Just because you’re working remotely, it doesn’t mean you’re working on your own. Working rurally also doesn’t also mean working remotely. You might say remote, but remote to what?

Ayrshires Scott Thomson is a global alliance manager for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and has recently moved to our little corner of South Uist with his wife and young family. Scott finds himself in an interesting position, in a job that might not have been imagined possible in Uist not so long ago. However, fast forward through a global pandemic, some faster broadband and three children and things have changed!

‘My wife is from South Uist, so this is a place that I’ve been coming to for quite a few years and we always really enjoyed it. People love to come here. The people, the music, the language, the culture and the landscape are huge selling points for coming to the islands but typically people wouldn’t have come to Uist for work because of a lack of access to different jobs.’

From his home in Bornish, Scott manages some of the company’s global partnerships. Scott is responsible for building joint go to market plans with these partners and delivering business growth through supporting the regional teams to execute those plans.

My leadership team is very supportive of work life balance choices and made the decision easy for me. They said that I could be based anywhere in the world, so where else would I rather be than in Uist. Our Executive Vice President who reports to the CEO of the company is based in Hawaii – I suppose it’s similar to Uist in that it’s an island! Also, a colleague of mine had told me that he was moving to a rural part of Italy, so that inspired me to explore the possibility of moving to Uist.

The windswept island life seems to be well suited to the staff of HPE. Although Scott’s office window view might have changed, his job hasn’t. Before the move, Scott worked in the city.

To me, moving here has had absolutely zero impact on my ability to do the role. It makes no difference whatsoever. It doesn’t matter where on the planet I am, it’s the same job and when my day ends, we’re living in the place where we want to be. 

My wife works from home as well. So, at lunchtime, in 3 minutes we can walk out of our house and be on the hillside, or in three minutes the other direction we’re on the beach. It’s fantastic to have access to that environment and the wildlife, it gives a contrast to the computer and the work that you’re doing during the day. To be able to step away and be in a real area of calm, fresh air and beauty is really quite refreshing and invigorating as you go into the afternoon session.

Scott describes that his work colleagues have a positive jealousy when he tells them where he lives and works. The desire to be in a community like this, I don’t think is something that needs to be forced too much, it’s just the opportunity that needs to be exposed.

I don’t really know that I would have to encourage people of the benefits of being here, but actually it’s important to just let people know that you can work here and it is possible.

Work remotely means that you’re not in a physical office. ‘I’m going to live where I want to live and work at the job I want to do! so let’s build up the organisations where the people actually want to live. There’s no reason why there couldn’t be a business centre here, employing and training staff in this sector.

Uist famously refers to itself as home, regardless of whether the people live here or not. They come ‘home’ when they come here. If this isn’t the ideal place to work from home, then I don’t know what is. 

Island living, like any other kind of living, comes with its own challenges and if you’ve had more than a ten minute conversation with any Uibhisteach, you’ll have  definitely talked about the ferries! In connectivity from a technical sense there is absolutely no problem whatsoever with working in Uist. However, connectivity from a travel perspective? for sure there’s a compromise to make there.

There’s a lot of bad press about the ferries, and there have been challenges with the plane too. Ideally, I’d travel by boat more often but I can’t depend on it taking me to where I want to be, when I want to be there. I have not spoken to a single person here who would disagree that the ferry situation needs to be addressed urgently.

Throughout history, people have had to gravitate to the cities and follow the work, but there has been a paradigm shift, in large part forced by Covid. This has let people realise that my home can be wherever I want it to be. Thinking ahead, I can imagine collaborative business hubs in rural communities would be a great thing for global companies. 

The fact that now a lot of work is done remotely, if you build the skills for yourself through appropriate education and training, whether the work is done for Uist or not, it can be done from Uist. 

The Uist community, and how she works together, has also motivated Scott within his own job over the years.

The work that I do is about partnerships. In the islands I find it inspiring to see how many of the businesses and organisations, charities and cultural groups here survive and thrive and grow through leveraging partnerships. Lot’s of groups make so many things happen here between the third sector, local government, local enterprise and lots of others. It’s amazing to see the amount of success here, sometimes, in under provisioned circumstances.

The opportunities here are different. The School where my kids are, our children are out learning how to sail on the loch they’re out kayaking, they’re mountain biking, they’re going to the beach, they’re learning about the archeological sites here. They’re outside, they’re taking care of hens, they’re learning about crofting and there’s a richness to that education that goes beyond what you could get in a more urban setting, not to mention they are learning to be bi-lingual with Gaelic and English.

It really took no time whatsoever for the parents of Daliburgh school to pull us into the mix. The kids are welcome at anyone’s door at any time. Here things are a bit more fluid and people will just come to the door, in Glasgow things had to be a bit more planned, and that adds a richness to your day. The kids are as busy or maybe even a bit busier than they were in Glasgow. 

The Uist setting has suited the Thomson family and HPE. Global working is possible from anywhere, so why not here? Let’s come together to build hubs, networks, office spaces for those who want to come home to ‘Live local and work global.’

People have more choice now than ever before, you don’t have to make the choice to be where the work is, now the work can be where you are. I wouldn’t want my firefighter to be working remotely, so there are limits, but there are plenty of jobs and opportunities out there for anyone to grab onto.