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How LANIT employees work in remote locations in Italy and Belarus

LANIT has more than 40 divisions and companies. Some of them have offices in Canada, Poland, the USA, Kazakhstan and other countries. Over the past month, each of us has read, or at least saw a lot of large and small texts about how Russia works on a remote site. Today we will tell about the home office experience of our colleagues in Italy (LANIT-Terkom) and Belarus (Artezio).

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Italy


In 2015, LANIT-Terkom opened an office in the south of Italy, in the city of Bari. We already wrote in more detail about why the company decided to create a branch there and how colleagues work on the sunny coast .

This time, our colleagues from Lanit-Tercom Italia talked about how Italy switched to unusual remote work.

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In Italy, quarantine has been in force since March 11. Educational institutions, in particular schools, closed another 6 numbers, so many were forced to start working from home even earlier. According to forecasts, this period was supposed to last at least until mid-April. But on April 9, another decree was signed on the extension until May 2. 

In Italy, until recently, work from home was perceived as something ineffective and poorly applicable even in the IT field. Outsourcing was almost never used, more outstaffing. Going to work, to the office is a psychological defense and a guarantee of the workplace and the quality of work (even if it is not at all). If the boss does not see you in the office, then he may not believe how you work. And on the other hand, the technical manager needed the physical presence of an employee in the office to see how the work was going.

Business closure


The issued decree (the so-called DPCM of March 8, 2020) allowed all companies to activate the smart-working contract as soon as possible. This type of contract allows the employee to carry out activities from home or from anywhere in the country (in Russia this type of contract was developed back in the USSR in the 1980s). But the offices have not closed yet. The document regulated the closure of only some enterprises, leaving the possibility for office structures in the case of compliance with certain rules (sanitary, distance) to remain available for work. Our office center officially functioned until March 23, but only 3-4 people appeared there. Therefore, it was also closed, despite the efforts of the office owners who wanted to find a loophole so as not to have problems paying rent.

Moving by car from one place to another (many workers live in neighboring cities - other distances in Italy) became quite difficult: they began to constantly stop police posts at the entrances to the city / settlements. Everything would be easier with the presentation of a pass, but its very form was constantly changing. Each week, a new type of travel authorization form came out. If a person does not have a printer at home, then there is a commonplace problem to print the current version of the permission to move.

The version of the module for self-authorization of movement was printed on the T-shirt.

After the quarantine regime was introduced throughout the country, the life of Bari and all of Italy changed dramatically. For lack of information, people panicked and tried to avoid each other on the streets. The neighbors called the chiefs of the condominium if they saw that someone was coming to someone from other houses. The streets were empty. It is hard for young people (those under the age of 35) who have not yet started a family and are in the dating stage. Almost a month and a half after the introduction of quarantine, many Italians, tired of the lack of social life, accustomed to the traditional Saturday dinners outside the house and Sunday dinners with their families, began to stealthily meet.

Now on the beach there is not a single person involved in sports. Before quarantine, especially on weekends, many people went swimming in the sea (training in open water), jogging and just taking a walk with their children.


Here is one of the main arteries of the city - the embankment, which even at night was rarely free from cars.


Way back home


For the technical team of our company, the transition to smart-working was almost imperceptible. On March 12, the last programmer took two monitors home. The rest were already quietly working on a remote site.

For the administration and the sales department, the transition nevertheless made itself felt. There was a "bureaucratic, documentary rain." The director of the company, together with the human resources consultant, had to prepare a huge number of documents for the temporary transfer of all employees from a regular contract (a standard state contract does not allow working from home) to a smart-working temporary contract (until July inclusive). Each employee was required to sign two documents for activation and send signed copies to the address of the head of the company: an information letter about work from home and a security document. In addition, a huge number of regulatory documents began to come about working in a pandemic: every day from 10 to 40 pages. Bookkeeping, consultants,Workplace security officers are required to create a regulatory mailing list not only by mail, but also through whatsapp. 

Work on business development, despite the opportunity to use various means of communication, in Italy and not only is still based on personal meetings. The cancellation of events, the inability to go on a business trip, stopped the process of developing leads. All the relations that have just begun with potential customers-partners were automatically transferred to "after the removal of quarantine."

