Three organizational must haves to #workfromanywhere.

Even before COVID, Reverb adopted what we would now consider a hybrid approach to work. We didn’t have the words for it, but we’ve always embraced autonomy and flexibility. We had a small office in a coworking space in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square and while we usually gathered in person for team meetings, the rest of the time people did what worked best for them. I used the office more than others, often up to four days a week due to having noisy teens at home. Some people worked from home a few days a week, and others would come in for meetings then turn around and head back home where they were free from distractions. Since COVID, we’ve given up our office and our definition of flexibility is now much more open ended, as it is for many companies.?

With the freedom to #workfromanywhere, I started planning a three month stint in Costa Rica, and embarked on that adventure once my youngest left for college. As I write this, I’m wrapping up my three month remote work “experiment” which will now become my new winter survival strategy.

Other folks on the team have worked from Boston, Maine, and Bali, sometimes to be with family, sometimes to break up the winter. We all appreciate the opportunity to be where we want/need to be, without being forced to take vacation when we can just as easily work remotely. For the skeptics, I want to say I’ve never experienced any disruption based on where people are working. The exception might be my first week abroad which was plagued by a series of water and power outages. I often forget who’s going where until I see them pop up on a video call with a background I don’t recognize.??

During video calls from Costa Rica, I’ve noticed whoever I’m talking to is often as interested in what I’m doing here as they are in learning more about how we can solve their HR needs. Many leaders aspire to do something similar and to offer their teams more flexibility. But people also worry about maintaining the quality of work, creativity, and personal connections that make their teams successful.?

In spite of the evidence we gathered during COVID which shows that people can be highly effective and experience less stress when working remotely, many CEOs are still worried about performance. Front line managers wonder how they’ll know if people are getting their work done. They’re unsure whether their team members will meet the same high standards in terms of the quantity and quality of work, creativity, and collaboration when people aren’t colocated.?

Whether your team is working from their homes in a single city, or distributed across the globe, here are a few cultural norms you’ll want to be sure you have in place to successfully support a #workfromanywhere approach.

What might surprise you is that the fundamentals of managing a location agnostic team are not all that different from what it takes to manage any team well. It’s our perception of remote work that creates uncertainty, requiring a mindset shift and a leap of faith.??

Spend Time Making Roles and Goals Clear

How do you know if people are getting their work done? Arguably, the same way you always did. Even pre-COVID, no one I know managed by peering over people’s shoulders, monitoring their progress, and watching to see that they logged 8+ hours a day in the office. If that’s how they were managing, it’s a different issue altogether. We’ve always needed mechanisms like periodic reviews, one on ones, and status updates to understand how well a person was performing their job.?

At the heart of performance management is a job description that clearly covers expectations and deliverables, and written goals that include priorities, success measures, timelines, etc. If you regularly review progress, adjust goals as needed, and conduct in depth talent reviews, you’ll know who’s exceeding and who's failing short regardless of where they are and when or how they get their work done.

Build Trust, Hire Well, Give Feedback

You really do have to trust your team to feel comfortable with remote work. That means trusting in your interview process to ensure you’re hiring people who are motivated and can work independently. It means trusting your managers to set clear goals, have meaningful one on one conversations, and frequently give clear feedback.?

Good judgment means setting and checking on boundaries, and reacting appropriately if there are red flags or if things begin to go sideways. For instance, if an employee is missing deadlines or their work is subpar, managers need to be ready and able to point that out, get curious about the cause, and effectively coach their team. If things don’t turn around, they’ll need to give constructive feedback and more actively manage performance expectations.?

Reimagine Flexibility

Before COVID, flexibility was narrowly defined. It often meant the “freedom” to attend a doctor's appointment or pick up a sick child from school. This version of flexibility often came with a penalty, which was that those hours had to be made up promptly. I worked at a large tech company where we joked that flexibility was defined as “any eighty hours.” Sure you could go to your son’s school play or your daughter’s soccer game, it just meant you’d be back online until 11PM catching up on what you’d missed.?

Today, flexibility has come to include a broader set of norms that truly enable distributed and remote work, not to mention improved work life balance which has been key for working parents and other caregivers. Flexibility can include work location, time zone, redefining “core hours,” and creating systems that limit meetings and support asynchronous work. It’s time we focus less on when and where work happens, opting instead to prioritize people’s ability to get their work done, effectively manage their teams, and support their peers.?

Overall, while the idea of #workfromanywhere feels new to many of us, it may not be as hard as you think to put into practice. Allowing your team this kind of flexibility is an incredible tool to prevent burnout while increasing loyalty and engagement. If you’re not sure, pilot it yourself and see how it feels. I love seeing what my team does with their freedom, and where they’ll go next. I’m already looking forward to next year in Costa Rica.?