Coronavirus crisis: Vaughan citizens see benefits of working from home, but ‘miss the camaraderie’

#Stayathome: Michael Contento, founder and CEO of My Blue Umbrella, enjoys spending more time with his children

Yorkregion.com
April 16, 2020
Dina Al-Shibeeb

Working from home was one of the “personal goals for 2021” for Michael Contento, founder and CEO of the Vaughan-based My Blue Umbrella, which employs about 40 people and generates more than $12 million in annual revenue.

Contento said he wanted to make My Blue Umbrella the “first true Canadian or Toronto company to have a four-day work week,” where one day can be used to work from home.

But COVID-19 stole Contento’s thunder and created a more exaggerated situation where people see themselves confined to their homes for more than one day a week.

“I’m actually finding people that were looking forward to work from home, they’re the first ones to say right now: ‘I hate working from home.’ They just feel cooped up,” said Contento, whose company offers tech management and consulting services to some of Canada’s highest-performing companies.

However, the founder acknowledges that there is a huge difference between feeling that, “We're cooped up in our houses every day” as opposed to going back “every once a week or once every two weeks.”

IT’S ‘BITTERSWEET’

Working from home is “bittersweet” for the CEO who says, “I miss the camaraderie and collaboration with the team, being able to brainstorm in person.”

“It’s sweet because I get to see my kids a lot more than I used to. So, more family time,” explained Contento, who has three children. In addition, he is finding that people are “working even more” as “we are sitting at our desks a lot longer.”

But for this interview, he admits he ran upstairs for some peace and quiet: “I still have six-year-old twin boys. And six-year-old twin boys are the equivalent to a category five tornado,” he shared. “As much as they try their best to keep their volume down, most of my conference calls have spritzes of my kids’ voices in it.”

Luckily, Contento said the business community has shown acceptance to this, but “it's not easy. And it won’t be easy for the next three, four months -- to be able to collaborate in a quiet or professional manner.”

Like Contento, Lisa Nackan, a registered psychotherapist and art therapist psychotherapist from Thornhill, is relishing the increased family time, despite the “sadness” of the situation.

Nackan, her husband and their three children, who are university students, are all working from home. “My home is the kind of wonderful space where we all like doing what we normally do, but we sit together,” she added.

The transition has been “smooth” for Nackan despite a small technical glitch initially.

On March 30, Nackan had a “community Zoom meeting,” where she hosted an online art therapy session for the Richmond Hill-based L’Arche Daybreak, an organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities expand.

“It was really wonderful,” said Nackan, who usually provides the art supplies.

The therapist has some teen clients and said online meetings can be accommodating for this demographic, since it can be “difficult for parents to transport them or to get here” for face-to-face meetings.

Her new circumstances have given her a light bulb moment, as online sessions aren’t something she had “really considered before.”

‘I GOT A LOT MORE DONE’

Gurneet Kaur Dhami has returned home from Halifax. Dhami is currently trying to complete her thesis to graduate from her Master of Science Applied Human Nutrition program at Mount Saint Vincent University.

“The onset of COVID has paused a lot of academic programming and events, which is a loss for social connections and knowledge sharing,” Dhami lamented. But after getting “over the fear” and “embracing the standstill, I got a lot done recently and sent in my revisions for review.”

With the backdrop of people losing their jobs, Dhami describes working from home as a “privilege,” and like others is enjoying more time with her family.

COVID-19 has “really shifted the focus back home and made me value the time I am with family as a busy student,” said Dhami, who is enjoying her mother’s scrumptious Indian dishes.

“My room has been a place of sanity and insanity, especially being socially isolated since I travelled back home,” she said. However, “being connected virtually to my youth groups and friends” is what keeps Dhami “afloat” as uncertainty lingers for everyone.