Here's what bosses should look for in Workation

Lucas Bauche spent six weeks in Bali and worked from there. In this interview, he gives tips for Workation, talks about the local culture and how sustainable such a trip is.

Lucas Bauche still has a tan on his face. It's hard to say whether that's because of all the sunshine in Germany or because of his stay in Bali until mid-June. The only thing that is certain is that he did come back. Now he's sitting in a telephone box at his start-up Awork, a podcast microphone beside him and his long hair tied back. He certainly looks well rested.

Mr. Bauche says you spent six weeks in Bali. What is your most important tip?

Everyone who plans a workation should be clear about what they actually want on site. I once did a workation in London, where I looked after a friend's apartment. Watering flowers for a change of scenery. I had a lot of books with me and did a lot of work for myself, which was very focused. At that time I was much for myself and hardly met people. In Bali it was completely different. Here, I deliberately got an apartment in co-living and also booked a place in co-working in advance, because I wanted to get to know the different people there.

What kind of agreement did you need with the team?

It's certainly important that you can't say overnight: So, guys, I'm off now. In my case, the time difference was six hours, which you then had to coordinate. I usually worked focused until 2 p.m. without any interruptions from outside and scheduled team appointments in the afternoon so that I had evenings off as much as possible. For my German colleagues, I was only available until noon or in the afternoon. This means that you have to know and like asynchronous work. That includes recording videos, writing handovers and so on. But I have also seen Americans who had twelve-hour offsets and only ever worked at night. They were then on their own in a completely normal workday. You have to clarify that with the team beforehand.

Without the Internet, the plan wouldn't have worked. How did you clarify that?

I deliberately looked for a co-working space in Bali where I was sure that there would be Internet access, that there would be a community, that I would always have my peace and quiet, and that the lighting and sound would also be good. Otherwise, that would have been annoying for the whole team. That was certainly my responsibility.

How big is the local digital nomad community?

In the place where I was, this community is very big. There are some people there like me who are on site for four or six weeks and just need a change of scenery - and then there are a lot of self-employed people, freelancers and entrepreneurs who have been living as digital nomads for six months or more.

How strange was it to be a rich European doing co-working in an otherwise poor country?

I met a lot of people from Singapore, UK, USA or even Australia through co-working, with whom you also had a drink in the evening. That was very inspiring. On the other hand, you are of course aware that there is poverty locally. But where I lived, co-working tourism is very similar to the rest of tourism, it makes life better for people. The co-working space is also non-profit, fully embraces sustainability and donates money to show locals how to start their own business with little effort.

Just flying to Bali to work is not very sustainable though. Is that not a problem for you as a company?

For us as a company it is important that we don't make business trips for an hour meeting and get on a plane for that. However, workation is a private decision of our employees and we give them the freedom to work location-independently. Whether they fly for it or not is therefore something they have to know for themselves. Personally, I think it's better to stay in one place for six weeks for a workation instead of flying regularly to appointments and customer projects for work.

Instead of Bali, it could have been France.

I like Asia, the spicy food, temperatures and culture. That's why I wanted to go there, to build up a little distance from everyday life. That wouldn't have worked out so well in France.

Did you have any time at all for culture?

Even much more than if I had flown there for vacation. The fact that you have the weekends off and can also move around during the week makes it much easier to let yourself drift. On vacation, everything is always very tightly scheduled because you don't want to miss anything. That's completely different with Workation.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Lucas Baucheis the co-founder of Awork. According to his own information, the work management tool is used by over 2,000 teams.