A woman in casual clothes is working remotely on a laptop in front of a navy couch.
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Working remotely: Onboarding, upskilling and changing perspectives

17 Apr 2020

Here’s some of the expert advice we published in Careers this week, from welcoming new staff members remotely to brushing up on skills at home.

It has been a few weeks now since many of us were told to work from home for the foreseeable future and while there are still plenty of adjustments to be made and the potential for new challenges each week, looking at the positives can be helpful.

For some people, this disruption might give them a chance to do some upskilling from home. Director of Hays Australia, Jane McNeill, gave us her 10 tips for starting to learn new skills while you work remotely. Beyond the more obvious routes, such as taking up an online course, her advice includes listening to podcasts, using brain-training apps and keeping up with your mentor virtually.

We also spoke with another Hays director, James Milligan, catching him for a video chat at home. Milligan believes that on the other side of this new normal, we’ll have garnered a “completely different perspective” on working life and how we approach it.

Milligan also gave us some advice on another important but tricky part of working remotely – onboarding new staff. Through harnessing online tools and communicating clearly, you can make any new joiners feel as comfortable as possible.

Those online tools can include the popular messaging platform Slack, through which you can set up group conversations, organise reminders and share files. This week’s infographic included 45 tips and tricks for getting the most out of Slack, from keyboard shortcuts to integrating external apps.

We also published a comprehensive guide to the Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme written by the employment and benefits team at William Fry. The scheme was updated this week to include a higher subsidy for lower-paid employees. Read more about it and whether you or your company are eligible here.

Beyond our expert sources, we took to social media to find out how people in our community have been maintaining a positive outlook while working from home. Read 16 of the responses here, which range from spending time with your dog to taking a dance break in your kitchen every now and again.

Finally, we also featured some career insights this week. Watch our video about the work and culture at Viasat Ireland, where we speak to three people at the company to learn more about its hiring processes, ambitions and facilities.

And check out our interview with Eilis Murphy, who started out in engineering and now leads the training division at Amgen.

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Lisa Ardill
By Lisa Ardill

Lisa Ardill joined Silicon Republic as senior careers reporter in July 2019. She has a BA in neuroscience and a master’s degree in science communication. She is also a semi-published poet and a big fan of doggos. Lisa briefly served as Careers Editor at Silicon Republic before leaving the company in June 2021.

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