New Forms of “Togetherness” - Consultants and Remote Working

When Santiago was founded in 2008, it was set up as virtual company without offices and with remote working people. At that time this was a revolution and our former colleagues laughed about us - because nobody believed that this model could work. However, it did. And today we can look back on 15 years of experience with remote working.

Consulting and the challenges of remote work

Working remotely goes along with many challenges – losing sight of each other, being occupied by much more meetings, getting overwhelmed by digital overflow etc. This affects every company. However, consulting is different. The major difference to “normal business” is that consultants work exclusively in projects. They don`t have a “safe haven” like a “home department” where they know the head, the colleagues and the processes. Instead, each project comes with a new project head, new colleagues, new tasks and processes.

Consultants have to manage a much higher degree of individual uncertainty in daily business. That`s why Consultants are affected even more by the challenges of remote working.

Throughout the last 15 years we faced many of these challenges. We tried to manage them, made mistakes, and learned.

?? Here's an overview of six major lessons - and below the way we cope with these:    

Lesson 1: More complicated learning on the job

Consulting is a business where experience is mainly built up by learning on the job. This includes to observe others how they structure and solve a problem, to be part of discussions, to ask questions to peers and seniors and to experience how the interactions between the colleagues and the respective projects heads and partners run. All that is much more difficult or even impossible in environments of remote working.

Lesson 2: Decelerated network building

Consulting also requires to collect and supply knowledge: You need to know whom to ask if you don`t know something. To do so, you need a network. To build up a network requires to meet people – internally and externally (e.g. from the client companies). Working remotely reduces the chances to meet people, at least physically, and thus may slow down the build-up of personal networks.

Lesson 3: Delimitated possibilities to provide coaching and feedback

Consulting is also driven by individual development based on feedback from colleagues and seniors. In the past this feedback included input on the work results but also on the way how these results were produced (e.g. interaction with the client, communication skills, empathy, ability to manage conflicts). In times of remote working the way how results are produced can be observed only partly by seniors. Thus, they can provide only limited feedback respectively and, in addition, as everybody is jumping from meeting to meeting very often the time to provide this feedback is missing. The individual learning curve of consultants will be flattened by remote working. The ability of seniors for steering and coaching will be impeded respectively.

Lesson 4: Losing sight of individual mental state of colleagues

Consulting is a job where people have to face new challenges every day. The personal condition and mood are crucial to face these challenges. In the past seniors were able to identify the mood of their colleagues and could help to overcome potential days in bad mood by personal support. Now it`s much more difficult for them to do so. As a consequence, colleagues in a bad mood may withdraw themselves and get into a downward spiral.

Lesson 5: Potential downturn in company spirit

Consulting is even more driven by the company spirit than business in other industries. The build-up requires “culture time”, time spent together, at the office, at events, in team rooms, traveling together or around hotel stays. This time is missing when people work remote. The development and maintenance of a collaboration culture and a company spirit becomes much more difficult.

Lesson 6: Increased load due to limited cool down periods

Consulting always was a busy job. Traveling times served as vehicle to “cool down” and to arrive at home relaxed. Now these “cool down periods” are missing and may imply that more stress is transferred into private live. The advantage of avoiding travel time was replaced by higher work density and reduced buffer times.

Way forward: New forms of “Togetherness”

How to cope with these challenges? The answer is quite simple: The major driver of change is that the previous working mode - on site of the client together with the internal and external colleagues from the project team - is no longer feasible. A new working mode for consulting needs to be developed.

Over the years we experimented with different options and, finally, we ended up with a variety of tools, formats and solutions that created a new form of “Togetherness”.

The major pillars of this new working mode, which cover the described challenges, are the following:

New Work 1: More complicated learning on the job ?? Establish new formats for team interaction

Learning of the job is crucial for consulting. Junior colleagues need to learn from more experienced colleagues. To do so, they need to meet each other – within the project team and beyond. In the past the project teams worked on site of the client. Now, we set up “project days” were remote working colleagues meet their internal project team members regularly and work together for a day or two. In addition, we enforced the exchange in “regional hub days” where all colleagues of region meet to exchange but also to learn from each other. These days typically close with “regional hub events” to foster culture building and socializing. And finally, we set up a variety of digital formats – from short “knowledge bites” via regular “case study/best practices sharing sessions” till “fuckup nights”, where colleagues may learn from the mistakes of others.

New Work 2: Decelerated network building ?? Go digital

Even remote working consultants meet many people, can connect with them and stay in contact. However, what`s a commodity for private contacts since a long time (via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.) was not as rampant for business contacts in consulting. In consulting the “physical contact” was the role model until the pandemic came. Now the contacts and follow ups need to be digitalized like in private live. The respective tools like LinkedIn etc. are in place. In the past they were used only “passive” in consulting. Switch your behavior and manage your business contacts like you do it with your private network and you will end up with a much bigger and powerful network than in previous “physical” times.    

New Work 3: Delimitated possibilities to provide coaching and feedback ?? Use your chances

Working remotely means for executives that they have less opportunities to observe “how” their colleagues work and that they have less opportunities to provide feedback as they are jumping from meeting to meeting. If executives have less chances to make observation, they have to focus on these rare opportunities to make the best out of it. Executives have to focus even more on their team members to help them to develop. If observations were made, this feedback needs to be provided timely. However, this is a question of project management. After every important meeting a short feedback session with the team or individual team members should be scheduled. If this is not possible, at least regular 1:1 feedback sessions with every team member once a week should be executed. Taking time for individuals is an important form of appreciation and its possible even working remotely.

New Work 4: Losing sight of individual mental state of colleagues ?? Stay in contact and be alert

People are different. Some like it to work remotely, others don`t. Their mental state might be impacted over time. Executives should stay alert and take the time to develop feeling for the mood of every team member, be it via regular 1:1 feedback calls (see 3), via day opening calls (see 5) or other formats. These formats take time, but it`s worthwhile. Only consultants in a good mood will enjoy their live. And as mentioned in my last article: “Quality of Live” improves “Quality of work” and vice versa.  

New Work 5: Potential downturn in company spirit ?? Define values and celebrate them

Working remotely goes along with a reduction of personal interaction with executives and colleagues. This reduction might result in a feeling of loneliness and isolation. The motivation and spirit that was generated by physical team interaction in former times now needs to be replaced (at least partly). Being part of “something bigger” always motivated people. This “something bigger” are the purpose, the culture and the values of the company. The more a company follows a credible purpose, acts according to clearly defined values, and builds up a respective culture the easier it will be for employees to identify themselves with the company and to stay motivated even in remote working situations. And of course, it`s even more important to celebrate these values and to transfer them into a lively company culture than in the past. If colleagues don`t meet in the office than events are a good choice. Invest in interaction and culture.

New Work 6: Increased load due to limited cool down periods ?? Set up remote working rules

The digital tools that drive remote working are great inventions. However, many people perceive a digital overload which includes e.g. a permanent availability and the removal of the border between private and business life. Therefore, it`s helpful to set up some rules of the game for living in the remote world. This may include actions such as the formalization of the working time via day opening and day closing calls, definition of expected email response times or declared offline times. This will only work if defined measures are followed by the management and will be become part of the company culture (see 1).

People have to feel that some form of “head space” is accepted by the company to support their quality of life.

It took some years to find these solutions for the challenges of remote working in consulting. And to be honest: They are not a “self-runner”. It requires appreciation for every team member and the willingness of all players involved to adapt and to change to the new world. Sometimes, new forms of interaction feel weird in the beginning. But if requirements are given, it`s possible to manage the described challenges and you might achieve an even more powerful and resilient working mode.

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