My personal approach to remote work

By Purvi

Purvi joined our London office after completing her MBA at INSEAD's France campus. Prior to INSEAD, she worked for several years across India and Southeast Asia for a global pharmaceutical company. At McKinsey, she continues her work in pharma and healthcare with projects in the UK and continental Europe. Purvi is passionate about women in leadership, both at McKinsey and in society in general. She was selected as one of 80 women in STEM for Homeward Bound, a sustainability leadership program, and joinied them on an expedition to Antarctica in winter 2018.

April 10, 2020Hi everyone,

I am writing this blog post from my home office. As many of us these days, I am experiencing some challenges, as well as heartwarming moments while working 100% remotely.

Hope you are all keeping safe and healthy in these challenging times. As I write this from my home office setup on my dining table, I can’t stop thinking about how this will change our future ways of working. To be honest, working remotely has been challenging both for our clients and teams – whether it is engaging on a video screen for long periods of time, or trying to compartmentalize personal and work lives while in the same physical space. Each one of us is learning and sharing tips on how to make to work well: go for a walk when taking 1:1 phone calls, schedule 10 mins breaks between long meetings, organize informal lunches or dinners through video meetings. After all, it’s times like these where we all need the feeling of being part of a community.

Remote working has also lead of some fun moments: one of my colleagues was wearing a bright pink hat during problem solving sessions (it brought a smile to everyone!); a client introduced us to her cats and it was adorable to hangout with them; we were also playing video call bingo in a client workshop on how many times we heard ‘I was on mute’ ‘Excuse the background noise’, etc.

As we all brace ourselves for the next few weeks, we also prepare for how it may change how we work and engage with our clients and colleagues – more on that later. Until then, stay indoors!

Purvi