“Remote Teams” is the new trend: How to adapt to it effectively?

The corporate world is changing very rapidly nowadays. Changes could be triggered based on either the demand, situation, trends, complexity, or disruptive ideas. One of the areas in the corporate world that have seen drastic shift is the way teams had been functioning earlier vs how it is preferred nowadays.

Corporate teams can function in one of the following ways:

• Co-Located teams
• Remote or Distributed or Virtual Teams
• Hybrid Teams

The traditional and old method of functioning is co-located teams where the entire team works in person from the same office or location where team members can meet face to face and get things done. It has been one of the most effective ways of getting things done and being productive and is still preferred by many. This is also the most desired and expected ways of getting things done in the corporate world.

But due to multiple reasons, the traditional approach is gradually phasing out, and practically in the current scenario in many corporate setups, it is not feasible to have co-located teams. Few significant reasons could be:

• Corporate policies for Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to have distributed teams
• Client or Customer requirements to have partial team at their location
• Skills needed in the team not available, all at one location
• Increase in work complexity in terms of geography, language, GoToMarket etc
• Varying Customer & Vendor set-ups
• Preferences of employees & employers
• Space constraints
• Situations like COVID19

And so on….

The fact is that remote teams are the new reality that corporate world have to accommodate in their way of working. It is picking up very fast. COVID19 have just fast-tracked it and potentially now we could see it happening in months.

One of the surveys by Wrike Inc. done few years back, brought some facts mentioned below:

• 83% confirmed spending few hours per week, working remotely
• 43% accepted that it is an upcoming trend that is picking up with every day passing by
• 63% accepted their teams will be fully virtual working remotely in next few years (thanks to the technological advancements)
• 87% accepted that if proper advanced technology and corporate policies be implemented in organizations, Work From Home (WFH) could be the new norm as a Win-Win for both organizations and employees.
• 44% of business owners/decision makers in organizations expect shifting to virtual set-up in near future
• 17% supported co-located work space. Few industries based on nature of work, undeniably need that.
• As per many, there are quite a few obstacles that might come in the way of this new trend picking up which includes:

a) Lack of direct communication (38%)

b) Problems with data accessibility (21%)

c) Poor visibility in work of other team members for integrated solutions (19%)

• 89% find the Work From Home as an additional perk to employees that can supersede many other perks for employee retention and motivation
• Employees are ready to compromise with perks and offerings from employers if allowed to work remotely:

a) 78% employees are ready to part with employer provided perks like paid meals

b) 54% employees are ready to sacrifice paid cellphone plans

c) 31% employees are ok with reduction in their paid time off

d) 25% employees are ok with reduction in their salaries as well

• Primary benefit of working remotely as mentioned by those who contributed in the survey are:

a) 41% mentioned "Time Saving"

b) 29% mentioned "Increased Productivity"

c) 10% mentioned "Ability to Focus"

Hence, corporate leadership proactively needs to understand on how to make this new upcoming trend, work in their favor.

Few advantages in this remote team set up (to be seen as opportunities) are:

• Reduced cost of office space
• Reduced travel time of team members that can be directed towards productive hours
• Flexibility to hire capable team members or talents without restriction on location
• Reduced overhead cost and effort (on areas like office policies etc)
• Reduced conflicts between team members
• Increased productivity and team motivation
• Effective 24/7 working based on distributed global teams in different time zones
• Effective + efficient use of cloud and other advanced technology

But there are quite a few disadvantages (to be seen as threats) as well:

• Lack of proper control and visibility of work being done
• Reduced friendliness and informal relationships between team members
• Reduced productivity
• Quick turnaround
• Additional investment in tools & technology
• Based on nature of the work, co-located teams might be a necessity

Corporate leaders need to have a bi-directional approach to this upcoming trend.

• Evaluate the Opportunities and try to exploit or enhance them
• Evaluate the Threats and try to avoid or mitigate them

Considering both Threats and Opportunities, corporates should be able to define policies that work to the advantage of the organization. Few actions that can be taken (but not limited to only these) are:

Hybrid Approach: Best of both worlds need to be considered and evaluated. Based on that, teams should function in a hybrid approach. With this approach, teams might be working in a co-located fashion once or twice a week or fortnight. The rest of the days, Work From Home (WFH) should be encouraged. Partly co-located and partly remotely working at times helps to achieve the best results. The frequency of working in co-located fashion needs to be evaluated based on the need and nature of the work. It will also depend upon the team members' expectations.

The same workspace can be rotated between teams on different days of the week and/ or month for co-location. Few days in a month can be kept flexible for teams to benefit from.

Many team members working in 100% co-located set up also confirmed that 1-2 hours every day or once in a while full day, they tend to work remotely. Now it is just getting extended.

Target driven approach to work: To successfully shift to the new upcoming trend, team members should be working with a performance-driven or target driven approach. Management/ Supervisors should focus on work done on time rather than focusing on effort or hours put in during work hours. Flexibility should be provided as possible to team members to work at their own work cycles and pace.

The micromanagement (Theory X) approach needs to shift towards macro-management (Theory Y). This could also help in creating trust, increasing team motivation, and increasing productivity.

Cashing in Intangible Benefits/ Opportunity Cost: Several intangible benefits like reduced conflicts, reduced travel times, etc. need to be evaluated and benefits should be reaped from those. Direct and indirect cost savings need to be evaluated and the same can be invested in effective tools and technologies to implement remote teams working successfully.

Agile and Lean Mindset: Teams to deliver effectively in remote working setup need to be flexible, responsive, and adaptive to changes. Making the team self-organized, empowering them to make decisions and implement, will go a long way in making remote teams successful. Smaller cycles of delivery will help deliver value more effectively and quickly. It also addresses the concern of control and visibility to a big extent.

Team agility and business agility both need to be considered and impact to be evaluated accordingly. Every change related to Remote Teams setup to be incorporated should be aligned with the vision of the organization.

Communication to Teams: All the changes being done to fit in the Remote Team approach successfully within the organization needs to be effectively communicated to everyone involved. The effectiveness and the success of the policy changes will depend upon communicating the teams in an appropriate manner.

There can be many more points that can be considered in implementing the remote team set up effectively. Any suggestions and/or additions are welcome. 

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