A practical guide to learning & leading through WFH

The idea of having a remote workforce was once limited to certain roles in only a handful of industries. While work from home has expanded in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this shift and forced companies to adjust and readjust on the fly. This event offers us many nuggets of knowledge and learnings if we have the energy and the foresight to leverage them. Our goal in this article is to share some of our real experiences, learnings, and tips gleaned from navigating the transition of our workforce to working from home (WFH), as well  as the joys and struggles that have been uncovered as we dive into a “new normal” of remote work.

Uber recently announced that most corporate workers will be working remotely through June 2021; to prepare us for the next year(ish) of remote learning and leadership, we surveyed our workforce and learning partners to identify and learn more about their experiences.  From there, we identified relevant trends and challenges.  Based on these insights, we were able to curate tips for successfully navigating remote work. But before highlighting what we’ve learned as an organization about remote work since the transition, we wanted to provide context on what has happened at Uber Freight since March 2020.  

• Moved to WFH in 1 day with the expectation that we would go back in 3 weeks.  It has now been 30+ weeks 
• Uber experienced global layoffs in April and May 2020 
• Uber Freight has continued to see growth in the business, with a significant amount of highest-volume-ever days happening during WFH  
• Uber actively took a stance as an anti-racist organization
• Uber Freight L&D converted 98% of learning programs to virtual, e-learning, or quick-hit one-pagers/videos
• The pandemic had a significant impact on shippers and carriers, drastically altering ways of working/operating and which relief supplies were needed (thus impacting our own work) 
• Uber and Uber Freight launched the Move What Matters campaign (which included more than 30,000 relief loads for shippers and communities) 

We felt it was important to wait until we’d spent a sufficient amount of time in this new reality before trying to assess all the lessons that we’ve learned. Having a true sample set, plus time and space to look back on this transitional period, allows us to get a holistic picture of the story the data is telling us. To achieve the results and uncover the themes we will address, we sent survey questions to 697 managers, employees, and other learning professionals across Uber and Uber Freight. We will break out these learnings into 3 phases.  

This article will give you insight into the employee and leader experience during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform your strategies and planning as you think about 2021 and beyond. You’ll also be able to take advantage of the practical tips to improve morale, set your employees up for success while working remotely, and making the most out of WFH. To help you move through the many highlights, we’ve compiled the lessons into this chart with links to move you to the sections that you’d like to learn more about.

GENERAL LEADERSHIP LESSONS  

Preparedness for WFH, morale, work-life balance, love-hate relationship with WFH

Morale is an ongoing challenge, but small things go a long way.

Lots of managers and team members have referenced morale and connectedness as a point of challenge and something that they are struggling to establish or maintain remotely. People are burnt out on zoom/skype/webex/blue jeans (whatever video system they use), and attendance at remote happy hours, trivias, etc., steadily declined in June, July, and August. Zoom fatigue has been referenced repeatedly in our research as a critical factor in why some employees are pulling back from company-sponsored virtual activities. In June, Uber Freight conducted an employee appreciation survey and we received feedback from 37% of the organization. Upon analyzing the responses about how people like to be appreciated, here is what we found:  

1) People prefer to be celebrated for their individual and direct team successes; broader org recognition is less impactful.  

2) Perks, such as time off or special benefits, came in as the top preferred method of appreciation but was followed closely by 1:1 recognition from one’s individual manager or skip-level manager. This second method is free and goes a long way.  

3) Making people feel seen and valued during this stressful time is essential for morale, and anyone who has direct reports can make an impact by sending notes or emails that include phrases such as, “I saw you working hard on X this week, and  your effort on that resulted in X for the team. Thank you for your continued dedication,” or “The project you recently completed, which helped the company move the numbers on X, was well done, and saved lots of people X and X.  Keep delivering amazing results like that! We are so lucky to have you on this team.”  

