I have worked for Citrix ShareFile as a remote employee for a little over a year. Initially, it took me some time to adjust to my new working environment. Although I had previous workshifting experience, my co-workers had never been in a separate location. As I’ve adjusted to workshifting, I’ve come to understand myself better as an employee and am continually learning how my environment affects creativity and productivity. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve picked up along the way.

Working from home introduced me to a new set of variables. While I am no longer sidetracked by conversations with those sitting around me, my distractions now largely consist of clutter, dirty dishes and laundry (and perhaps loving on my p

Sadly, I won’t be joining in the Synergy fun in Los Angeles. But I’m happy to offer a few tips for somewhat off-the-beaten-path things to do for the lucky Citrites who will be in Los Angeles next week for our big tech conference. I lived in and around Los Angeles for eight years before making the move to Raleigh, and while there are certainly things I don’t miss (traffic, smog, traffic), there are a lot of things I really miss. Here are five of them:

1. Cha Cha Chicken in Santa Monica. Caribbean food, very casual atmosphere, awesome plantains and beans. It’s not fancy. But it’s delicious. And you can stroll up the boardwalk after you stuff yourself full of L.A.’s yummiest Jamaican jerk chicken.

2. Contemporary art at Bergamot Station. After lunch at Cha Cha Chicken, head over to the city’s best collection of contemporary art galleries and see great art by emerging artists in L.A. and beyond. (If you like more a more traditional art scene, you can’t go wrong with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The J. Paul Getty or my personal favorite, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena — a smaller collection, but nearly every piece is something you studied in Art History 101).

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in Citrix’s Global Day of Impact with a team made up of 18 colleagues from various departments — sales, marketing, analytics, customer support and facilities. We were able to take an entire day off of work to serve in our local community, and we partnered with Rebuilding Together of the Triangle. This organization believes that everyone deserves to live in a safe and healthy home. Its focus is to provide critical repairs, accessibility modifications and energy efficient upgrades to low-income homes and community centers at no cost to service recipients.

We arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Matthew’s house first thing in the morning. The couple is in their late 80s and has been very active in their community throughout their lives. Recently Mr. Matthews, a WWII veteran, had a stroke. He is currently in rehab, and Mrs. Matthews is living in the home by herself. There were several critical repairs that needed to be made to get the house back to a healthy environment for Mr. Matthews’ return.

Social. Mobility. Context awareness. Nontraditional content. User experience. Consumerization. All of these were hot topics at the Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit in San Diego last week.

After scoring the highest rating given in Gartner’s MarketScope for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing*, it was fitting for Citrix ShareFile to exhibit its solution to business and IT leaders at the event.

In the MarketScope review, Citrix ShareFile’s strengths included integrations with Citrix Receiver, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenMobile and Citrix Podio, as well as the multi-product aspect of our portfolio including sync tools, mobile apps and more. We saw the effect these integrations can have in action at the summit, as attendees at the event were especially interested in how the ShareFile product works within their current Citrix environment.

Citrix ShareFile is partnering with Build Your Firm to offer free education and CPE credits to ShareFile clients. Build Your Firm (BYF), a leading practice development firm for CPAs, specializes in helping accounting firms improve marketing, practice management and website effectiveness. BYF is owned and operated by CPAs, and the best practices they share helped build their own multi-million dollar practice.

ShareFile has been selected as the exclusive secure file-sharing partner of BYF. As part of the partnership, ShareFile customers will be eligible to participate in BYF educational webinars throughout 2013. These webinars will feature best practices for generating higher profit margins, improving office efficiency and maintaining a balanced lifestyle. As part of the arrangement, these webinars are not only completely free for ShareFile clients — they count towards CPE credits as well.

May is National Smile Month in the UK, National Moving Month and Drinking Water Month in the US, and also Health and Wellness month here at Citrix ShareFile! With all of our hiring, there seems to be no better time to tell you about all the things we’re doing to keep our employees healthy and active!

So what kinds of things do we offer?

Well for starters, we’ve got fresh, organic fruit in our kitchen and a selection of healthy snacks in our break rooms. We’ve got a gym in our building and we encourage employees to take advantage of it. In our suite, you’ll find that free weights, punching bags and exercise balls abound. Recently, some ambitious ShareFilers have organized a Run Club and a Cycling Club for colleagues to get out and enjoy the fresh air. Open to all fitness levels, these groups get together for various distances at a variety of times during the week.

One of my favorite things about working for Citrix is the fact that every employee is given two paid days off a year to volunteer with a community organization in need. In Q2 of every year, Citrix launches a worldwide corporate citizenship initiative, called the Global Day of Impact, where employees in each office organize group volunteer dates. This year, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to organize a volunteer date at Tammy Lynn Center for Developmental Disabilities.

Founded in 1969, Tammy Lynn Center for Developmental Disabilities provides educational, residential, therapeutic and family support services to children and adults with special needs. The Center’s goal is to provide the individuals it serves the opportunity to maximize their abilities in a loving, nurturing environment. I first heard about TLC through a local charity organization called Band Together, which uses the power of live music to raise funds and awareness for a partnering nonprofit – this year, being TLC – and organizes the largest charitable music festival in NC every year. Citrix ShareFile is a sponsor of the Band Together main event featuring Lyle Lovett this year, so it was an obvious decision to partner with TLC for a GDI date as well.

Citrix ShareFile customers now have an easy way to tell their clients, friends and associates about ShareFile and earn rewards for it. Today marks the launch of Refer-a-Friend, a new way for ShareFile customers to receive thanks for spreading the word about ShareFile.

ShareFile strives to provide superior products and world-class customer service to our business clients. With Refer-a-Friend, happy ShareFile customers can confidently recommend ShareFile to anyone with just a few clicks and earn great rewards in the process.

Refer-a-Friend gives ShareFile customers the ability to create unique, traceable links that can be