You MUST trust the WFH crew

I love working from home.

I could never say that before.

I was pretty certain that I was powered by people.

AND, truly I still am!

It just looks different now.

For the last 5 years I have worked at a credit union about 30 miles south of me and loved it.

Engagement.

Marketing.

So many of my happiness boxes were checked with that position, so choosing to leave it was a difficult one.

With the last two years of health issues, and one recently rearing its ugly head I saw the writing on the wall.

My body was telling me to pay attention.

No, my body was forcing me to pay attention.

I came out of the most recent surgery knowing that I had to make the tough choice to listen to what I did not want to hear or continue to ignore.

What seemed like a quick decision truly took a while.

I made it through surgery yet again and requested a chat with my current CEO.

I laid it all out there and although neither one of us truly wanted to hear it being said, we knew that it was more than likely coming.

I needed the freedom that working from home allowed me to have to continue the doctoring that I needed.

I knew that my body could not continue with the not so gentle pushes that I had been forcing upon it.

So thus began a new chapter in my credit union journey.

I moved from a CU to a league and to doing contracted CU work such as branding & digital marketing.

Now I had tried the work from home thing before and loathed it.

To be honest, I think a majority of that had to do with the work environment and little to do with the actual work from home situation.

Again, what a difference amazing leadership makes.

Today I find myself grateful.

Grateful that I am still in the movement and doing what I love.

Grateful to work with some amazing folks at the Credit Union Association of New Mexico.

Grateful for the side hustle of my own consulting business and the people who have entrusted me to assist.

Grateful that I now don’t feel guilty that I have “yet another” doctor appointment.

And so extremely grateful to have the trust and assurance that I am worthy of the freedom working from home allows me in living my life.

I have the full confidence of my teammates to do my job AND live my day to day.

That, in itself, is priceless.

I won’t even get started on how working for a league is amazing.

How I get to touch such a variety of credit unions and share my passion with so many more entities of this movement.

Long story short, I made the right choice.

Folks, people can work successfully from home.

They can be trusted to do what they are assigned to do and still lead a life that is sometimes smooth sailing and other times a chaotic wave.

If you hire someone that you are giving freedom to engage with the community, work from home, or someone that travels – you MUST give them trust to do what you hired them to do.

They shouldn’t have to give you a run down of each second of each day.

They shouldn’t have to ask your permission to take a lunch or a phone call that may or may not be job related.

You have to give these employees the chance to prove their trustworthiness and once they do, you need to allow them to fly until they give you a solid reason to clip their wings.

I have the absolute joy of working with people who know that I will say what I do and do what I say.

They also know that if I do not understand, I will stay curious and ask the questions.

They also know that if I feel I have screwed up, I will own up.

They see me.

They see me even though I am not IN the office and that matters.

Are you including your WFH employees?

Do you SEE them?

This is your sign that it’s time.

Trust me, it will only help them fly.