almost 300 interviewees and 100% of them had one clear answer:
what I miss the most are my workmates and colleagues.
But on the other hand 86% of them told me at the same time, that they didn’t want to go back:
“The office is too far away from my house”
“I waste too much time on the commute”
“I sleep less hours because I have to get ready”
“My quality of life is lower, I eat worse and spend less time with my family”
So actually, was the solution a more dynamic and connected app like I had seen on my benchmark research? More zoom meetings, more chatting through an app… after a couple of user interviews, the answer was clear:
Remote workers are fed up of being connected through screens, they want and need to go out, but they also need to fulfill they work goals, and don’t want to waste time in commuting…
So here is where my app LO-CALS, comes in!
Remember my friend Olga I was telling you about at the very beginning, feeling trapped home with her boyfriend? Let’s step in her shoes.
Olga has heard about lo-cals app, the definitive alternative for a dynamic and connected telecommuting. As a user, you just have to think about your working needs, and you will find a solution to connect with your local community, and not feel alone while remote working anymore.
The solution
During the onboarding process (see video above), Olga will understand what the lo-cals app is all about, and after completing the registration process and allowing the app to use her location, she will have to select her working preferences to make sure the list of local places near her have all the requirements she needs (like a place to connect her computer, good wifi, adequate levels of noise and a long etc…).
- Once the onboarding has been completed she will be able to access the closest spaces that meet her requirements, but also, when interested in one in particular, she will be able to make her final decision based on other users who frequent that same cafe, checking their professional profile through the app, and being able to connect and network with them.
2. When deciding upon a lo-cal space, Olga will have to decide the number of hours she wants to stay working, and based on that, pre-pay for a minimum drink or snack. This will safe her the guilt of feeling she needs to consume more than what she wants in order to stay, and for the cafe, it will be a guarantee that users do not occupy the space they could be using for another paying customer, for free.
Either way, if she changes her mind, she will always be able to access and edit her reservations or even plan her working from home routine, for the rest of the month.
Still, Olga is missing not only going out of her small apartment, but also connecting with other professionals with her same background, interests and skills.
That’s why lo-cals includes a community section, where users will be able to:
- Create groups, for example with other work colleagues, being able to see and share lo-cal space to work from
- Explore lo-cal communities based on common interests and professional backgrounds
- Sending requests to join them and share same remote-working routines
Next steps
What do we achieve with lo-cals app?
1. Lo-cals is a scalable product to all types of premises and spaces that meet certain requirements, being able to evolve to an “airbnb” of remote working.
2. In addition, it responds to a current and real reality, and we know based on different studies, (like LeNovo Global Survey) that 29 minutes out, equals a boost of 45% of productivity.
3. On top, its a viable product for companies, which will be able to offer a selection of spaces in the city to their workers, instead of having really expensive offices, by reaching agreements with these spaces for more attractive prices and offers; while taking into account the mental health of their workers, which is one of the top decision makers to work at a certain company.
4. Lo-cals helps the local cafés and other spaces in our community, incrementing the clientele, and becoming an additional source of income.
Thank you for reading and hope you have enjoyed this case study!
Project details
This was a two week project developed from beginning to end by myself. If you are interested in seeing more of the process you can do so here:
For any professional enquires, here is my linkedin profile!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-searle-fuentes-/
