Rethink vs. Recreate Your Workplace

?? Part 2: Supporting Team Success From Afar During COVID-19

If you’re just now joining in, this series explores helpful advice to help companies and their teams “Go Digital” at the unexpected, sudden pace they must. Jumping back into things, let’s depart from the first article’s focus on specific services and tools to help along your journey and talk about the journey itself. More specifically, how to keep your teams working together comfortably and successfully achieving their goals— even from afar.

By now, companies understand 2020 means embracing completely new ways of working together. Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square, was quick to announce both companies will now permanently move to a work-from-home structure for all of its employees; not just during the Coronavirus, but afterwards and into the future. Other companies like Nationwide and Facebook are now making similar moves. Whether your team’s transition will be long-term or temporary, though, remember that this is a unique moment to rethink fundamental aspects of your workplace. Don’t get swept up too quickly with how to recreate things until you’ve really re-evaulated it first.

“The real opportunity with remote work is to embrace the advantages… It’s not just about working remotely and simulating what it’s like to work locally.”

One of the best skills great leaders have is the ability to adapt to challenging situations quickly and decisively. Just don’t move too fast. Businesses often attempt to “reproduce the office experience” with always-on communication tools or an endless supply of virtual meetings. These efforts to “virtualize” the office experience are clearly aimed in the right direction, but many end up backfiring or fizzling because the patten-matching just won’t work right. Moreover, while it’s important to find ways to keep everyone moving forward, some of the best insights and new efficiencies you’ll benefit from will result from completely rethinking those processes, not just recreating them.

“This is actually an opportunity to rethink the way you work… This is one of those unlucky, lucky moments when we get a chance to rethink the way we’re working.” – Jason Fried, Basecamp CEO

If you’re not already familiar with Basecamp, it’s the best overall project management software on the web — full stop. The company which makes it has a fantastic podcast called Rework with helpful tips that go way beyond their software, or even project management itself. I really appreciate companies like theirs with an almost philosophical view of the way things should be, and a fearlessness to make that view a reality themselves. Not only do they think outside the box, they reinvent the box entirely (i.e. say “Hey!” to their upcoming reimagining of e-mail, for example).

There’s a particular episode in which Co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier elaborate on this topic much better than I could, and in an engaging back-and-forth way that also responds to user questions about it. Since the video is so long, though, I’m going to summarize some of their passing points of insight and expand on them myself

LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD

What this means, from a broad perspective, is to give your local and remote employees as close to the same experience as you can…

DON’T DUPLICATE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Instead of announcing something to your local team because they’re there with you, then sending out an email to everyone else, just write it once and distribute to everyone over the same medium, at the same time. Repeating messages inevitably leads to miscommunication, more complexity, etc. This also avoids it looking like you’re prioritizing some groups over others.

LIMIT HYBRID VIDEOCONFERENCES

Another way to “level the playing field” is by having everyone dial in “remotely” from their desks whenever anyonewho’s on the call is remote. Honestly, there’s nothing worse than trying to make those calls work where half the people are in the room and half the people are on a tiny speaker, talking over each other with different time delays, troubleshooting IT issues, or forgetting to mute their barking dogs in the background. You know what I mean! It may seem counterintuitive but you’ll find a more standardized meeting when everyone is using the same medium. Get everyone on the same level. If you have more than 5 people conferencing into a meeting or call, you probably have too many people attending that meeting anyways.

SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

You’ll also have a single place where that information exists, for all employees. This “single source of truth” concept is actually incredibly important; for all businesses, but especially anyone with remote workers. If you have documents, spreadsheets, design assets, or files and information of any kind lying around in multiple accounts or in multiple versions, it makes it almost impossible for your team to be efficient. So much work is performed redundantly this way and it leads to all types of versioning nightmares.

Make sure it’s very clear where everything “lives,” and that your employees can actually find them there. Eliminate any duplicate or confusing distractions. Many companies use project management software like Basecamp, but even something as simple as Google Drive can work great (if you use a specific hierarchy, and your team knows how to navigate it).

DISCOURAGE TIME-STEALING!

ENCOURGAGE TEAM TO D.I.Y.

Make sure to remind your employees not to resort right away to asking a coworker for help before trying to figure out the problem on their own. You’d be surprised how many issues would get resolved with 10–15 minutes more of prodding or trial-and-error. This behavior should be encouraged, in general, but especially during COVID-19 and remote working situations. It’s far too easy to ask someone else to solve something and far too difficult to refuse the request, leading to a lot of wasted time. It’ll often just take a little more prodding to find the answer but as soon as you loop in someone else, you really Often, a little more trying does the trick and you would be surprised how much time gets eaten from those types of things.