Click here to see our tips for driving morale: 

• Directly recognize and appreciate the work people are doing. Send an email, chat, text, whatever.  Let employees know you see how hard they are working and the impact it has on the business. If you have access to employee mailing addresses, a handwritten note is a lovely and meaningful way to thank them for their contributions. If you are a leader with levels of managers below you, proactively work with your skip managers to identify and recognize people closer to the front lines.  
• Don’t overwhelm managers with suggestions or resources to drive morale. We’ve seen a trend across many teams and organizations where well-meaning leaders or colleagues are putting together massive playbooks for how to engage during WFH. People don’t have time or energy to search through 50+ page playbooks. 
• If you go big and make a central repository of resources, make it searchable. The more keywords and logical organization the better.  
• Dedicated engagement focus needs to continue or be created. If you have any employee engagement teams/admins/etc., this is the time for them to engage in 1:1 reach-outs and curate suggestions for managers based on unique team needs, responsibilities, and hours of work.  Offer these curated tips as a rotational selection in company forums, newsletters, chat channels, or emails.   
• Variety is the spice of life.  Don’t do the same zoom happy hour each week. Mix it up, have different people own and take responsibility for morale initiatives. Some will be fan favorites, others will be flops. Experimentation and change will matter for long-term engagement.  
• Some of our favorite and top-attended morale activities we have done at Uber Freight: Virtual Pet show, Virtual ping pong tournament, Ka-happy hour (happy hour trivia using Kahoot), Snappy gifts,  Employee-led master class series (painting, cooking, etc), Virtual talent show
• Leverage third-party companies, technology, and resources. If you have the financial resources, engage in a third-party company that is offering well-orchestrated events for large and small teams alike.   
• Where appropriate for your team, consider offering a SPIF (Sales Performance Incentive Fund) to drive re-engagement and excitement for a big push or respark focus.   

Culture matters, even while working remotely, and it’s your job to own it.

Now more than ever, culture matters, but managers and leaders are suddenly faced with the real challenge of how to create or recover culture after layoffs and weeks into an uncertain pandemic. If your organization has had to downsize as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, then you are not alone.  Recovering culture and morale after layoffs is hard in the best of circumstances, let alone amidst a pandemic closely accompanied by social unrest. Uncertainty, quarantine, solitary conditions, and lack of consistent activities outside of work mean culture is more important than ever to keeping your company running. One of the managers we surveyed mentioned,  “I wonder how much of our success is that we have been running off of the social capital we had established in the office before COVID. The longer this goes on, the harder it is to keep the culture as a focus, but culture matters, and we have to work intentionally to create it.” 

Ways to build culture while WFH 

• No bullshit. Yes, we said bullshit, but it is important to drive the point home. Mistrust and panic over job security is at an all-time high. If you “corporate speak” or aren’t clear with your employees about what is happening, how the business is performing, and what the next 6-12 months may look like, expect to take an even more significant hit to your culture and morale.  
• Start small. Little things add up. Check in on every one of your team members without purpose or agenda at least 1x per week, just to build rapport and connection. If you have a huge team and lots of skip levels, do a chunk at a time.  Let people know you’re there and you’re supporting them.  
• Peer-to-peer recognition programs are a great way to generate culture. If you have a central space like a team wiki, all-team slack channel, etc., this is a great way to bring recognition “to the people.” Recognition should come from managers as well, but that isn’t the only place it should come from. In fact, managers miss lots of the small moments of success, and peer recognition can fill in important gaps.  
• Don’t make your efforts obviously about “the culture.” Two of our most successful moments of spontaneous culture at UF during COVID have been the great sourdough-starter naming competition and a moment of donation that spiraled into 100+ donors and resulted in Uber Freight donating over $110k to various social justice organizations. These moments were sparked by non-management employees in a fun way, and they brought others along by focusing on the fun.  
• Layer culture in as much as you can.  Do you have a company all-hands? Weekly manager meetings? Whether it be communications, performance reviews, goal setting, or feedback, if you can find a way to tie something back to your mission or values, you can and should.  
• Acknowledge what is hard and give people permission to breathe. Leaders need to help team members process the (valid) feelings they are having that range from stress and anger to isolation and fear. Trying to just push through will result in a negative culture where employees have resentment, which will impact attitudes and output.  

Work life balance presents new challenges.

There is nowhere to step away to, and turning off the computer has become more difficult than ever. This component of WFH is a new reality for those of us who did not work remotely prior. Restaurants, coffee shops, classes, bars, sports, and activities aren’t currently available to people as a way to break up their day. Even school and daycare don’t provide the same consistency they once did. Our research showed a trend of work-life balance being a challenge, especially in the following areas: 

(1) Unplugging on weekends or in the evenings

(2) All employees, and especially non-caregivers, struggle to set boundaries or pull themselves away from their work at the end of the day, and without good guardrails they may just continue to work into the evening, accelerating burnout 

3) Caregiver burden and burnout was extremely high. Both folks with and without caregiving responsibilities are struggling with work-life balance. In fact, the caregiver burden is heightened due to lack of resources and opportunities for children and/or other care recipients during the workday.  The Washington Post published an article in which WFH journalists calculated that they were interrupted an average of 15 times per hour by their children while trying to work from home. Our research reflects that caregivers often describe having feelings of guilt stemming from their belief that they cannot dedicate themselves to either their family or their job to the degree that they would like.   

