Episode #25: Remote Working with Shauna Moran

Episode 25: Milk Bottle Shopify Ecommerce Podcast with Shauna Moran

Shauna: [00:00:00] And if you want to be able to attract and retain that talent, you have to start a flexible options and remote options. It doesn't mean you have to go fully remote but you should be looking at those options.

[00:00:17] Welcome to the Milk Bottle Shopify Ecommerce Podcast brought to you by Milk Bottle Labs, Ireland's top rated Shopify experts, Milk Bottle Labs, build, upgrade, migrate and market Shopify and Shopify Plus stores all over the world. Milk Bottle will migrate you onto Shopify with zero interruption guaranteed, or optimize your Shopify store and maximize store sales. This podcast is kindly supported by our favourite Shopify app and the only app we install in every store. Rewind.io is the leading backup solution for your Shopify store. We'll talk more about Rewind later now over to your host, founder of Milk Bottle Labs Keith Matthews.

[00:01:03] Keith: Hey folks, welcome back to the Milk Bottle Shopify Ecommerce Podcast were today I am joined by Shauna Moron, a former employee of Shopify based in Galway in the West Coast of Ireland.

[00:01:14] Shauna is now the founder of operator emotion, which helps remote and multi location companies improve employee performance engagement. She's an accredited coach and consultant and emotional intelligence practitioner, and Shauna is extremely experienced and very much a thought leader within the Shopify community and the remote working community.

[00:01:36] Shauna, how are you?

[00:01:38] Shauna: I'm good. How are you doing?

[00:01:40] Keith: Shauna it's been a while since we spoke. A lot has happened. You are the founder of Operate Remote, so we talk about that in a while, and you're a former employee of Shopify. At the time you are a partner Manager Shauna, I remember you were based in the West of Ireland.

[00:01:56] Are you still there?

[00:01:57] Shauna: I'm still here. I'm still in Galway, the West of Ireland beside the coast. And yeah, still here. Still loving it. It's a fantastic place. You know, if any of your listeners have been or haven't been, it's been named as the European Capital of Culture in 2020 actually. So there's a lot of really great activities happen here at the moment.

[00:02:19] Keith: Anytime I was ever in Galway there was always a buzz, is it now kind of a 12 month buzz? Is there a bit of life around the city all the time though with that?

[00:02:27] Shauna: Yeah, there's constantly activities going on here and they actually have a welcoming parade this week around the city which is fantastic. So yeah, it's, it's always full of life and full of fun.

[00:02:39] Keith: Great. Your interest in remote working. Is it correct to say that that came from your own personal experience in Shopify?

[00:02:47] Shauna: That's correct Keith. Yeah, so I worked at Shopify. I managed partnerships, primarily agency partnerships throughout AMEA, which is Europe, Middle East and Africa.

[00:02:59] And before I had started at Shopify, I had a psychology degree. And I was living in the West of Ireland trying to find some kind of work right. And it was finishing university. You know, midway through the recession in Ireland was very difficult to find work. But I did manage to join a couple of companies. I did a little bit of recruitment and business development for, for tech companies.  And I was at a stage where. I had kind of hit a bit of a glass ceiling in terms of the career opportunities that were physically present around my local town and on the West of Ireland. So I, I knew that something had to change.

[00:03:42] And I was at a stage where I was considering potentially relocating to maybe Dublin or even, you know, another bigger city like London to find these opportunities in my career. And at on stage I remember a recruiter rang me and she said to me that, you know, there was this position open, it was in ecommerce and that it was remote.

[00:04:10] And back then, I mean, that was, I mean, that was maybe six years ago at this stage. Remove working was not a thing at all, really. I mean, I hadn't heard of it before. Okay. And  I nearly fell off my chair. I thought, what is working from home? What do you mean? There's no commute? There's no physical office.

