www.business-review.eu Business Review | September 2020
30 REMOTE WORKING
How to boost creativity and productivity in the era of remote working The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live and structure our lives from one minute to the next. And even though some categories of people were already used to working from home or from other locations rather than the regular day-to-day office, the situation has proven difficult or challenging for most of us. By Romanita Oprea
Irina Mateescu, Digitalee
A
Cristian Cucu, Teamogy Romania
Eglantina Becheru, Philip Morris Romania
2012 study found that when faced
Once the team was restored in the work from
at the same time. According to Anca Teletin,
with a creative task, people were
home formula, we started developing a new
chief operations officer at Grapefruit, it’s
more productive working from home,
routine: we established regular online meet-
easier to stay creative when you know you
while other research has suggested that struc-
ings with the entire organisation or for each
have a plan for any scenario. She had to con-
ture kills creativity. But nothing had really
department, we had presentations with tips &
sider the financial component and optimise
prepared us for what was going to happen this
tricks for how to better organise and separate
costs, finding alternative solutions in order to
year. Earlier, the ability to work from home
work from leisure time and space, and so on,”
ensure a healthy cash-flow. They also had to
was believed to be an important contributor
said Vasiliu.
recruit more people because of the increased
The United Media Services team also
number of requests for digital services, so she
with everyone staying at home, it has turned
found it very important to stay tuned to
planned everything out to make sure nothing
into a major factor that disturbs the work-life
“outside the organisation” environments,
was left uncovered.
balance. But what can we do to make sure we
maintain close communication with clients
can still be creative and productive? Manuela
and keep up with developments in their
media, messaging & CE manager at Philip
Vasiliu, deputy managing director at United
fields. Therefore, they were able to recom-
Morris International, says that rather than a
Media Services, believes that when looking at
mend tailored and “on-the-spot” communica-
state of mind, creativity is a state of being for
possible tips & tricks to remain creative dur-
tion solutions.
many individuals and professionals. How-
to work-life balance, but in the current reality,
ing this work-from-home pandemic environ-
In Grapefruit’s situation, even though it
In turn, Eglantina Becheru, creative lead/
ever, “staying creative during the pandemic
ment, it is important to also have an overview
was difficult in the beginning, teams were
started as a must, an opportunity to rethink
of the situation. “Fortunately, the team’s dy-
able to adapt quickly to the new conditions
our business strategies in order to bring
namism helped us to adjust quickly and keep
given the fact that they used to work from
relevance to consumers and ended up being
our focus on ongoing projects and campaigns.
home in the past too, albeit not all of them
a tremendous challenge for many industries
