Learnings from managing a remote team for the first time
The longer this lockdown is forcing us to stay at home, the more I am falling in love with Remote Work. Being in IT, working remotely came naturally to our team. The biggest enabler was our general environment of trust in each other and not enforcing timing restrictions in general.
Though remote work has been very rewarding for me personally, I recently realized the issues and problems it has been causing to others in the team.
One of the biggest problems I see in our current way of remote work is social interaction. The office used to be abuzz with life and chatter throughout the day, with people teasing each other, throwing stuff here and there, and making lunchtime the noisiest time of the day. Though I have barely been a part of any of the above, I still miss seeing everyone at the office having a good time.
Another big problem I see is many of us not having a favorable work environment at home. Let's face it, as wonderful it is to be close to your parents all day long, no one likes to have to respond to their questions 20 times a day 🤷♂️
While the unavailability of good internet and electricity is another challenge, I feel other environmental factors may be a bigger problem in everyday remote working.
Quite unexpectedly, I came across (through a company-wide google form) a very crucial problem that I would have failed to guess on my own. The problem of having an 'Off Switch'. Everyone is either working at par or harder than they used to work in our regular 9-5 office hours. But the burnout and mental stress seem to be at a much higher level. While a part of it can be easily appropriated to 'Lockdown Anxiety', I think the main reason is something else.
Talking to some members personally revealed that how 'Leaving the office physically' used to be a brilliant way to switch from Work-Mode to Life-Mode. Now, as that is not happening, for a lot of my team members it feels like they are working 24/7. Even a post by Basecamp pointed out how there are chances people might be working harder instead of slacking in remote work.
This issue at SmileBots is amplified by our policy of using WhatsApp as an official means of communication for almost everything. Someone who has happily switched to Life mode at 7 PM is pulled back into work mode by a single message from a client/manager in their project's group. Now, they don't even feel like using WhatsApp anymore. This is another thing I was blind to until someone pointed it out on the Google Form. Since then, we have shifted to Basecamp, and I am hoping we can stop using WhatsApp for all work talk by next week. I personally felt a sense of relief with WhatsApp not buzzing every 10 mins with work updates.
A small uprising in the team has taken up the charge of changing the working days. Currently, we have all Sundays and the third Saturday of every month as non-working days. The uprising wants to include all Saturdays as off days. I have promised to consider this and make a decision soon.
I see a future where most of us work remotely most of the times and we meet twice a month just to chill and to party. When meeting each other would be a celebration, while work is left back at home and the team comes to the office only to chill, relax, and socialize. That would be one hell of a way to work ❤