There were technical problems. It's hard to believe that in the 4G century and even 5G already, communication problems may arise. The grids are so overloaded that skype conferences and regular calls or browsing sites become a real challenge. 

For the author of these lines, the fact that, according to statistics, approximately 18% of families in Italy do not have access to the Internet, was a big surprise. To do this, at the municipal level, they tried to distribute the Internet through mobile devices, which they tried to collect from the population and give to people who were without access to the network.

With the arrangement of the home office, everything turned out to be much simpler. Everyone prepared for work as best he could. Here are two photos that illustrate the Italian home office of a programmer and manager. Both are not staged, but made specifically to demonstrate the difference.

It is clear that the programmer is more prepared and systematized.


In the second case, a person who is accustomed to working in the office, on business trips and at home in the evening when the children are sleeping, the home office does not look so glamorous: with children's toys on the table and in the background. Both jobs in the children's rooms are also busy, as there are ongoing online lessons at school. It remains only to sit at the kitchen table. 


The main difficulty of working at home under quarantine is, of course, relatives who are in the same position as you, and are always nearby. This is especially true for children under 5 years old, who are accustomed to go to the garden and lead an active lifestyle.

Remote School Example 

What to do at home except work


Many people around the world are in approximately the same position - they spend a large amount of time in the apartment / house alone or with relatives and friends, not being able to communicate outside the premises in the way they are used to doing. Therefore, people have to figure out how to occupy themselves and where to apply the accumulated energy.

The lack of outdoor sports is one of the most painful moments for those who really do it. Unfortunately, sports such as swimming or yachting (both very common in southern Italy) cannot be imitated at home without a prepared gym. All athletes were given a home exercise program, but it is obvious that these measures have practically no effect. The yachting sections issued a computer multiplayer game in which children-athletes play together with the coach. Those who have their own garden do so.


Walking is prohibited. A little walk is possible only with dogs and children (the latter - if there is a doctor’s prescription). One of the long-forgotten skills was cooking. During the first two weeks, everyone actively shared photos of cooked desserts and dishes. This trend has begun to decline, as now everyone is photographing the scales and numbers, which show a significant increase in weight. It was difficult to cancel the removal of glass in Bari, which usually happens weekly on Mondays. The number of empty wine bottles has increased dramatically.

Little discoveries


In general, it is already possible to highlight those moments that have changed in our lives after the country took the necessary measures to combat the pandemic.

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  • It was surprising how fragile and unprotected some types of business were. For example, the entertainment sector and all the services associated with its maintenance, restaurant and tourism businesses - in Italy this is a huge area, almost the main one in some regions.

Belarus


Another member of the LANIT group is Artezio. The company develops software and is engaged in consulting in the field of software development. In addition to Russia, Artezio has offices in the USA, Canada, Poland, Germany and the Republic of Belarus. Today, colleagues talk about how they are working in Minsk against the backdrop of a pandemic.

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There is no quarantine in the city. Therefore, the decision on the home office is made in each company separately. At the end of March, a formal proposal came from the management to switch to work from home. This period, as in Russia, has recently been extended until the end of April.

There are fewer people on the streets. One of the passers-by wears protective masks. Also empty the cafe. In one of the most popular places in the city, you could suddenly find yourself only together in a large hall. Although more recently, without an appointment, you could not get there. Food delivery has not yet been able to cope with the sharply increased number of people who want to avoid going to the store. 

This is how the streets of the city look.







Minsk metro


House


When the Java developer from Artezio started working from home, her work day lengthened. Borders have disappeared when you need to get up, when you have lunch, take a break or go home. The same offline English lessons went online and merged with the computer workflow.

If not for this whole situation, according to our colleague, she would never have known what could make such a comfortable office in her apartment. 

Home Office

Self-made food at the workplace

Work under the mango is inspiring.

After the transition to the home office, life has become much less personal meetings and it turned out to pay more attention to immunity and hobbies. A colleague from Artezio has been practicing qigong for several years: three times a week in the hall, on a weekend outside the city. Now there is a steady habit of practicing twice a day at home - before and after work. There are no restrictions on walking and playing sports in Minsk yet.


What's next


We continue to interview our employees from other countries about how they work and live in such conditions. To be continued.

If you suddenly decided that LANIT stopped looking for new people in your team, then this is not so: see vacancies on our career portal .

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