[00:04:30] And that was kind of the day that my, that my world opened. And roll on a couple of months. I, I accepted that job. I worked in Shopify for nearly four years and completely worked remotely from my home in West of Ireland. So I had opportunities of managing agency partners, like Milk Bottle Labs all over the world.

[00:04:52] My team were spread out all over the world and we worked in so many different environments. So it was a fantastic opportunity for me on a personal level, not only to expand my career and my opportunities within growing as a professional, but also to expand my, my network with people all over the world, online.

[00:05:15] Keith: I remember meeting you in 2018. You introduced me to four or five of your colleagues from Shopify, and I remember there was two of them from the US one of them from Belgium. There was another from South Africa and another from Germany. Isn't it amazing to think that you can connect to those people and call them your colleagues, but actually work from your own house on a daily basis and have a relationship with them.

[00:05:40] Shauna: It was fantastic, Keith. I mean, honestly, the team that we had on the international partnerships team I look at that, look back at that time with great fondness because that was honestly one of the highlights of my career because we worked so well as a remote team. We built really strong interpersonal relationships with each other.

[00:06:00] Knowing that we would only see each other a couple of times in person a year, there was this element of magic to what we were doing. We were excited. We were bought into the company culture, into the vision. We were passionate about agencies, passionate about partnerships, and we were from diverse backgrounds in cultures.

[00:06:19] And we embraced that and we celebrated that. So, you know, for example, we used to meet online and celebrate our local history. So for St Patrick's Day, you know, we'd have a team meeting and I would tell them all about the history of St Patrick in Ireland, you know, and we, we've really, we've had a lot of fun.

[00:06:37] We had a hell of a lot of fun, and we had even more fun then when we met up in person. But having said there are challenges that come with it and there is where my curiousity came from when it came to remote teams.

[00:06:52] Keith: As just on that Shauna I remember when it was announced that Shopify were coming to Ireland. It was a big deal that they were going to, you know, employ people that were remote and they started hiring people on the West coast of Ireland. Would they have been one of the first companies that actually arrived in the country and said, no, we're not going to have the HQ. We're actually going to be, our workforce are all going to have the opportunity to work from home. I can't think of any other company that would have actually arrived with that announcement.

[00:07:17] Shauna: I think that they may have been one of the first, but they were definitely one of the first to make it publicly.

[00:07:24] Yeah. To make it into an answer publicly. Right. Because the thing is, and I still come up against it today, when I'm speaking to businesses, there's a change in the way that we perceive how businesses should be run. And you know, a lot of, a lot of the time companies maybe don't want clients or prospective clients to know that they don't have a physical office.

[00:07:46] I think that's changing now. But back then it was a huge, it was a huge deal to say that, that, look, we don't have a physical office here. All of our team are remote. So luckily, I think that's changing now. And you'll see that the growth of remote working all over the world has increased, but especially in Ireland.

[00:08:06] You know, we're starting to see that shift more and more and more conversations coming up about remote working. And I think the fact of the matter is that if you are a SAS business, you know, a tech business, a business that's expanding internationally. You're going to have challenges with access to talent.

[00:08:25] That's just one of the challenges we experience in business now, and if you want to be able to attract and retain that talent, you have to start looking at flexible options and remote options. It doesn't mean you have to go fully remote, but you should be looking at those options.

[00:08:40] Keith: Yes, Shauna is, you've raised a couple of interesting points there.

[00:08:43] In Milk Bottle, we have a hybrid model. So we have an office and we have a very nice office just off Merrion Square in pretty much in the centre of the city. That office is there for anybody that wants to use it, and we do meet frequently in the office. That could be a week where we will be in the office every day or it could be a fortnight or during the summer when you might only have one or two people in the office.

[00:09:03] We operate a hybrid model. When you say you're engaging with employers and you're trying to educate them when you're trying to basically coach them on how to create the ability to offer remote working. So separate to the fact that they have to invest in technology and separate to the fact that the staff has to log into a network and have, you know, a proper broadband connection and have the physical infrastructure like a laptop and headphones and all that kind of thing if they're engaging with customers. Is it just the case with most businesses that most business owners are just traditional and they just think that they have to have physical staff in the office. And that's maybe a measure of success.

