A Remote Ready Success Story
One thing is clear, remote work is here to stay!
A recent Gartner survey of company leaders found that 80 percent of managers plan to allow employees to work remotely at least part of the time after the pandemic, while 47 percent will allow employees to work from home full-time.
A Lebanese dietitian turned creative copywriter
Oyster’s Remote Ready, a specialized training course dedicated to remote work best practices, is here to help everyone get on board with the “new normal.” This has certainly been the case for Mounya Sasso, a Lebanese dietitian turned creative copywriter.
Mounya graduated three years ago with a degree in nutrition from the American University of Beirut. After getting her license as a dietitian, she was ready to start work, but then COVID-19 hit.
It became difficult to find a job in Lebanon, and for Mounya nutrition no longer seemed like the right path. She says “maybe if I had done a master’s degree,” but with COVID-19 persisting, it seemed like she’d have to look for other options.
But she knew she couldn’t wait until the pandemic was over to transform her career. Mounya needed to figure out how to weather the storm.
Enter Remote Ready
Around this time is when she first hears about Remote Ready. After getting connected with Remote Ready’s Programme Manager Mohamad Chamas through a mutual friend, it didn’t take long for Mounya to start taking more seriously the prospect of working remotely.
“In the back of my mind, I was always like, ‘Is [remote work] possible? How do you work across time zones? How do you work in different countries? How do you work online in general?”
When asked what she hoped to get out of Remote Ready, Mounya had this to say:
“I was hoping it would open doors to me. Maybe I would meet someone that knew someone that knew someone that wanted to hire me, or I would just get to speak to people all across the world, which was also something that I was looking forward to. And I did want to learn more about how people work online. What are the different tools that they use? How do they actually speak to each other online and make sure they’re in sync? And make sure everything’s good. So that was what I was looking forward to.”
Soon after starting the Remote Ready course, she began seeing results in her use of remote tools and key remote working skills. As she recounts it:
“I think the [Remote Ready] program helped me. It helped me learn how to seek people in different time zones and how to coordinate with people online. Like you don’t have to be face-to-face.”
Looking for remote opportunities
After finishing the course, it suddenly seemed that remote opportunities were popping up everywhere. “I started to look for jobs on LinkedIn, and suddenly all the jobs that I was seeing were remote. Were they always there? And I didn’t see them?”
While she never anticipated to start working remotely so soon, Mounya stumbled into it in a way that just so happened to work with where she and the world were at the time.
Following her internship for her university degree, her first job happened to be as a freelance copywriter for about five or six months until December 2020, so she had some experience that helped her land her new full-time job.
Mounya the remote worker
Mounya currently works at a company based in Dubai that’s been working remotely for a couple of years now.
Mounya works there full time and frequently uses tools like Zoom, Notion, and Loom. When asked about the Remote Ready lessons, Mounya admits that the course helped her with mastering tools such as Notion. She also revealed that without it, it would have been difficult to prove her remote skills during work interviews.
She says one big bonus for working remotely was freedom of location. She candidly admits that she doesn’t see herself staying in Lebanon long-term. Because remote work opportunities do not tie you to one location, she would love to relocate at some point if the opportunity presents itself.
In her final remarks, Mounya says she very much enjoyed the Remote Ready experience, particularly because of how approachable it was. She told us that because of Remote Ready, companies are comfortable with hiring her in a remote role.
“I feel like they would have been more comfortable knowing that I’m okay working remotely, and I don’t need someone that’s watching me 24/7. If I’m doing my work or not, I don’t need someone to tell me how to speak to people, what tool to use, how to use Zoom, or how to use Notion. I know all of that. So, I do think a sense of comfort comes with that.”
About Oyster
Oyster is a global employment platform designed to enable visionary HR leaders to find, hire, pay, manage, develop and take care of a thriving global workforce. It lets growing companies give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches and expense.
Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world with reliable, compliant payroll, and great local benefits and perks.
