After my employer recently introduced their Work From Anywhere (“WFA”) policy, understandably, I had something booked in about 20 minutes flat. A workation requires a bit more planning than your average holiday, you’re not sitting on a sunbed for two weeks slurping on watered down Blue Lagoons. Effectively, you’re trying to replicate a large proportion of your life in a different country within a matter of days and all you have at your disposal is a suitcase, so don’t take this task lightly. Having just got back from my first workation in Morocco, I am now an undeniable thought leader in this space, so I thought I’d put down some of my biggest lessons.
Why Are You Here?
You might get asked this at Customs and I fear some people might panic and just blurt out “work”. You’re not here for work or business, that’s another visa entirely – you’re here on holiday, you’ll just happen to be doing work as part of that holiday, which is nobody’s business but your own. It may sound a bit shifty, but when it comes to visas; you’re on holiday or you’re there on business, that’s, very vaguely, how visas work. The latter does not cover workations and it’ll be a while before workations aren’t a grey area when it comes to visas and taxes, note that there are some countries who’s tourist visas explicitly stipulate you cannot engage in any kind of work (the US as an example), and as a result, are blacklisted from our WFA policy.
Get Comfy
I checked the “dedicated workstation” option on my Airbnb search but three days in, my back is starting to hurt a bit. I should’ve looked a bit more closely at the “dedicated workstation”, which was a high dining table and high dining chairs. For a few hours it’s fine, but the lack of back support that you get with a regular desk chair really starts to pick after a while.
How Fast?
Make sure you really check your internet. I asked my host and they confirmed the property had fibre installed and thankfully it all checked out but you should always asked them to send a proof of speed test (e.g. fast.com), you don’t want to be jittering all the way through your first Teams call.
Have a Backup Plan
If there is one thing that is certain in life, it’s that nothing is certain. Your employer will likely have a disaster recovery plan should the worst happen and you should have one too, what are you going to do if the internet or power dies in your apartment, what is option 2? Always have a reliable co-working space lined up as a backup.
Give Yourself Time
I wrote the WFA policy for my employer and one thing I stipulated was, you have to take a minimum of one week for a workation. Why? Because it takes time to settle in somewhere, you need to rest after your flight, find your bearings, unpack and get your desk set up and if you’re just nipping across to Paris to work for two days, you’ll achieve nothing because you’re still adapting. Taking workations this short would just be disruptive, so I set the minimum at one week (and maximum of four) to make sure people have the time to bed-in and make the most of things.
Get In The Zone
Your phone will handily update time zone automatically the moment you step foot off the plane (providing your location is on). Your computer (unless you have a Mac) however, will not, at least not in my experience. So, go into your settings and update your time zone to match the country you’re in. Once updated, proceed to open Outlook which will then ask if you want to update your calendar entries to match your new time zone – and hey presto, you’re safe.
Where Are We Going?
Think about the things that you need once you’re settled in. Groceries, a decent cappuccino, somewhere to walk or run at lunch, a gym, somewhere to spend your lunch break, activities at the weekend. You can’t just sit at a computer alone for 8 hours a day and then go to bed, you need to retain some of your creature comforts from home, so take the time to start researching these things before you head out. Does my Airbnb have a gym and market within walking distance? Where can I get a good cup of coffee? Where can I go out for breakfast before work in the morning? These are all things that should influence the property you decide to stay in before your workation.
Some of you will be luckier than I and you’ll be able to rock up, flip your laptop open and just crack on, but I really like my routines and not a fan of disruption, so following the above will make my future workations easier.
