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Is workation a good idea? What do you think about this form of work and vacation?
Hey!
I’m curious about your thoughts on workations. Personally, I don’t think they’re a good option. We have to consider many variables, such as whether the hotel has good Wi-Fi (which we might only find out once we’re there), whether we’ll have a suitable place to work, and whether sightseeing will distract us from important duties.
In my opinion, it’s either one or the other. It’s nice to be able to work and sightsee at the same time, but won’t that decrease our productivity and increase our frustration?
What do you think?
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Annie Engelhardth
Workations are great if planned well. For me, checking the Wi-Fi reviews and having a dedicated work area makes it work smoothly.
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@annie_engelhardth Exactly - but you have to prepare properly which also takes time. Worse when you want to combine work and sightseeing and end up not embracing anything 100%
I have been doing workations for 10 years now. Earlier we did that in my previous company Mindtickle, and now at www.zipy.ai - Since our product development team is based in India, we usually go to the mountains - the Himalayas as part of workations once a year, and this has several benefits:
1. We define a strict half day work policy, and we start early in the morning and finish it by 12-1pm, so that the rest of the day is free for exploration. Every workation is tied with a milestone. We achieve that milestone and go to the workation. During the workation, the assignments usually include retrospection of the past quarter/year and replanning the roadmap for the coming quarter/year. So the tasks are all planned well ahead.
2. We take the families of employees along with us. This allows everyone to reboot, connect with others and prioritize. Taking families along makes it look more like a break, than going for a work assignment.
3. The places we stay at are nestled in the foothills of Himalayas with monasteries - which is a meditative experience and everybody looks forward to going there. We make sure that we have redundancy in terms of internet connections and speeds so that the work or support is not impacted.
4. Apart from work, we club the workations with treks, campaing, bonfire, music and cultural events which help everyone in the team to bond well with others.
Having done for 10yrs now, I see immense benefits of this. After every workation, the whole team is energized and is ready to take on the next assignment. This also helps us empathize with others, which is not possible in in-office or remote environments.
I had a workcation before. It didn't work out for me that well. Balancing work with sightseeing and especially, turning off your brain was a huge challenge for me.