Hundreds of thousands of employees are now required to work remote. This is a tectonic shift of how we work and there are going to be problems.
Having spent more than a decade working full or part time remote and through trial and error (many errors!), I have found some key actions that will make remote work successful.
You cannot take a person who has spent all of their life working in an office and then put them remote to expect instant success. There are going to be problems.
However, these problems can be overcome quickly if you are aware of some issues that will arise.
If you are in management, you can to many things to help your employees make the transition.
If you are an employee, make changes to your routine to help your boss understand what you are accomplishing.
Be aware that I am not conventional and what I discuss in this post is not something you will find in other articles on remote…it is not theoretical with me…it is actual experience and I have made many errors in working remote. Swatting these issues down one by one resolved most of the problems.
Isolation
The biggest problem of remote work is the feeling of isolation. When you are in an office and surrounded by other people, there is group contagion to help keep us working – not to mention the eyes of other workers.
Even though your coworkers may drive you crazy at times, we are social creatures and not working around other people is a huge disruption.
Even if you have a great setup at home and are fully functional, being separated from other people can be very hard. It can be lonely.
I am an introvert so working alone is not a hardship. Being alone is actually refreshing and inspiring.
For extroverts, it can be excruciating. Being alone is draining and getting work done is very hard.
While we all live in a world of technology, people need to have interpersonal time together. That will never go away.
Phone Calls
One of the ways of feeling more involved while remote is spending more time on the phone.
Yes, I find phone calls to be very helpful in battling isolation.
Regardless of texting, instant messaging, emails, etc., nothing beats a live call with another human being.
When working remote, I try to make at least 3-4 solid phone calls each day. What I mean by a solid phone call is to discuss an issue or item that at least takes 10 minutes.
Now comes the weird idea. Not every call should be about business! Before all you management types draw out your long knives to come after me, I can explain.
Remote work should duplicate the activities of an office as much as possible.
When we are at an office, there is lots of personal talk about families, sports, traffic problems, restaurants to recommend, trips taken recently or new trips in the future, etc. This is a good thing.
If we are working remote, we need to keep up those same conversations with team members.
Of course, limiting the personal conversations is important so we don’t abuse the option of working remote.
Assuring Management
This is an issue I don’t see discussed in any articles. So…I am really unique or totally off base! It is probably the latter!
The biggest concern I have heard from management about remote workers is whether they are working or not.
There is a fear that those working remote are sitting around in their living room eating Bon Bons, drinking a nice glass of wine, and getting paid to achieve nothing.
I have faced this problem for over a decade by working remote and managing team members working remote.
My answer is simple: if you have such bad employees that you cannot let them out of your sight and depend on them to work, you have picked the wrong employee.
Almost everyone I have worked with in the last decade really wants to do a good job. There has only been a couple of people in over 30 years that really didn’t care if they succeeded or not.
I have worked with many people who are discouraged and have given up and thereby became a bad worker. But, given the right environment, I believe they could be awesome workers.
The problem with good employees is that process, procedures, and other people block their progress and they end up feeling discouraged trying to get work done. Extend that over a few years and the employee may just give up and become a bad employee ore at least one putting in the minimum to stay employed. Even the best workers can be discouraged.
Managers need to have frequent updates on what is happening so they can track the work of their team.
I copy my management for selected emails so they can see what work is going on. The worst thing you can do is to work silently and your boss won’t know what is going on.
Check with your manager on a regular basis to ensure you are meeting her or his expectations.
A voice call to your manager is very important – not necessary every day but I would recommend at least 3 substantial (10-15 minutes at least) each week. Check with your manager to make sure they want this.
Accomplishments Not Hours
Evaluating the success of an employee, it is important to focus on what they have completed rather than amount of time clocked.
It is hard to determine if the employee put in a solid 8 hours just based on time. Besides, who cares how much time is put in, it is what is accomplished that is important.
Video
There are many options for video communication with your boss or other team members.
This is now the exciting option for some managers.
Be very careful, I have found that many employees are uncomfortable when appearing in a video call. Use it only if it helps. If the employee is nervous and not focusing on what you are saying, consider dropping the video call and just use the audio only option will work much better.
Extra Benefit
There may be an extra benefit that you didn’t see coming.
I have found employees who work remote tend to put additional hours into their job thereby getting more done.
For example, if you have a 1 hour commute to an office each day (not unusual in larger cities), working remote frees up 2 hours a day.
Some people will stop work at 8 hours when remote and that is all you get.
But, I have found that many employees will work long and you may end up getting a 9 hour plus day from them.
If they work just 1 hour per day extra, that is equivalent to almost 3 weeks of extra of month over a year (about 250 hours). How would you like to get an extra month of work from your employees during a year!
Also, the employee may be less upset when asked to work overtime because they are home with their family and we all tend to be more willing to work extra when in a home environment.
Great Success
You may get surprised, remote work may work out to be a huge benefit. You may end up getting more work done by remote workers than ever.
I predict, once this Cornoavirus problem is over, we will find companies much more open to remote work.
Scan through older posts I have on this site as I have blogged extensively about the benefits of remote work.
All the best as you cope with these challenges!