[00:09:39] Like we come from the tech sector. And we're used to remote workers and we're used to people not having to be in the office. But is it a mindset shift or is it an expenditure shift, or is it a, you know, is there a multitude of reasons why a business owner would not go and offer remote working to their staff?

[00:09:58] Shauna: Yeah, it's a great point that you've raised Keith. It's definitely, I do see that there is a mindset, mindset shift that needs to happen when we work remotely. And you know, unfortunately there are companies and leaders and business owners that do have trust issues and they build trust by seeing people in an office every day.

[00:10:19] And when we work remotely, we don't have that physical communication in person communication that we would naturally have. So it's about being able to adapt because a lot of businesses have done this for years, and this is the way they've always done it. So we need to be able to change. And with change comes a mindset change as well as setting your business up for success change.

[00:10:39] So when I work with companies and you know, they're kind of on the fence about remote working. It's usually because there's maybe some trust issues already within the team. And it's usually because there's maybe some performance issues already within the team. So it's looking at how do they manage that in an office and then how does that translate into a remote environment?

[00:11:01] And it's a lot to do with the leadership style as well.

[00:11:03] Keith: Shauna, just on that. So in your experience, what you're saying is, is that a lack of trust within the non remote working environment is actually resulting in people questioning whether a remote would ever work?

[00:11:16] Shauna: Oh, absolutely.

[00:11:17] Keith: Okay. Interesting.

[00:11:18] Shauna: Yeah, I mean, I've, I've spoken to businesses that say we want to go remote.

[00:11:22] And I've said, look, after working with them for a while and, and discovering what you know was, was kind of their current reality in the office. Remote's not going to work. People sometimes think that remote, you can just go remote, right? And you can just hire people remotely and it'll be fine. But there's companies out there that have done that and they haven't bridged that gap, so they haven't, they haven't defined high remote workers can still communicate and collaborate at a level playing field with office workers. They haven't defined how they can effectively manage remote employees to make sure that they're, well, they're happy that they're engaged. They haven't set up structures to support that around performance management, around communication, around project management.

[00:12:09] So these are all the things that businesses should be considering before they go remote. Because if they go remote and they're not set up for remote, then it's a risk. It's a risk to the business and it's a risk to the rest of the team.

[00:12:22] Keith: It's amazing. I worked in the banking sector for a while and you would go through days where you had so many conference calls, were in actual fact you were on conference calls with people, two cubicles down and you weren't sitting beside them and you weren't having a face to face conversation. They were on the same call. So really at the end of the day, it didn't matter where you where.

[00:12:41] In terms of the preparation. Are you dealing with the HR departments? Are you dealing with the technology departments? Are you dealing with the management team or are you dealing with the entire business management team in these companies that are considering going remote?

[00:12:56] Shauna: So I primarily work with SAS tech and agency businesses. I work with businesses that are starting to go remote that want to go remote and maybe have more of a hybrid model like yourself at Milk Bottle Labs. I work with businesses that are already remote and maybe they're scaling super quickly. And what's happening is some of the challenges and the problems are starting to really surface now as they start to scale, because they need to optimize a lot of those structures and their leadership team.

[00:13:26] So I would work primarily on the people side of things. So I'm an executive coach, which means I'm focused on empowering individuals and leaders to effectively manage their remote employees or wherever their employees are based all over the world. So it's tapping into a lot of those softer skills in order to build really effective and authentic relationships so that you know, companies can retain their staff and ensure their staff are engaged and that they are well and that they understand clearly the company culture and the vision and what they're supposed to be doing. So that's typically the space that I work on, whether that's one to one working with a founder or a CEO, or whether that's, you know, a management team that are trying to create a set of best practices on how they should show up for their remote or their hybrid team.

