Working from... Anywhere(?)

Every month I write a newsletter about what's happening in the Southeast Asian start-up ecosystem. I'm writing for people that have broad interests and are willing to take an unconventional stance on non-trivial issues - just like the entrepreneurs that we're looking to back. You can read previous issues or sign-up here.

I wrote the below article last year as part of the monthly newsletter that I send out. It's interesting to revisit as some of the things that are discussed are becoming more permanent.

Introduction

The tension between being prevented from brunching and breathing reached crescendo in the US recently. It’s sad to see the effect that systemic racism has had on lives and communities in the US, we only hope that there’s a resolution and some of the entrenched inequalities begin to be dismantled as a result of the current environment. It would also be nice if there was a significantly improved leadership to steer the US out of the current quagmire.

Leadership will become more important not just at a country or state level but also at a micro level with companies as we embrace the changes that come from living more of our lives online from home. Avoiding the political quagmire, the impacts of having a larger focus on employees working from home will be significant and it is something that companies in Southeast Asia can do something about. There are a couple of questions that need to be asked to start planning for the present realities:

·     What does it mean for employees?

·     How will communication happen?

·     What is going to be missed?

What does it mean for employees?

The lines between work-time and home-time will blur further but this might not necessarily be a bad thing as employees have more time to spend on the things that matter to them. Twitter, Salesforce and Google amongst others have all announced that all employees will be working from home for the rest of the year. Undoubtedly, there will be other companies that follow suit and for some roles this could become the default in the future.

As a result of employees working from home, Facebook announced that it will adjust employee salaries based on where they’re living. Being a “remote-first” company, this is something that GitHub has acknowledged. GitHub publishes its compensation adjustments by location - i.e. SF:1, NYC:0.90, Seattle:0.90, Boston:0.85, London:0.65, Toronto:0.60. Alternatively, Basecamp, also a remote-first company, has always paid the same regardless of where the employees are located. The rationale here makes more sense to me, employees are paid to do a job, where they do that job (as long as physical proximity isn’t a requirement) is irrelevant. The value that an employee is able to deliver should drive the remuneration discussion. 

All start-ups are going to have to take a position on “remote work,” deciding if they are remote-first, allow remote work, or avoid it completely. For the companies that embrace remote work, they will need to consider how they’ll remunerate employees that aren’t located in the same place as the mothership. This has been a perk for some businesses but as it becomes the default, start-ups will need to be able to offer similar services or lose potential opportunities.

Time zones will still matter for ease of agenda matching but there’s some flex. If employees are able to do the same job in a similar time zone, then it will make more sense for some to be in the location with the lowest cost adjusted standard of living (South America vs San Fran). There is nuance here which will be dealt with below but on the flip-side, it also creates the opportunity for companies to hire the best talent on their loose longitude. Beyond time zones, there is little stopping people from working at any place any time and delivering the same or potentially more value to the business. Think about how you’re approaching remote in the future, don’t avoid the discussion. 

How will communication happen?

Communication becomes more important as people don’t spend as much time in the same location. It’s likely that decision makers will want to operate from in the mothership, shunning remote work. The ability to quickly gather information, make a decision, and disseminate the subsequent consequences with nuance is difficult to replace. Beyond the ability to quickly make decisions, the serendipitous conversations that people have working in the same location is difficult to replace. It’s not like you can just spin around and talk to a colleague about an idea.

As more communication moves to writing, there’s a natural filter that people place over their ideas. This might stop germs from mutating and blossoming into something meaningful. These conversations have still been happening recently as people have had the time to connect while they’ve been stuck at home but if working from home becomes the norm, it’s less likely that spontaneous conversations will happen.

An alternative could be having a “water-cooler” zoom room open throughout the day where people can pop in and chat. Alternatively, encouraging co-workers to drop their filters when writing, letting those germs get through, as well as being responsive to asynchronous communications so ideas don’t lose momentum will help.

What is going to be missing?

There are a few areas that will be difficult to replace; preserving and fermenting culture, cross-department communications, and career trajectory.

Being remote means that start-ups need to have structures in place to protect and project their culture to new recruits. It becomes more difficult to transfer tacit knowledge when there’s no one next to you to explain how things work. It’s easier to whisper to a colleague and ask a “stupid question” than it is to put something in writing via Slack, which feels like it will be preserved for eternity and could potentially be forwarded. Assigning buddies to help with the onboarding while encouraging “safe digital spaces” can help to transmit some of that knowledge.

Largely, explicit knowledge will have to be codified, local wikis/repos will become more important. Tacit knowledge will be transferred through the actions of others, technology can amplify the results for good or bad so it’s likely that more structured context will need to be given to explain the rationale.

As people don’t randomly cross paths with others in the organisation, there will be less understanding of what’s happening in different silos. For this reason, companies that embrace remote work are likely to embrace open communications. This means encouraging different departments to communicate in writing with the company as a whole or rotating departmental presentations so people can understand who is doing what and why. These communications can express the functions, tasks, and goals of the department. Communicating in this way could lead to increased collaboration opportunities and reduce the independent feelings of isolation that will undoubtedly come with a more closed environment.

Another aspect that has been starting to appear in remote first companies is a lack of career trajectory. Just as we went through a cycle of specialisation to ownership of the whole process with industrialisation (specialisation meant that employees didn’t have as much ownership over the whole and quality dropped even while error-prone output increased), we’re likely to see a similar trajectory with knowledge work. Employees will be encouraged to take on more of the tasks, reducing the lag implicit in handing off tasks. As employees go broader, they lose some of the depth.

Further, they could have less face-time with decision makers as they aren’t in the same location. This could make promotion decisions more difficult – how can you understand the value that someone adds unless you understand their role and value-add specifically? Again, documentation and open communication becomes more valuable to highlight the attributes of co-workers. Individual projects and accomplishments will become selling points for individuals beyond title or rank, which could be needlessly inflated at some traditional companies. Employees need to understand what a remote career trajectory will look like and have clear goals and objectives to succeed when they’re given increased autonomy.

The Mothership

Some things won’t change, there will still be a need to have a “mothership” and regular external gatherings of staff will become more important.

As mentioned above, decision makers will likely gravitate towards a centralised location, a mothership. The mothership will become a cultural artefact, where tacit knowledge is stored and amplified. New recruits might head to the mothership for a couple of days or weeks as part of the onboarding process. It could also be a place that teams gather when they need to make a short-term and relatively ambitious deadline (i.e. it shouldn’t be the norm). Staff that want to embrace the physical interactions should be allowed to visit the mothership. However, it shouldn’t be a disadvantage for those that aren’t able to attend e.g. everyone in a physical meeting dials in and interacts via video conference to give those not present the same experience.

Annual or semi-annual gatherings can allow people to get together and increase awareness and understanding of their co-workers – there’s a lot of nuance that’s lost when using technology to communicate. Having a better understanding of co-workers increases cohesion. The reduced required footprint at the mothership will give companies additional budget that can be spent on regular off-sites. Increased unity from physical interactions will help to build trust and create synergies that will exceed any short-term costs.

Summing Up

While the move to adopt remote working styles will be a shock for a majority of traditional companies, those that are able to embrace technology should excel. There are subtleties that mean remote-first will require more work but on the whole, it should mean more time, opportunity, and efficiency for companies and employees.