Will remote work remain the future of employment? (When remote work fails + how to manage remote teams)
Do you see yourself thriving in the future of remote-work-first employment?
Like many of you, I’ve been working from home for most of my life.
But, the number of companies embracing remote work is exploding.
Without a cure for the coronavirus on the horizon, and extreme “lockdown- style” social isolation appointed as the prescription and prevention, there’s an en masse corporate exodus to remote work.
Aside from our current situation, remote employment comes with inherent benefits like better employee productivity, fewer costs, and reduced staff turnover.
However, like a regular on-site employee, managing and measuring staff performance is critical to growth. And that poses unique challenges:
How do you encourage peak performance without being a micro-managing minotaur and virtually hyperventilating down the back of their necks?
The Rise of Remote Workers
From small ten-people teams like Groove to commercial giants like Amazon, the remote work model is on the rise. During the last ten years alone, the number of remote workers around the world has increased by 115 percent.
Employees who work remotely now make up a third of the global workforce. In fact:
- More employees want telecommuting roles. And they’re willing to sacrifice lower pay to have it. In a study by Softchoice, 74% of employees said they’d leave their jobs to work for a company that lets work remotely.
- Employees working remotely are as productive as traditional office workers. When tasked with working out of the office or at home, we can all agree on knowing two types of workers:
-Those who cherish the idea of remote work and claim peak productivity.
-And those who can’t fathom a single productive hour of work when away from the focus-enhancing four walls of the office.
But what does real-world research say?
A 2-year Stanford study of 500 people who worked both remotely and in a “normal” office setting, found that productivity among home-based workers was equal to a full day’s work in the office.
- Businesses with remote employees incur less overhead, real estate, and catering costs. PGI News reports the average real estate savings for employers with full-time remote workers is $10,000 per employee every year.
With the current coronavirus pandemic, and all the powerful benefits of being remote work-friendly coupled with projections like “all office workers could be remote by 2020” — you’d think the remote work model is guaranteed to overtake traditional office employment, right?
While I think this is true, there are situations and systems where remote work simply fails to work.
Why a remote employee system (may) harm productivity
With the hype surrounding remote work, Richard Laermer — a New York-based PR agency founder, decided to experiment.
He rolled out remote work as a once-a-week perk, generously letting staff “phone it in” every Friday.
But things didn’t go according to plan…
Productivity plummeted, giving rise to complacency and apathetic attitudes.
Employes were flat-out reluctant to work.
Response times to emails and calls grew, and staff even vetoed meetings with key clients because they were “out of town”.
This lackadaisical ripple even reached the brick and mortar office, where — without the usual busy background buzz of business — team morale took a nosedive.
Richard’s enthusiasm crashed into a brick wall of disappointment; the experiment failed. Immediate firings and a corrective call to return to typical office hours was the final outcome.
Richards’s reasons for rethinking remote work are similar to Marissa Mayer’s (Yahoo CEO) remote work ban, and IBM’s aggressive “move or leave” program. All companies stated that:
The speed, quality, and responsiveness of employees dropped.
This meant getting staff physically together was a prerequisite for productivity and performance.
As the story above conveys, remote work can either decrease performance or boost productivity and satisfaction.
In the end, remote work compatibility boils down to your:
- Company’s capacity to work remotely
- Product/Service
- Employee demographics
- Reliance on teamwork
Before you seriously consider deploying a remote work model, gauge your compatibility with these 2 questions:
Is it practical to go with a hybrid remote work model first?
Companies like Salesforce and stripe are examples of remote-first style hybrid companies. Communication and collaboration occur primarily through remote channels, but a brick and mortar office is still available when needed.
Diving head-on into remote may not be practical at first. By starting with a hybrid model, you can mitigate risks and preempt logistical headaches.
Are your daily operations remote work-friendly?
Sure, there are a plethora of collaboration tools out there like Slack, Trello, and others.
But if the constant ebb-and-flow of deep phone calls, emails, team lunches, and meetups are key components of the daily process, remote work might not be a good fit.
According to Remoters.net, technology and marketing roles constitute almost 50% of the remote roles available.
There’s a stark difference between a PR firm and a marketing agency.
For a PR firm, spontaneous meetings, and thoughtful face-to-face discussions are pretty routine. For a marketing agency, however, daily tasks are more document-driven with structured processes, tasks, and deadlines. Therefore, remote collaboration is easier due to tasks that free from the chains of physical interaction.
How to promote remote employee productivity
The biggest challenges of remote work are found in the acronym CAC:
Communication
Accountability
Collaboration
To ensure that workers are responsive, agile, and productive, these challenges need to be confronted head-on. Here’s how to do that in 3 steps:
- Have a clear system for communication and collaboration
Platforms like Trello and Slack are critical for open communication.
Regardless of your chosen collaboration channel, you need a clear system for seamless interaction.
Subgroups for different departments should be available for meaty, technical discussion. And large remote teams should have a general chat room for the entire team, with subgroups available for one-to-one chats as necessary.
2. Implement accountability systems for remote employee expectations
Unspoken rules and harbored expectations float among physical and remote teams. The problem is: They’re a huge barrier to better performance, but even more corrosive to remote team cohesion.
Remote workers don’t have the luxury of a friendly whisper or kick under the table to prevent an error or breach of conduct.
That’s why managing expectations and simple accountability metrics regarding deadlines, practices, and the overall mission and vision are critical.
These don’t have to be fancy, they just have to be functional. Examples include:
- Daily morning check-ins that highlight the day’s objectives.
- Midday/evening two-sentence reports that summarize progress.
- Signing off emails summarizing daily accomplishments and challenges for the next day.
The key is to measure key tasks that individual employees are responsible for.
3. Foster trust and connection
Software development platform Github requires new hires to spend their first week in its San Francisco headquarters so they can absorb the company’s culture.
The company even boasts a #toasts forum, which plays the role of a “virtual water cooler”. Employees share accomplishments to the forum, and colleagues from different countries respond to commemorate achievements.
Do you need to go to the same lengths as Github?
No.
But, you should invest in “virtual real estate” for casual team get-togethers or informal chats; they serve to establish trust among employees, boost morale, and make people feel like part of a team — especially new hires.
Managing remote employees better is about smarter systems
A system that provides clear expectations, encourages open communication and fosters connection is the key to remote work, that works.
What do you think the future will bring beyond the Covid-19 office worker exodus?
Upon being summoned back to their offices, I expect a healthy number of employees to flip the table and ask to stay remote.