Tekmos' Blog

Do people love remote work? For most, including at Tekmos, they do, and it’s mainly the flexibility. Travel and commute are reduced including the cost of both. There is a reduction of distractions. The ability to travel and live anywhere, including outside of major cities offers workers the ability to be closer to family. A big plus is often an increase in productivity.

At Tekmos we use Microsoft Teams to share, communicate by division and as a company. While we use our company email to share across our divisions, and telephone calls, Microsoft Teams allows us to see, hear, share, and speak to one another as a group or one on one using cameras, microphones and headsets. Tekmos' communication skills have improved greatly which has increased cohesiveness among team members.

US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that 4.7 million people, which make about 3.4% of the US workforce, were already working remotely before the novel coronavirus took the world by storm. Regular work-at-home has grown 173% since 2005, 11% faster than the rest of the workforce (which grew 15%) and nearly 47x faster than the self-employed population (which grew by 4%) (Global Workplace Analytics’ analysis of 2018 ACS data).

What is the most important issue for remote working? Communication tops the list, with 27% of people mentioning it as their #1 challenge. Remote work makes it harder to read body language, hear what people are saying, ask follow up questions in the hallway, or quickly ask a coworker for clarification at their desk. Lacking social interaction and isolation are close behind. Again, Microsoft Teams offers the ability to see, hear and interact with coworkers.

Best Practices to thrive as a remote worker

Tekmos is thinking seriously about what we want our work paradigm to achieve because of this pandemic. We think we can architect and build systems that will allow us to meet our objectives of an engineering design firm and manufacturer of semiconductors, while maintaining clear and open communication, a key factor in running any company.

What do we need to ask ourselves as we look at the future? Our lease will be expiring the 2nd quarter of 2021. We have begun to make decisions about whether we stay in our current location. Where will we move if we do? Do we lease or buy? We have already learned we can save substantially in overhead by moving and creating a new model for Tekmos.

What is our overall vision of our ideal work system for Tekmos in the future? Many of our team have worked remote already due to the pandemic. Do we consider adapting a partial virtual model and how does all of this fit together?

Executives in traditional industries who spent days and weeks on the road are discovering that a well-managed Zoom meeting can be as effective as a face-to-face — and a lot easier (and less expensive) to organize. While the broad impacts of remote work have yet to be measured across industries and for extended lengths of time, initial studies have found that it can increase productivity and lower employee turnover. (Harvard Business Review)

The study, titled “From Immediate Responses to Planning for the Reimagined Workplace,” found that 77% of respondents expect that the number of employees working primarily from home (at least three days a week) will increase postpandemic.

When we travel on business, we try to take a little time to do something that is related to the place we are visiting. Not having much free time on this trip, our outing was limited to a stroll and dinner in Old Albuquerque. It is an interesting area with a number of quaint shops and restaurants. Before dinner, we took in a local group playing by the gazebo in the town square.

The crowd seemed to be mostly local people enjoying the music, inspiring some of them to dance. After a great Mexican dinner, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the next day, having enjoyed some of the local talent and a chance to get away for a few hours.

Tekmos celebrated its year end get together at the Texas Land & Cattle Restaurant with a very tall Christmas tree looming over the festivities. There was a full house of Tekmos team members along with their families enjoying choices of smoked sirloin, prime rib, Cesar salads with lime cilantro dressing, creamed spinach, salmon, and barbecue shrimp. Lynn Reed wore his traditional Christmas tie and a Santa hat. Carole Reed is saluted for organizing a smooth celebratory event. The only hitch was that very large Christmas tree of which no one had control.

The Zilker Tree is located in Zilker Park just around the corner from the restaurant where Tekmos employees and family gathered. Every year the tree is lit for the holiday season and every year 400,000 plus people drive, walk, and bicycle to walk under, twirl and photograph themselves at the Zilker Tree as well as stroll through the Trail of Lights that winds through the park.

The Zilker tree stands 155 feet tall and is composed of 39 streamers, each holding 81 multicolored, 25-watt bulbs - totaling 3,309 lights. At the top of the tree, a double star measures 10 feet from point to point. The double star displays 150 frosted bulbs. This unique spiral pattern of lights was created by City of Austin electricians. At its circumference, the tree measures 380 feet. The diameter is 120 feet. The base of the tree is made up of 19 utility poles, each 14 feet tall, arranged in a circle around the Moonlight Tower.

On December 10, 1967, the first tree was lighted by Mayor Pro Tem Mrs. Emma Long. In subsequent years this honor has been awarded to the young winner of a city-wide tree coloring contest.

While the traffic slowed the arrival and departure to the Tekmos party, it also brought the spirit of the season to make the year end gathering memorable.