The Art of Remote Working; moving beyond just function

Let me start this by sharing; I am a 'hugger'. I love being surrounded by people and conversation and as such am finding the isolation and social distancing challenging to my mental health, particularly with the incessant barrage of terrifying information that is on stream. It has never been more important to me to remain connected to my family, friends, colleagues and clients. I'm sure I am not the only one facing this challenge.

To combat this, I'm drawing on and sharing with you some of my experiences as a career remote worker and remote manager of a globally dispersed team that have worked really well for us. I hope you can take some of this and apply it to your own circumstances.

Tools are great, culture makes the difference. 

There have been some wonderful articles circulating in recent days regarding productivity tools to help people be effective when working remotely. These really are important if you want your employees spending their time being productive rather than fighting with systems to allow them to try to do their jobs. 

We use a myriad of tools; Slack, Verse, Trello, Box, Webex, short videos to communicate quick messages etc etc but this blog is not about the tools we use to be functional, it’s about how we make space and time to recreate the energy, connection and fun that is more ordinarily found in the queue for coffee, over lunch or in the bar after work sharing a drink with colleagues. Remote working does not have to be a poor second when experiencing excellent culture. 

Here are my philosophies when establishing personal and team 'rules' to being effective remotely:

1.     Video on – we are avid users of webex which includes video conferencing using your phone/laptop camera. Use it! Seeing how people are reacting to what’s being said makes for good engagement and helps prevent the desire to multi-task whilst on mute. Don’t deny it, we’ve all done it/do it.

Make sure people are comfortable being present without being ‘business presentable’. Due to time-zone differences, often the times when I can get all my team together mean that some are making the commitment really early in the morning/late at night. If it’s ok for me to encroach on their out of hours time, then it’s ok for them to turn up in pyjama’s/gym wear, eating breakfast etc etc. 

Remember however, that until you as their leader have earned their trust that there will be no consequences for doing this, they’re unlikely to be comfortable doing so. Remedy – attend calls in PJ’s /Gym wear, with a ‘messy hair don’t care’ attitude – nothing like leading by example!

2.     Build in time to share non-work ‘stuff’. Initially for my team this comprised a Friday call where as a round table we shared what we were doing at the weekend, reporting back what we had done the weekend before, sharing photo’s and anecdotes. It’s morphed into kids diving in, dogs and cats getting in on the action; it's fun and always results in lots of laughter. 

Yes, you could argue that this hour spent deliberately talking about everything other than the immediate work tasks is better spent elsewhere – I however would argue the exact opposite. My team are close-knit, often needing to quickly respond to situations; knowing one another personally helps to understand motivations, hard-stops, strengths and weaknesses – they care for one-another and this shows in how they team together – remotely. 

3.     Embrace the benefits through trust and transparency. There are wonderful benefits of remote working including the flexibility to manage your time more dynamically. For some the immediate concern is the ability to abuse this privilege by not dedicating contractual hours to work. 

In my experience, motivated and engaged remote teams suffer from the opposite problem – they sacrifice too much of their personal time in support of an ‘always-on’ mentality. There are times when situations and circumstances mean that leaning-in to critical situations and being available is needed but it should never be the expectation. 

Remedy – be transparent. My team know that I am available in the evenings but there are times that I absolutely am not. I block out the 90 mins to collect my daughter from school and play games, I block out the hour to do homework, stories and bed time. I block out Friday afternoons to catch up on admin and also, when the sun is shining to finish early to get started on the weekend. They have access to my calendar and all of this is spelled out to them. 

Balance is important, being flexible is a wonderful trait but too much for too long is not fair – on the employee, their family, friends, relaxation time and mental health. 

4.     Introduce a little structure – don’t let this get in the way of having remote calls, but do headline with an agenda to both set a little structure, set expectations and give people the opportunity to flag other items. This helps you run to time and ensure people come away from calls feeling as though it was a valuable use of their time. Let’s be honest here, if you rely on remote working and virtual tools but you have a reputation for calls being wasteful of people’s time – that is a disaster. 

5.     Personal discipline. If I am not careful, my diary can fill up every day from 8am-8pm with back to back calls. This isn’t good for anyone; it’s tiring, you can’t prepare, you’re either hungry because you can’t get anything to eat/drink or constantly late to quickly grab something…. Recognise that your calendar and schedule are only as considerate to your performance as you make them. Proactively block time to eat/exercise/prepare for calls/do admin etc etc – you’re in control of your time, use it wisely. Be clear to yourself what’s important in the long term and prioritise accordingly. Be mindful of fatigue and allowing yourself appropriate time to do the things you said you would do on the hours of calls you’ve been on. Ask yourself, do I really need to be on this? Is this an opportunity to delegate or to recommend the chair find a way to disseminate information after the call instead of inviting 50+ attendees when 3 would have been just fine thanks. 

Remote working need not be a compromise on social engagement, think creatively, be brave, embrace the video and lead by example!

Good luck and stay safe.