deepstash
Beta
Deepstash brings you key ideas from the most inspiring articles like this one:
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
Why Remote Work Thrives in Some Companies and Fails in Others
4
Key Ideas
Save all ideas
Why some companies fail at remote work
Companies that fail at remote work focus too much on technology and too little on the process. Successful remote work is based on clear processes that support three core principles.
- Communication: The ability to exchange information.
- Coordination: The ability to work toward a common goal.
- Culture: A shared set of customs that foster trust and engagement.
1 SAVE
Communication in a virtual environment
It can be difficult to explain complex ideas. The lack of face-to-face interaction limits social cues, which may lead to misunderstandings and conflict.
- To avoid miscues and misinterpretation, match the message with the medium. Videoconferencing is the next best tool to talking face-to-face. Small, non-urgent requests are best suited to e-mail, instant messaging, or all-in-one platforms like Slack.
- Frequency of communication matters. Provide regular updates, respond to messages promptly, be available at important times.
1 SAVE
Remote work coordination
Remote workers should be working in harmony, but people often don't know what others are doing and how everything fits together.
- Create formal processes that simulate the informal way; for example, stopping by a colleague's desk or eating lunch together. These interactions serve as course corrections.
- Managers should clearly articulate the mission, assign roles and responsibilities, create detailed project plans, establish performance metrics. They should also document all that and make it available offsite.
- Managers should model and enforce the processes until they are completely incorporated.
1 SAVE
Remote company culture
Remote workers who rarely meet with their teammates face to face tend to focus on tasks and ignore the team. A culture is vital to foster engagement and sustain performance over the long term.
Establish trust. Affective trust (based on feeling) is tricky to build virtually.
- You may need to bring team members together for short periods.
- Rituals, such as #toasts feed the culture and provide recognition for employees. Otherwise, schedule regular informal calls as a group or one-on-one.
1 SAVE
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
9
Key Ideas
The challenges of hybrid teams
Most companies embracing remote work also have dedicated headquarters. But remote-ish teams have even more communication and collaboration challenges than fully remote teams.
...Remote-friendly vs remote-first
The single biggest mistake companies can make is to opt to be remote-friendly instead of remote-first. Companies often accept the idea that remote is the future of work without creating an inclusive culture to ensure it works for everyone.
- Remote-friendly environment: Employees are allowed to work remotely, but work is not optimized for it. There is a disconnect between office and remote employees and team meetings exclusively occur in a co-located time zone. Water cooler chat is a space for key decisions and presence is correlated with meaningful work. Communication is synchronous-first. Managers must work in the office.
- Remote-first companies: Employees are empowered to adopt remote work. Real-time meetings are kept to a minimum and recorded. Decisions are made online and performance is measured by output, not by hours worked. Communication is asynchronous-first. Managers are encouraged to work from home.
Connecting a remote-ish team
Hybrid companies function best when the entire company is optimized for remote work. Successful hybrid teams set up processes to help their remote workers thrive alongside their office teammates.
Leadership must acknowledge the various challenges remote workers face and create solutions. Create a remote work policy that keeps remote workers and contractors from feeling like second class team members. Remote workers should feel fully connected and not missing a thing.
10
Key Ideas
How Remote Work Became Possible
- Computers and the internet have made remote work a common arrangement, and this is a recent phenomenon. PC and internet access changed the shape of work in an unimaginable way, and the techn...
Slow Adoption of Flexible Work
Today, remote and flexible work arrangements are seen as a perk.
In 2018, a survey showed that around 3 percent of Americans worked from home on a regular basis. Due to technological advancements (starting with Blackberry), employees were working from everywhere, the subway, the café, home and during the commute.
But even after we have the technology required for remote working for about fifteen odd years, we have been slow to adopt mainstream remote working. The mass-adoption needed a catalyst, and that was provided in 2020 in the form of a deadly disease.
Remote Work During The Pandemic
- The 2020 pandemic has shown that all remote working is possible, and bosses are no longer reluctant towards it, a forced change due to the present conditions.
- Many global giants like Google and Twitter have embraced remote work in a big way, in their bid to protect worker health and to reduce corporate liability.
- The unpredictable nature of the pandemic and an expectation of the second wave of infections can hamper any chance to return to offices.