Tips for managing work-life balance 

• If your company has flexibility over time off for its employees, try creating a “tech-free” or “disconnect” day. If your company can make this work, this can be a mandatory monthly occurrence for all team members.  Work with your HR team to figure out the logistics. The positive outcome here is that employees return feeling refreshed and appreciated.  
• Don’t forget to encourage “vacation” time, even during the pandemic. People are canceling their normal trips; if someone on your team has the vacation time to take 3-5 days off, they should.  Proactively work ahead for the next 1-2 months to find your team a day (or more) to take off. For companies that offer unlimited vacation time, it is important to make sure everyone on your team is taking time equitably. Feedback from our data indicated that managers were seeing a disproportionate usage of time off across teams. As a manager, work proactively to ensure that everyone is having an opportunity to reset by leveraging some of their vacation time.     
• As a manager, model good behavior. Stop sending emails after 6pm unless it is a real emergency.  Don’t send emails on the weekend. After-hours emails set the expectation that your team should be reading them. If your email system allows for it, schedule emails to be sent, or save them in your drafts and send them during working hours.  
• Encourage folks to get outside (within their comfort zone). This one sounds shockingly simple, but we were surprised at how many  research participants reported they hadn’t stepped out of their apartment or home in 3, 4, 5, and all the way up to 11 days. (Yes, 11!) Between food delivery, grocery delivery, mask restrictions, and more, a shocking number of people have completely sacrificed leaving their home and getting fresh air.

Tips to help your people get outside:   

• Walking 1:1s are a popular in person tactic; try this with an employee every few calls as an alternative to the (now-standard) video call 
• If employees have a car, encourage them to go on a drive 
• If they live in a city, step outside and sit on the balcony for 30 minutes (even if it is hot/cold/whatever) 
• If they live in a house, find a reason for them to go into their backyard 
• An easy tactic is a team scavenger hunt that requires people to post in a group chat about something they saw outside.  
• Plan a video conference where everyone needs to be outside to help encourage the spacial change-up.  

Some people love WFH, some hate it; both are okay.

The spectrum of responses about WFH was—not shockingly—varied. Some of our research participants showed huge bias toward working from home, saying things like, “I love working from home. I am more productive, more efficient, less stressed, sleeping better, and able to be so much more flexible with my time when not spending 3+ hours per day commuting, worried about train schedules, etc.” Other participants said, “I realized how important face-to-face interactions with my teammates are, I miss my team” and “I have two toddlers that demand my attention all the time ... since they are’t in daycare because of COVID, I struggle keeping them on a schedule between 8-5 because of customer needs.”  As a manager, you need to stay close to your employees’ preferences and feelings about WFH.  According to our research, preferences  may also ebb and flow for employees.  

Tips for navigating this variance 

• Ask your team what they prefer—are they aching to return to the office, or is permanent WFH their dream situation?  Asking this important question helps you understand the landscape of your employees’ preferences.  You can also use this information to inform your company’s strategy for returning to the office. 
• Plan: If your company hasn’t already started thinking about it, what can be offered to employees who are eager to return to the office environment?  
• Conduct surveys with the entire population to get a sense of who wants to come back to the office, who wants to stay home, who wants a mix.  Leverage this feedback in your planning, and reiterate to the organization that their feedback helped create the design of the return-to-office plans.  
• Partner the people who “love” WFH with the people who “hate” WFH for tips and tricks on how to make the situations easier.  
• Keep setting and resetting expectations.  One of the trends in our research highlighted how uncertainty drove discomfort and stress about WFH. Let people know what to expect as much as possible to help them make the most out of a situation they may not be comfortable with.  
• Reflect on how you’re adjusting your style as a leader during WFH.

These recommendations are meant for you to customize to your reality and employee needs. Every leader's journey through COVID-19 and managing employees who are newly WFH is unique. Our hope is that by sharing some of this research, you may be able to try a new tactic that will bring positive impact to your team, and ultimately your business.