MINIMIZE MEETING INVITATIONS

There’s a certain type of “goldfish effect” that happens at most offices these days where, magically, all of the conference room chairs seem to fill up during every conference room meeting. It’s almost as though the number of people invited are meant to fill the room than to add value. Make sure you limit your meetings to only the most critical people — for everyone else, just write up notes and make them available. Attending unnecessary meetings not only takes up valuable time your workers could be getting important things done for you, it also eats away over time at morale. The entire concept of a meeting loses its value, people stop preparing for them, and stop paying attention. Generally, you should limit your meetings to 3–5 people, if possible. It won’t help to have many more people there; in fact, it can really begin to detract.

“Having 20 people’s opinions present, it … actually leads to indecision. In fact, if you ever want to be even less sure of something, all you have to do is ask one more person what their opinion is.” — Jason Fried

THE PLAGUE OF SHARED CALENDARS

Shared calendars have become a staple of our everyday lives in most workplaces, allowing us to not only see when our fellow employees have (seemingly) open spots on their schedule and invite them. Sounds great! Sounds… really convenient, actually. And that’s the problem… it’s a little too convenient. It’s so easy to invite someone to a meeting, whether they truly need to attend or not, and much harder to “reject” a meeting request once it’s been sent to us. There’s just a certain social stigma that shows, statistically, workers are less inclined to pass on an event simply because they’ve been invited, regardless of the value or merit it will serve.

Instead, make it hard to “steal” each other’s time. If someone wants your time, they should negotiate for it. You should know exactly why you are required and the value you will receive, and which you expect to contribute. Without this, there isn’t much point for you attend, is there? Calendar invitations that seem so easy to “Accept” one week become problematic weeks later when the event arrives and you’re still slammed with your other tasks. Turn off those shared calendars and you may just find many meetings are simply less necessary to have, in general, than you originally thought.

“NOT-SO-INSTANT” MESSAGING

We’ve all become so used to interoffice communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams that it can be tempting to continue expecting the immediate responses we typically receive from colleagues during the workday. It’s important to recognize this communication will become more asynchronous (less immediate and more back-and-forth, like email). You won’t be working on exactly the same schedules anymore and life is certainly going to get in everyone’s way. When you receive a work message, fight the feeling of being obligated to respond right away — and conversely, when you send a message to a colleague yourself, finish it with something like “No rush” or “Get back to me when you have a chance,” signaling explicitly the response time is flexible.

SUPPORT EMOTIONAL WELLBEING

It’s extremely important to be the best manager you can be right now. Your company and your business will get past this troubling period, but if your team feels dragged through the mud about it, or taken for granted, it will be a create a lasting memory for them long after they return to work. You may never recover the same morale you had previously. Here are a few tips on how to make sure you’re supporting everyone.

GIVE WORKERS MORE TIME

Working remotely requires new skillsets and new ways of thinking. It will take your team time to adjust, and different employees will adjust at different paces. Rest assured, though, that everyone can do it. Everyone is fully capable of getting themselves up to par. Equipping your employees with the tools and services they need to be successful is key, though. Don’t just assume everyone has a webcam and internet access at home (or fast-enough internet access). Many don’t even have a desk or home computer! Take inventory with your team to find out where each person might encounter a hurdle and help them over it. Offer to pay for some of what they need to get going.

Understand that most of your employees will not be able to work the same hours or at the same capacity they used to. Beyond the virus itself, many will have family and other social responsibilities that naturally get in the way when one works from their home.

“Don’t try to get the most out of your employees, aim to get the best out of them instead.”

CREATE A CULTURE OF REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

Push back deadlines and scale down your ambition with projects. Expect the typical 40 hours/week but don’t reward those for putting in more. Make sure everyone is pacing themselves. For the next few weeks, employers are not going to get 100% effort from your workers–They need to adjust their expectations accordingly.

You should also be on the lookout for workers who may be overworking themselves and intervene to avoid burnout or faulty work. It’s hard to adjust to these new situations for some and the can be difficult distinguishing when to “turn off” sometimes. Set the tone by not overworking yourself either or answering emails after hours.

TWO-WAY TRUST

Whatever you do, don’t lie to or mislead your employees. The last thing you can afford to do during this period is build distrust. Especially if you have to lay someone off, just be direct and honest about it. If their job isn’t going to come back, don’t indicate or hint that it might. Be empathetic with people and don’t give them false hope. Do the layoff in person and have a document ready with helpful information. Offer to answer any questions they have over the phone once they’ve had time to react.

For the employees you’re able to keep, you really need to double down on your trust for them. People inherently want to do a good job and be recognized for it. Although that’s going to be a little tricker now than it used to be, start by giving your employees the benefit of the doubt. They want to do their best for you. Don’t require mandatory check-ins or camera feeds to “make sure they’re working” because it’s not actually relevant. What does seeing someone moving around at their desk have to do with judging their actual work? You have to look at the work itself. If they’re producing great work and meeting their deadlines, then is an 8-hour day really an absolute necessity? The truth is, you’re never getting 8 hours of work from your staff. Studies show workers, on average, only actually work for three (3) hours each day. A shocker, I know… but it’s true. Make clear your expectations for the team but let them figure out the best way to make them happen for you.

Thank you for reading!

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