Work Your Way With Dave Burrells, Chief Operating Officer At Avora

Laura Beales 2 minute read

Work Your Way is our new blog series in which individuals give their honest answers about how they like to work when working remotely. From how to create a work culture when working remotely to how they best like to work remotely, they share their insights and top tips.

Dave Burrells, Chief Operating Officer at Avora, shares with us his thoughts on remote working and how Apps are becoming an integral part with helping his team keep moral. Avora provides a complete augmented analytics solution powered by AI that makes in-depth data analysis as easy as a web search. Avora uses Machine Learning to improve business insight, accuracy and performance.

What is the biggest advantage to the company of working remotely?

The biggest advantage to the business are cost savings. Being based in central London, we were paying WeWork a small fortune in rent. I think there are more advantages as an employee when remote working, rather than to the business. Things like being able to work more flexible hours, not having a commute, being able to look after children (especially with the schools closed during lockdown).

Remote-Friendly or Remote-First?

Remote-Friendly. Remote-First means less flexibility when it comes to meeting clients, collaboration, and team building. Remote-Friendly promotes a more flexible style and (hopefully) an appreciation to life/work balance.

How do you keep remote work visible?

Using tools such as JIRA or Asana make tracking work easy, and using chat tools like Slack means communicating and discussing this work across the team is simple.

How do you maintain and create a company culture when working remotely?

Apart from lots of meetings to keep people in touch (our 1 hour monthly All Hands was changed to a 30 min bi-weekly All Hands, so we had more regular face time as a company), there are simple things like making sure people are using video to ensure a more personable touch can be maintained. We used an app called Donut to randomly select employees to meet up for a 30 min coffee chat each week, this really helped with moral.

We also have a wellness channel in Slack where people add random positive things. This helps with culture as it promotes the attitude and image we are proud of as a company. We also use 15Five, an app which allows employees to give each other virtual high fives each week. These high fives are pushed to a Slack channel that all the company can see.

Where is your favourite place to work from when working remotely?

My preferred place would be a separate study in the house so I can work out of the way but without that luxury in my new flat, the dining room table is my most utilised spot .

A big thank you to Dave for his honest answers and insights into Avora. Make sure you check out Avora.

With Tally Workspace, we can find your team a private office to call home or you can instantly book meeting rooms and desks.