By now you’ve probably heard about Stack Overflow’s commitment to making remote work, well… work. If not, you can read about it <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2013/02/01/why-we-still-believe-in-working-remotely/">here </a>, <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/04/14/cant-afford-private-offices/">here </a>, and a whole page of links <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/tags/remote-work/">here </a>. Seriously, we care about it a LOT. At Stack Overflow we want to hire the best person for the job, even if that person is in Salt Lake City, Utah; Berlin, Germany; or São Paulo, Brazil. Promoting remote work promotes diversity, and we are committed to improving both.

The logistics of Stack Overflow’s remote-first philosophy

This is definitely the most important piece of the remote puzzle. You need a person whose stated job is to make sure that remote employees have a specific person for questions, concerns, and problems. When we <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-c4al&utm_content=c4al-link">hire a new remote employee </a>, I tell them that they can come to me with any type of question, and I will try my best to answer it, or at least point them in the right direction. I get aaaaaall kinds of questions and requests. For instance, I now know how to buy and ship Belgian beer to Poland for an employee that wasn’t able to attend a work event because of a surgery. Also FYI, Uruguay has very strict restrictions on voltage of household items, so getting a crank-lever standing desk to Montevideo was fun (read: not fun). There also needs to be someone on the executive team (it’s better if there is more than one someone) consistently asking “What about the remotes?” When you have a new “x,” the execs should be thinking about how that impacts all employees, including remotes.

Have a dedicated remote person (like me!) to be the point person for remote needs.

Companies will encounter a wide range of odd legalities in dealing with remote employees, especially with international folks.It definitely helps to have an HR department that is certified in immigration and visa issues. The same goes for finance departments. The taxation alone is a handful with multiple states/countries. You need an entity for each state, which requires considerable forethought. You also have to file payrolls properly and that varies depending on location.

Have your People and Finance Teams homed in on remote needs

We’ve already touched on this in the other blog posts, but it bears repeating: If one person in the meeting is remote, we’re all remote. If there are 5 people in a conference room and 2 people dialing in remotely, it is very easy for the folks in the meeting room to forget about the people dialed in. You can eliminate that problem by having everyone call in, if possible. Currently in the Stack Overflow NYC office it is really common to walk around and see two people on a hangout even though their offices are next to each other!

Remote first

We have regular “Bev Bashes” and holiday parties in the offices, but what about the remotes? How do you give them fun stuff even though they are scattered all over the world? For starters, we have “Remote Bev Bashes” over <a href="https://www.zoom.us/?zcid=1173&gclid=CKXQhYvundYCFYtLDQodtcICtQ">Zoom </a>every Friday. The “Bev Baron” for that week (nominated by the last Bev Baron) schedules a Zoom call and sets a theme. Employees grab a beverage of their choice and just chat. You can stay for just a few minutes to say hi, or you can be a part of the entire thing.

Try to recreate office fun stuff in a remote capacity

Once a year, we bring all of our remote employees together for a week for some much needed face-time. It’s a different city each time, and there are usually 3 days of Executive Keynotes, Tiny Talks, and many many games of Werewolf. We talk about the state of the company and new projects and teams, but we vow not to make any huge decisions or business altering plans. The focus is on camaraderie, not profits. We look forward to it all year, and it’s definitely a blast.

Bring them all together

When a new remote employee is hired, I contact them for their furniture choices. They get their choice of the exact same desks and chairs that we have in the offices, free of charge. We want them to be as comfortable as possible, and that means if they want to stand instead of sit, no problem. Our IT dept sets them up with all of their tech, and I set them up with everything else. Need a filing cabinet? Cool. You want a different type of desk that is bright pink and sings? Hey, it’s your house. We re-create the in-office set-ups as much as possible so that our remote employees never feel less valued than everyone else.

Make their home workspaces as awesome as the offices

HowTo

Making Remote Work: Behind the Scenes at Stack Overflow

By considering the answers to twelve questions, an organization can measure where it is on the scale regarding their ability to attract and retain talent. These questions don’t necessarily give a recipe, but what they do is cover the key elements.