[00:14:20] So we look at lots of different areas. I think your point around. Having meetings with people in your own conference calls all day. The interesting thing about remote is that remote really looks at optimizing everybody's time. So because remote really, I suppose, promotes flexibility and autonomy. It's an asynchronous communication, right?

[00:14:45] Which is people are communicating across multiple time zones in a delayed time. So they're not communicating in real time. Like you and I are here now, which is synchronous. They're communicating in delayed time. So for a company to be able to effectively do that, and in order for a team to get stuff done in asynchronous time frames, they really need to make sure that the structure and how they show up in their communication best practices are on point. So everyone needs to be really effective communicators. They need to have transparency around our workloads and around what they're, what they're doing. And they need to be able to provide that level of transparency.

[00:15:26] So really what companies need to do is, yes, set up the structure. Yes hire the right people that are able to do that and not just, you know, hire for the ability to do the job they need to hire for the skills that are really critical in remote environments if they want to make it successful.

[00:15:43] Keith: Specifically are you talking about they have to invest in different pieces of software? Like for example, you know, we all use Slack or you know, we all use project management software, which is online and available 24/7 or are you also talking about different HR policies.

[00:16:00] Shauna: It's a mixture of both, Keith. I think that because we're in the tech space, we have a tendency to kind of say, okay, well what technology can solve this problem? But sometimes there isn't a technology that can solve the problem. Sometimes your people just need to be empowered and trained on how they can better communicate and collaborate together.

[00:16:22] So I look at. I'm an accredited emotional intelligence practitioner. And emotional intelligence is essentially a set of skills that we use on how to manage ourselves and manage each other. So, for example, some of those skills are really around our level of self awareness. Which is really critical in remote environments.

[00:16:44] So we need to be really aware of how we're feeling, what we need in order to manage our time and our energy effectively. It looks at how we develop the skill of empathy so that we can understand the people that we are working with online, while balancing that with the likes of assertiveness. So how we can actually get our points across really clearly and articulate in an articulate way.

[00:17:08] And then it also looks at certain skills like problem solving, decision making, looking at how optimistic we are and how we manage stress. So these are all skills that fall under the, I guess, the bracket of emotional intelligence. And these are all skills that have been proven that they can be developed.

[00:17:26] And there's a lot of studies out there to say that these types of skills it can for sure more than 50% of performance in teams. So while the technology is really important and the technology stack of a team of a company, is, is vital also what equally as vital, or I would argue in some cases even more vital, is everyone's ability to really develop those skills and interact with each other effectively and to make decisions effectively without the need to always be relying on some technology to solve the problem, right? Because that's what, in terms of human to human interaction, how we show up together and work those skills are what's gonna take us to that next level. So it's a mixture of both. And I think that it's really important that we go back to the human and we go back to those human skills and those fundamental soft skills when we work remotely, when we don't have that physical interaction every day.

[00:18:24] It's important that we're leaning into that and that's what I kind of help leaders do, especially in the tech space where they're very focused on the technology and you know, the next product launch.

[00:18:35] Keith: Let's take a short break and I'll share the one app we installed on every Shopify build. The team at Rewind.io have developed the leading backup solution for Shopify. Did you know there is no way of recovering lost data from the Shopify store? Rewind.io automatically backs up your store data in the event of a data loss, usually due to human error. Rewind enables you to rewind your store back to its previous state. It's so simple, and it's used by some of the world's leading Shopify agencies, such as Kurt Elster of Ethercycle and Kelly Vaughn at the Taproom. If your store is gaining traction, you may have multiple users making changes. Often store owners allow theme or app developers enter a store to add code. Sometimes mistakes happen and data gets deleted. You can reduce your business risk today and prevent a costly catastrophe by installing the Rewind.io app on your Shopify store. Get your first month of rewind for free by simply responding to any of the welcome messages or emails you receive after you begin your seven day trial and mentioned this podcast. Now. Back to the interview.[00:19:38] So in actual fact, it's kind of going full circle. What you're saying is the HR teams and companies now already look at emotional intelligence in the non remote environment. So what you're saying is you don't just, you know, give a staff member a laptop, give them access to Slack.

