Workers won’t unlearn the value of regaining hours of personal time no longer spent in traffic | Future of Work Club

Welcome to the Future of Work Club! ????

Your go-to resource for inspiration, knowledge, and growth in the world of remote work. Get ready to reshape your perspective on remote working! ????

In this edition, we deep-dive into how to build a great culture in organizations working remotely. Read a fascinating interview with @Diana Aitchison, a Remote Operations Manager at Bunker Digital Inc.

Here's a glimpse of what we have talked about:

• Talk about living the dream -? Diana's journey into remote work started with a bold move - selling everything to travel the world! Instead of leaving their job, she found a way to work remotely and even started their own consulting business in places like SE Asia and Europe.
• Effective communication and trust are key in managing remote teams. Involving the team in decision-making and nurturing a culture of mutual respect - it's all about building a strong foundation for success.
• While some are hesitant to fully embrace remote work, the pandemic has shown the world that distributed teams can thrive. Diana sees the rise of hybrid workplaces but believes true remote work offers unparalleled benefits like global talent access and location flexibility.
• Companies should embrace remote work in their own unique style. From using the right tools to prioritizing clear communication and intentional relationship building, it's all about adapting to the remote way of working

??? Meet Diana Aitchison???

I’m currently the Remote Operations Manager at Bunker Digital Inc. , a small completely remote company. I’m a huge advocate of remote work and a global workplace, both personally and professionally. I spend at least half of my time abroad and work seamlessly from wherever I call home. I genuinely believe that remote work is THE future of work for most people. It’s revolutionised the way I work and live.?

You embraced remote work well before it became a widespread movement. What initially drew you to remote work, and what you have learned from working remotely for more than 8 years??

My remote career started after my spouse and I sold our house, car and belongings to travel the world. Even though I worked in technology, it was fairly unheard of for folks to work entirely remotely, so I assumed I would have to resign my position and spend the next year or two strictly travelling.?

When I discussed my plans with my employer, they offered me a contract position instead which I could fulfil while abroad. I realised quickly that this was an ideal situation and started my own virtual consulting business. I picked up other clients and worked for myself for the next 5 years from places ranging from SE Asia to Europe and the Americas.?

Two years ago, one of the founders of that same company contacted me about helping him hire a remote team and facilitate a global operation in his new venture. We had always kept in contact and he knew I had been not only working remotely but assisting other businesses?

set up remote teams. I started as a contractor but became employee #1 when it became clear how his vision aligned with my own values perfectly.?

I saw the evolution of remote work in that time. Whereas I was an outlier in the early part of my remote career, the pandemic made people working from home a common story. Some of my early challenges were around convincing folks to trust in a remote work relationship, but Covid forced people to realise that effective workplaces can occur with a distributed team.?

How do you ensure effective communication with your team, and what strategies do you use to foster a strong remote team culture??

It all comes down to nurturing a culture of mutual respect and trust. Anyone who has worked in an environment lacking these factors can tell you how toxic and ineffective they end up being. You cannot monitor and regulate a group of people into being high performing employees. Hiring carefully, training a team well, providing the tools and support necessary to succeed as well as the safety to learn and evolve, is a much better approach.?

Involving your team in your processes and decision-making is also important. Ask them what’s important to them, what’s working and what could be improved (often). Let their input inform your decisions and actions (again, often). In this way, your culture will reflect your people and mutual values.

Based on your extensive experience, how do you see remote work evolving in the next few years, especially considering the changes brought about by recent global events??

We aren’t there yet when it comes to remote work. We are seeing a RTW movement occurring in the wake of Covid concerns waning. I attribute a lot of that to fear-based backpedalling. People are slow to adopt new paradigms, especially those forced upon them, and a lot of people want a “return to normal” that they don’t want to admit doesn’t really exist any longer.?

We have also seen the emergence of hybrid workplaces, which I admit to not being a big fan of. It fails to realise some of the greatest advantages of remote work, namely allowing staff to live wherever they wish or need to for their best life. It also prevents employers from accessing the global talent pool and in turn - supporting equity and diversity on a global scale, by allowing workers the opportunity to participate in a global work economy without the need to move or immigrate.?

I anticipate that many of these problems will solve themselves with more time and experience. We have already seen that with companies facing hiring challenges last year. The hiring climate right now is not as competitive, but no evolution is a straight line. It’s a trend and one I don’t see regressing backwards in any permanent way.?

Countless employee surveys indicate the value of location flexibility to employees, even at the expense of salary or role. Workers won’t unlearn the value of regaining hours of personal time no longer spent in traffic, or the ability to live near family or in a less expensive housing market or location they always dreamed of. Even if leaders can’t appreciate the cost savings of forgoing unnecessary physical work locations, they will be forced to face the workforce costs - an inability to hire and retain the best talent. As with all change, those reluctant to evolve will struggle and fall behind.?

Finally, for companies that are either transitioning to remote work or looking to improve their remote processes, what key insights or recommendations can you offer from your time at Bunker Digital??

The best advice I can give is to approach remote work as its own unique workstyle rather than trying to recreate an in-person experience. That means sourcing and adopting the right tools, embracing ASYNC, setting clear expectations, intentional relationship building, being available and responsive, and communicating (if in doubt, over-communicating).