Why Q12

<ul><li>Do I know what is expected of me at work?</li><li>Do I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work properly?</li><li>At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?</li><li>In the last 7 days have I received recognition or praise for good work?</li><li>Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?</li><li>Is there someone at work who encourages my development?</li></ul>

Question 1-6

<ul><li>At work, do my opinions seem to count?</li><li>Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?</li><li>Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?</li><li>Do I have a best friend at work?</li><li>In the last 6 months, have I talked with someone at work about my progress?</li><li>At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?</li></ul>

Questions 7-12

An ongoing employee survey that measures employee engagement, the Q12 consists of 12 actionable workplace elements that offer proven links to performance outcomes.

An ongoing survey that measures employee engagement, the Gallup Q12 employee surveys consist of 12 actionable items that offer impact performance outcomes.

Gallup Q12 Employee Survey 

In the wake of Covid-19, organizations are fundamentally rethinking their product and service portfolios, reinventing their supply chains, pursuing large-scale organizational restructuring and digital transformation, and rebuilding to correct systemic racism from the ground up. Traditional change management process won’t cut it. The author borrows from agile software development processes to reinvent the change management playbook.

Summary

In the midst of a Covid-induced recession, and with some industries on the brink of extinction, change isn’t about fine-tuning — it’s existential.But traditional change management — often characterized by heavy process, lengthy timelines, and clunky rollouts — won’t cut it right now. The type of change management required in this moment is quick, agile, and (in many cases) virtual.

It's Different Now

The first step in well-known change management models is often to “create a sense of urgency.” Depending on the change you are pursuing, you may be able to skip straight to declaring a change vision that outlines a compelling vision of your future state.Companies without a clear vision will spend too much time fielding stakeholder inquiries instead of tending to the necessary changes.

Declare your change vision

CEOs can accelerate the change process by empowering a group of trusted experts deeper in the organization who can be redeployed full-time against the challenge at hand.Companies should also look to build an external network of advisors who can quickly be tapped to weigh in on business threats where in-house expertise doesn’t exist.To eliminate friction and delays, the group of internal and external experts will also need to quickly align on guiding principles and open a physical or virtual “war room” to drive collaboration.

Empower the people who are best positioned to drive change

When time is of the essence, these teams can help tackle challenges and opportunities as they see them, including those that aren’t visible to leadership but are critical to supporting the change agenda.

Encourage self-organizing teams to supplement your efforts

nternal social media and collaboration platforms are likely the fastest and most effective way to drive understanding of your change efforts and recruit the people who will champion the transformation.This more informal channel created greater authenticity, enabled two-way dialogue and made it possible for the CEO to assess employee sentiment as the change efforts unfolded.Employee influencers should be tapped to initiate online conversation around change efforts , leveraging positive peer pressure to bring colleagues on board and creating a sense of virtual community around the initiative.

Use internal social channels and influencers

Recent events have confirmed what many change leaders already knew — though your change vision is critical to driving alignment and buy-in, that picture will seldom stay the same from the start of a change project to its finish. The fact that many companies are bringing employees back to work in phases allows for the agile iteration and continuous learning. They should take advantage by piloting change tools and processes on early returners and improving them with each subsequent wave.

Embrace a “test-and-learn” approach

The virtues of the shift from annual performance reviews to frequent check-ins should be apparent to leaders looking to drive rapid behavior change. More frequent feedback enables real-time coaching and allows managers to place the emphasis on what is most needed from the employee in that moment.Reward programs can also help drive swift behavior change. Retailers instituted hazard and overtime pay to support their change efforts at the onset of Covid-19, and many of their employees rose to the occasion, taking on tough assignments to keep the business humming.

Shift from long-term to short-term accountability

Non-financial rewards play an even larger role in more challenging economic times. Korn Ferry research indicates that these non-financial rewards (e.g., meaningful work, career development, training, recognition) are more instrumental in talent engagement and retention than base pay and variable pay programs.

Formal adoption of agile may or may not be right for your organization but now is the time to consider how to make change management work faster and harder. If we know anything for certain in this moment, it’s that more change is coming.

