Working from home has definite perks, but having spent most of my working life office-based, there are some things I really miss from the office environment that just don’t happen while working from home. 

Once I realised I was missing these things, I tried to recreate some of them from home, with varying degrees of success:  

1. Getting to know colleagues 

Working in an office exposes you to a wide range of people, not just the immediate team that you interact most with for work purposes. I used to make a cup of tea in the kitchen and have great chats with people from other departments who I’d rarely encounter in a work capacity. I really loved this part of being in an office. Not only do I personally find it interesting to learn about other people, but keeping a broad network can be useful for calling in favours, or knowing where to go with a problem. 

After a year of working from home, I realised that there were lots of people I’d regularly see in the office who I hadn’t chatted to for ages and lots of new people who’d joined the company that I’d never met. 

To try and make new connections and maintain existing ones, I committed to setting up a 30-minute video call each week with someone in the company I’d never met before, or someone I knew well already, just to reach out and have a chat (not about work! That part was key…).

Initially, I was nervous about the response I’d get, (“Who is this random person setting up a Teams call with me for no apparent reason?”) but actually it has been a really positive experience. Everyone has been happy to shoot the breeze for a little while, I’ve found out some really interesting things, and satisfied my need to interact with people. It’s been a real mood-booster and something I’ll continue doing. 

2. Banter 

A cheeky comment here, a gif there, you all know what I mean. That camaraderie that makes a team feel like a great place to be is hard to recreate when you’re all physically separate. This is where a well-curated enterprise social platform like Yammer comes in. 

For those who don’t know, enterprise social is really just a social media platform for the professional space, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Our company has a Yammer community called ‘Office Chat’, where all sorts of randomness is posted – it’s a great way to interact and get some banter going without being geographically next to your colleagues. 

3. Wearing shoes 

Heels, more specifically. What can I say – I’m a shoe girl at heart. I’ve got shoes with a flamingo heel, tiger-print boots, bright purple slingbacks, to name just a few. I’ve worn them all to the office, and they made me feel great. Footwear for home working tends to be more of the fluffy slipper variety, which just doesn’t put the same spring in my step.

I did go through a phase of putting on my lovely shoes to work from home at my desk, but mainly this felt a bit pointless, and I’d end up kicking them off after a few hours. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’ve put this one to bed.   

4. Lunch away from my desk 

Being in the office and seeing other people stand up from their desks to go for lunch was a great cue for me to get off my chair and do the same. At home, it’s SO EASY to fall into the trap of eating lunch at your desk all the time. I definitely feel more energised when I’ve had a screen break, so all those desk lunches were starting to sap my oomph. 

To combat this, I scheduled a half-hour lunch in my Outlook calendar. That way, I’d get a visual reminder pop-up, and anyone looking to book a meeting in my calendar would see I’m unavailable at that time, so it’s a protected screen break. Win-win. 

5. The commute 

I don’t mean that I miss sitting in traffic on the A1 motorway for 40 minutes on a Friday evening… but – there is a lot to be said for that physical transition from work to home. I found that when my commute was just down the stairs I was missing out on that decompression time, to reset from work life to home life, that I used to get in my car journey. 

Instead, I now take 5 minutes at the end of each workday to listen to a quick mindfulness meditation (there are lots of apps that offer this, and lots of good, free videos on YouTube like this one). This allows me to focus and reset for 5 minutes, allowing me to transition from working Lyndsay to family Lyndsay.  

I’d love to hear other ways people are trying to bring office habits into home working, and how well that’s going!