[00:19:53] Keith: You also have to, to look at the emotional intelligence side along with tools. They are both required to be successful.

[00:20:00] Shauna: Absolutely. And just to kind of backup that point, I mean, I have worked with teams on, you know, companies that have hired very smart, capable people that have all of the expertise to do the job, no doubt about that.

[00:20:15] But they didn't check around some of these key skills and they didn't check around the key skills that that should be leveraged in remote environments. And so sometimes those people can't work remotely. They can't work effectively remotely, or not as good as they would have thought. So I think it's really important that companies are building that into the hiring process.

[00:20:35] And a lot of companies now that are hiring remote or work that I remove friendly, we'll ask for it previous remote experience. And I think that that's really smart because you know, it is a different type of shift in the way that we work. And you know, a lot of people now are saying now they really want to work remotely.

[00:20:56] And I get it right? Like nobody really wants to be commuting for those couple of hours a day. Nobody wants to be, you know, chained to one office space. They're exhausted. They're feeling burnt out. Especially with the traffic here in Ireland, right. But they also want a little bit more freedom. Like, you know, gone are the days where work is one part of our life and our personal life is the other.

[00:21:19] Now it's intertwined. It's interlinked so heavily so remote can help people manage both sides of that, both their professional life and their personal life, whether it is that they want to live in the West of Ireland, close to their family, or whether it is that they want to be at home more for their kids.

[00:21:37] Like these are all the benefits on a personal level, but for companies and for individuals, they need to realize that remote working isn't an end goal. You know, if you're to get that remote job, it's not a case that, that's it life is easy now. You still have to work hard. You still have to achieve your objectives and set goals.

[00:21:55] And then in some cases you have to work extra hard to build that trust and extra hard to go out of your way to communicate and to ensure there's transparency. And you also have to work extra hard at managing yourself and ensuring that you know, you have, you know, time management skills that serve you.

[00:22:13] Like you're not overworking, that you have best practices that you know how to show up in the remote space. These are all important considerations.

[00:22:22] Keith: Shauna, have you ever engaged with an organization and come to the conclusion that, you know guys. It actually might not be a good idea. Has that ever happened?

[00:22:31] Shauna: Yeah. I'm actually working with the company now. They do want to go remote because they do need the access to talent and they do want that international expansion, but they're just not ready for it yet. That's part of the work that we're doing. If you are in an office and there are challenges already, you need to put solutions in place and you need to look at how you're going to scale up those processes that are, that you already have in place. And you know, a lot of companies are still reliant on, well, if there's something urgent, I'll just walk over to somebody's desk and figure it out. But it's okay, that's great, and that's great that you're solving that problem. But what happens when you have a remote team member that needs to be included on that?

[00:23:17] You know, how are you going to change people's natural ways of communicating and then optimize it for remote system? Companies are just not, you know ready for remote. Some companies are not cut out for remote you know, depending on the, on the service or the industry that they're in, you know, remote isn't for everybody and it's not for every company. It's not for every individual either. Like not every individual is code how to work remotely or even wants to work remotely. So, but it's, it's an option that's there.

[00:23:49] I definitely think for the industry that we're in, especially with e-commerce and technology i think remote, the benefits are just, they are endless.

[00:23:59] Keith: Absolutely. We see it every day. The majority of people that we engage with on a daily basis, other than the customer that is, you know, as the physical retail store or a warehouse full of stock, I mean, obviously they're, they're not remote. You've mentioned emotional intelligence. Can you just explain to us, you know, the coaching side of what you do? Just explain to us exactly what coaching is.

