Remote Working – Body in the seat?

With the recent Covid-19 situation, employers across the world are shifting to remote team culture and have been forced by the circumstances to let employees adapt to remote working. The safety of the employees must be a top priority for businesses and they don't need a pandemic to conclude that remote working is safer. There was an insightful webinar on similar grounds by Oorwin leadership with Murali Raghavan, Sr. VP Tech Mahindra.

Sharing few insights on remote working trends before and now, and how does it affect work, efficiency, and productivity. Is it a fruitful tradeoff between productivity and time or the employees are just body in the seat?

Behind the “Body in the seat”

A sneaky attitude is being seen among many businesses; they think that during remote working, if the employees have their bodies in their seats, they are productive. However, keeping a body stick to a desk for 8 or 9 straight hours a day has not proven to bring productivity. The problem worsens when this mentality is applied to suddenly-remote employees.

It is found that 43 percent less likely to face burnout when provided a choice in how and when to finish their tasks. At the same time, though, research indicates that flexibility results in burnout as employees feel indebted to their employer for the flexibility, and so work extremely hard to return the favor. Thus, they think, just like their employers, that working remotely can just be productive if they stick to their desktop for hours. 

Besides, there’s always that struggle in the back of the mind of remote employees as they constantly worry about what their supervisors think of their activity. 

• Do they think I’m not working? 
• Do they not value my work equally?
• Have I truly considered a part of their team?

All these destructive questions that can sabotage a remote workforce's productivity.  

Remote Working – Then & Now

The structure of remote work is changing, and businesses are trying to keep up. A few decades back, remote working was not a popular idea, considering face to face interactions and meetings as a mandatory work component. Though the importance of personal interaction at the workplace cannot be underestimated, today, technology has accommodated near-to-same elements in remote working culture. Today, remote workers are working from multiple locations through advance digital modes like video calls, Zoom conferencing, telecommuting, VPN services, emails, live online webinars, etc. 

The Quest of Efficiency & Productivity

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Everyone wants to telecommute at least few days in a month. This is because remote employees can determine productivity hacks to let themselves spend more focused time on complex work. They can concentrate without distractions, and one factor that helps them to do that is time-chunking.

Found some interesting study conducted by RescueTime, employees check Slack and their emails every 6 minutes while 40% of them don’t get over 30 minutes straight of focused time. The email interruptions and lack of straight focus time help explain why remote employees, on average, have just 2 hours and 48 minutes a day for productive tasks. On the contrary, top freelancers who have been working from home for many years, are aware of the fallacy of the body in the seat attitude. And because of this, they tend to work intensely for allocated blocks of time.  

Time Efficiency – Productivity Vs. Time

Time chunking, often referred to as time blocking, is taking out pieces of the day when an employee can disconnect from email or Slack, etc. and pay attention to performing the task that necessitates deep thinking. It’s not a difficult concept, and an employee can easily experience a radical productivity improvement resulted from time chunking. It’s just like when you had worked from a coffee shop and got more in one hour than you would have accomplished in eight hours at the office.

What to Do with Your Remote Team Culture?

To significantly improve the effectiveness and productivity of your remote team, allocate dedicated blocks of time to your employees every day like when they should be online and when they can disconnect and work free from distractions. 

Second, letting them disconnect in between helps them have time with their kids and family. By the time they come back to their desk, they are probably going to be more focused, refreshed and productive. Lastly, adopt the attitude that achieving the dedicated tasks in a disconnected and distraction-free environment is worthier to be praised than sitting at the desk for hours and taking longer to complete the allocated tasks.  

Concluding Thoughts

The remote working environment is changing and so is the body in the seat attitude that fails significantly both for employees at the office and remote workers.

It is the time to recognise the newer trends in remote working and cultivate a culture that is based on trust, productivity, efficiency and freedom instead of an environment that keeps employees stuck to their seats.