The majority of our senior designers and art directors in the UI design team have joined us more than 8 years ago.

They had already been with us 4+ years when the first of them told me he wanted to work from abroad. As experienced professionals with a long and successful track record, we all knew what to expect from each other. As Head of UI, I absolutely trust(ed) them.

How did going remote start?

Even before the first request came up for remote working, there was an important precedent  – surprisingly, from me. Back in 2014, I decided to move to Malta with my family for a year or two. I needed a change in my life and I had to polish my English skills. The price I paid was to downgrade myself from Head of Art – at that time – to a senior designer role: I left manager tasks behind to work on different projects from microsites for the Hungarian market leader OTP Bank to web banners for Vodafone. Yeah, in 2014 we had such projects too.

As a result, I gained first-hand experience in remote working at Mito back then, and discovered all difficulties that can occur. Thus when I face similar situations with my co-workers today, I can better empathize with their situation, and I’m sure I can make wiser decisions.

The first swallows to make the summer

The first in the line to ask for a remote position was Gábor – well, one of our Gábors as you’ll learn soon. He figured that in 2018, it was much better to work from sunny Portugal than from the sometimes gloomy Budapest, and asked me if I could support the idea. As he was working mostly on UI projects and not as an art director, in terms of work it was an easy decision. By that time he had been working with us for more than 6 years, so he had already proved his professionality and earned our trust. So I supported the idea.

The second applicant was again Gábor, but another one. His wife got an opportunity to work in Vienna, and took him along like a suitcase. Since Gábor was more of an art director than a UI designer, we had to find a new project, a new role for him to manage remote work properly. With CEE’s leading ULCC, Wizz Air as his new client, he then worked on the airline’s UI design for many years with a wide smile on his face. That I know of, at least.

And last but not least, on a beautiful day Gábor just kidding, our beloved Ákos negotiated with us in order to relocate his base to the Balaton Uplands. He wanted to watch the beautiful volcanic mountain Csobánc from his terrace instead of listening to the busy streets of Budapest. And well, many of us can relate to that.

Emerging challenges

What can be the biggest fear of the employer? First, of course, is losing control. Is the employee working as much and as effeciently as expected? Can the employee deliver his/her best, just like before? Basically, as employers, we have to trust them, and judge by the output.

The other side of this story is the type of work. You can’t just do any kind of work from home. Art director tasks, attending shootings, mentoring, brainstorming, or presenting for clients are quite difficult to do remotely. Although the pandemic has taught us to manage even some of these matters, we just needed to develop a new way of working and rearrange our routines. 

To sum up our solution for the emerging challenges in two points:

1. We needed a professional role that we can perform remotely.
2. We needed to define time frames and communication channels. It’s important to specify the “response time” as well as the working hours according to the differences in time zones.

If these things work well, – besides having high standards delivered as professionally as before – all the obstacles to quality remote work will vanish.

It’s worth mentioning that so far we’ve been lucky with our situation of relocating loyal and trusted colleagues. It would be much more challenging if we had to hire a new team member and integrate him/her, creating a long-term bond and handing over our corporate values from zero. But who knows, that might be just around the corner.

The pandemic came and found us prepared

When the pandemic arrived we probably struggled with similar challenges like anybody else in this industry, but quickly adapted thanks to our previous remote-friendly processes. However, an interesting side effect of everyone moving to remote working was that the entire team became better connected. The introduction of daily video standup meetings with all team members, and also the weekly 1on1s boosted the involvement of the remote colleagues. Before that, we used to plan the week ahead, sending out tasks via email or chat messages, and only used video chat for employee evaluations. 

Bonding

Team-building events are another interesting topic. We organize them months in advance, so that our colleagues from abroad could easily join if they wanted. Sometimes it’s us visiting them for an event – for example once we went to Gábor’s place in Lisbon. And other times, it’s them visiting us: the second Gábor made great pizzas and hamburgers for dinner when we went to the countryside to Szigliget and the Szent György hill together. And occasionally, we even travel to their places individually.

When coming to Hungary every once in a while, remoters make sure to come to the office, and spend a regular workday together, just like in the good old days. I wish this could happen more often!

Today although remote can be a fully valid option for someone at Mito Digital, we, non-remoters, do come to the office multiple days a week, and do that 1 hour call with everyone else on the team who decided to stay off-site. In fact, that’s just as important as work.

Mito Digital is a business unit of Mito, a unique powerhouse of creative & digital experts with a passion for clever things. We have been working with our clients around the globe for more than ten years, in numerous industries from aviation through lottery and retail to telecommunications. Our goal is to design and deliver smart, human-centered and best-in-class digital solutions that meet and exceed the business goals of our clients as well as the demands of their clients.