[00:24:18] Shauna: So coaching is essentially a way for you can move forward. So it's around looking at. How you can set meaningful goals for yourself using the information that  that you have within yourself.

[00:24:35] So what I say is  in coaching, it's not a case of me as a coach telling my client what to do. The coaching relationship starts with me as a coach, fundamentally believing that the person in front of me has the answers and it's my job to help them get there. So coaching is long lasting because it's impactful.

[00:24:56] We think in new ways. We get new perceptions. What's changing the neurological pathways in your brain. So it's actually change in the way that we see things. I always say like if you think of like a filing cabinet, and if we have a problem in life and work, you know, within a team, we go to the filing cabinet and we open up the drawer that we've always opened up and we look for what's worked in the past or close to what's worked in the past. And we use similar ways to solve this new problem or this new challenge that we have. But coaching is about taking it to the next level and opening up the drawer that you've never opened up before to really get you to see things in new ways and change your perspective, while also making sure that it's the right decision for you.

[00:25:41] So coaching really is looking at ,positive psychology to move forward. So a lot of people might say, Oh, well, what's the difference between coaching and therapy? Therapy is past focused coaching is future orientation. So it's about how you're going to get to the next stage. So it's great in leadership development because it really helps leaders identified their blind spots within their leadership skillset and also their strengths.

[00:26:08] Which is equally as important. So doubling down on what's working, identifying those blind spots in order to kind of clearly move forward. It's a chance for, I think we're so busy, like we're so connected through electronics, technology, we're always on. The notifications are always coming up. We're always switched on. It's always go, go, go. Coaching is,it's an opportunity to take a step back, see the bigger picture.

[00:26:34] Keith: Would it be correct to summarize it by saying you're taking people out of their comfort zone?

[00:26:38] Shauna: Yes. It can be very uncomfortable. I mean, you know, when I trained as a coach, I mean, I studied psychology, human behavior, personal development have always been a hobby for me, and I didn't know what coaching was until I started, until I had my first coaching session actually, and I have my first session and I thought, I need to do this.

[00:27:00] And I trained as a coach and throughout that journey. Of course. I mean, you can't be a coach without being extensively coached yourself. And I was completely taken out of my comfort zone so much that I left a full time job and setup my business full time in the space of about three, four months. And now of course that seems daunting, but I was prepared because I worked with coaches on that and it's been successful, which is great, but know it's really about understanding like, and as we were kind of talking beforehand, like what is your definition of success?

[00:27:36] You know, what do you want from your life and how can you make that happen?

[00:27:40] Keith: Most people don't even have a definition. I don't think. There's a book written by a guy called Paul Jarvis called 'The Company of One' that's know whether you're aware of them or not, but he basically. Questions, why businesses in the world constantly want their sales to go well on their business, to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.

[00:27:56] But in actual fact, if you just take a step back and build your business around your lifestyle, you can actually be quite successful and financially secure and actually still have a life around your business. If you just. You know, just relax on the focus of taking over the world and just try and look after number one to start off with.

[00:28:17] And another book I'd like to mention then is the book by the guys that run Basecamp. It's wonderfully successful software company, pretty much bootstrapped by the two founders, and I think they've 50. I think the 52 staff in about 29 or 30 countries, they've written a book called 'It doesn't have to be crazy at work'.

[00:28:35] It segues into exactly what you've just been talking about, Shauna, in terms of the psychology and the emotional intelligence. You know, required to have the ability to build a business with a remote team and they go through an extensive process to hire people. Like I think these guys got 12,000 applications for their last role about two months ago.

[00:28:58] They're preaching, but they're also delivering on practicing exactly what you're talking about. So I love the way are so passionate about it, and you know what I take for granted? You know, I work from home or I work in the office. We have a hybrid model. As I mentioned earlier on. In actual fact, you've studied this.