When facing crisis-driven change, consider these modifications from Sarah Jensen Clayton  to accelerate and streamline your process.

In the wake of Covid-19, organizations are fundamentally rethinking their product and service portfolios, reinventing their supply chains, pursuing large-scale organizational restructuring and digital transformation, and rebuilding to correct systemic racism from the ground up. Traditional change management process won’t cut it. The author borrows from agile software development processes to reinvent the change management playbook.

An Agile Approach to Change Management

Here are five of the most interesting and useful strategies I've found and highlighted recently. The science suggests that if you want to do right by your kids, you should probably do these things.Here are five of the most interesting and useful strategies I've found and highlighted recently. The science suggests that if you want to do right by your kids, you should probably do these things.By Bill Murphy Jr.

Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 5 Habits Matter

Make your kids do chores. They might not love the idea to start with, but research has proven that kids who did self-care and other-care chores were in fact more likely to exhibit better academic performances and problem-solving skills.

1. Make them do chores.

Teaching kids to say "please" when they ask for something can reinforce their tendency to be polite, which makes them more persuasive when they're older. Teaching them to say "thank you" habitually encourages gratitude, which stimulates happiness and makes stress easier to deal with.And teaching them to say "you're welcome" reinforces confidence by emphasizing that the things they do for others are worthy of thanks. (This is especially true when you juxtapose "you're welcome" with other things people say in response to "thank you," like "no worries!" or "no problem!")

2. Teach them to be polite.

Children who develop emotional intelligence also develop a higher chance of graduating, getting a good job, and just being happy.There are many things you can do to develop emotional intelligence, but at the outset, model your good thinking and use of emotions for them, ask them for their ideas, and try not to judge.Oh, and remember that kids are just that: kids. It's unfair often to expect them to react and respond to things like adults would (or at least, should!).

3. Work on their emotional intelligence.

Wait, what? Tell them to play video games?Yes, indeed. A new study out of Europe that used a "massive" amount of data determined that kids who spend an above-average amount of time playing them wind up with higher IQs than kids who spend their screen time watching videos or scrolling through social media.Kids today spent a massive amount of time glued to screens, on average. This study of 5,000 children at least suggests that if they're going to be using screens that much, the higher the percentage of that time they spend on video games, the better.

4. Steer them toward video games.

Passion is predictive of whether kids are successful; while mindset and grit might help young people to continue attempting to succeed, it was passion that best predicted whether they actually would.So, when kids are kids, let them explore different things to determine the ones that they're truly passionate about. That's where they're most likely to become the absolute best in their field.

5. Help them figure out their passion(s).

“The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line.”-Eileen Kennedy-Moore

Quote on Child Development

5 Science Based Habits for Raising Successful Children

The science suggests that if you want to do right by your kids, you should probably do these things.

Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 5 Habits Matter, Bigtime

A manager knows its star performers. The company's world is easier thanks to them. Great employees don't always make noise. If their unhappiness last long, they might just get up and go. They know their own worth and can find another company looking for A players.

Great employess don't complain, they leave.

1. Stay engaged - keep lines of communication open with regular, consistent, weekly 1:1s.2. Be curious - find out what engages them by simply asking "what enables you to bring your best self to work? What drives and motivates you?"  Just ask.3. Take action - once you know what drives your employees, create a plan and act on it. Having an agreed upon plan with your employees makes a difference. It's never foolproof of course, but the odds of you being aware of potential issues and being able to solve them proactively is higher with a plan in place.

How to keep the best people?

Interesting observation about how valuable team members react to unhappiness in the work place and how to prevent it. Liked the "just ask" part of the process of mediation.

As a new manager, who comes to mind when you think of a great employee? In most cases it only takes a second or two to answer that question - you know your star performers. Your best people constantly impress you with their work and the positive impact they have on others.

Making Remote Work: Behind the Scenes at Stack Overflow

Gallup Q12 Employee Survey

An Agile Approach to Change Management

Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 5 Habits Matter, Bigtime

Great Employees Don't Complain - They Walk Away

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