[00:29:14] and there is just such a, a psychology, I'm on such a, there's so many theories on us, on planning requires for it to be executed correctly. I have to say, no, that was, that was great. In terms of Operate Remote. Itself, which is your own entity. Can you explain what you do for people when you engage with the business, you know, through operation mode.

[00:29:35] Shauna: Well, as I kind of said earlier, most I think that a business can be successful in two ways. So yes, what I work on the strategy and the processes and you know, on the technology tools that they're using. I also. Focus on the coaching element of it, and I think that's what sustains a business, because strategies, processes, technologies will always change.

[00:29:58] But I truly believe that the work that we do on a personal level as a leader or as an employee will stay with us forever. So I do both. So I do a lot of of one-to-one work in terms of coaching, in terms of consulting. And then I do a lot of teamwork as well. So I work with the likes of Webflow, who are, I would say about 90% remote, and they have a leadership team that are all remote as well.

[00:30:23] So I'm doing a group coaching program with them on how to be you know, more effective leaders in remote environments. So group coaching one to one coaching and consultancy as well. But I also love talking about the subject as well, is, I don't know if I can mention my podcast on your podcast,

[00:30:42] Keith: Shauna. You you will learn as you become a more experienced when you get onto a podcast, the first thing you do is mention your podcast. So mention it. I was actually going to ask you so of course. As Keir Whitaker a former colleague of yours said recently 'do you mind if I have a shameless plug'?

[00:31:01] Shauna: At least they were polite in asking? But no, I appreciate that. I've just launched my podcast today, which is called The Human Behind the Screen. And it's all about this topic. It's, it's, it's amazing. Keith, I think you'd enjoy it as well because they speak to two on the episode that was launched today. I speak to two of my ex-colleagues from Shopify, who one's based in India, one's based in Mexico, and I'm obviously here in Ireland.

[00:31:29] Shauna: And we talk about the magic that we had on the team and we tried to dissect what exactly that was and how we were so effective when we were based halfway across the world from each other. So that's a really interesting topic. I speak to you know, a communication specialist who talks about working in multicultural environments that maybe , you know, colleagues don't have the same language as their native languages.

[00:31:55] So, you know, if a company's a, you know use English as, as their preferred language. And you have people that don't have native English as their first language. You know, the complexities that come up could come up, especially on remote teams. And then I have another episode with a guy who has founded a company, kind of company of one and gone through that whole learning curve of what it's like to work remotely and the best kind of practices and habits around managing yourself within that.

[00:32:23] So it's, it's all around this topic which is extremely interesting. I think everybody has a new story.

 

[00:32:30] Keith: It's quite amazing. And I also had Enda Regan on another former colleague of yours and is the product manager for Shopify Kit. He's involved or you know, he's engaged. He's, he's living in, I think it's Sligo or Roscommon.

[00:32:45] He's a Westie as well. He's very much an advocate of it and he's involved with the, I think he's involved with a chapter of the Grow Remote team. The recently received, I think it was a million euros. In funding from the Irish government to promote exactly what you're talking about, Shauna. It has been absolutely wonderful talking to you.

[00:33:01] It's nice to catch up. I think next time try and catch up over coffee, but I've said this at the end of a couple of episodes. It is absolutely wonderful to talk to people who are so passionate about their subject, but also you've invested in it. For anyone who thinks that you know, remote working is a fad or it's just a phase.

[00:33:18] You know, when,  I hope when they listen to this, they'll realize that it's actually, you know, it's a life-changer, but it's also for business. It's a big decision to make, which requires taught and you know, possibly requires a chat with Shauna or any, you know, independent consultants to get a steer and good advice. So, I mean, thank you. It's been a great interview.

[00:33:38] Shauna: Thank you for having me, Keith. It's always a pleasure to catch up. Wish you the best.

[00:33:42] Keith: We will have links to Operate Remote as much information as possible in the show notes. So thank you very much, Shauna.

[00:33:49] Shauna: Thanks, Keith.

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