REMOTE WORK DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS: How do you make sure you are collaborating effectively while working remotely?

What’s it about?

Based on the book Remote, written by Jason Fried and David H. Hansson, in this article, I am trying to provide you an inside look at a new necessary kind of work relationship, called “remote work”. This article details companies’ common concerns about allowing employees to work remotely and in contrast, outlines the many benefits we can get from this new necessity of remote work. Importantly, it also offers practical advice to leaders that are facing this new situation.

Why do you no longer have to work in an office to be productive?

When we think about work, we usually think of an office. A worker behind every desk, typing away on a laptop. Morning meetings in a big room to discuss recent projects. Gossip at the coffee machine; take-away lunch in a paper bag.

Yet the coronavirus outbreak is pushing us to totally change the way we think of work. This new situation is pushing us to find new ways of sharing information, once sitting in an office from 9 to 5 is no longer possible and why not say, necessary, to get things done.

Regardless of the coronavirus outbreak, more and more, organization employees are working outside of the main office, and companies are also sharing in the benefits of this new type of working arrangement.

But as more organizations begin to offer more flexibility to their workers, both employees and leaders have discovered that working remotely has its own complexities. Yet with the proper attitude and a few simple ground rules, organizations can benefit greatly from remote work.

Working remotely is a great way for organizations to keep the best and brightest of their employees.

Recent technological developments have cut the strings of employees tied to their cubicles in an office, day in and day out. Workers can now choose remote work, or work done away from an office.

Even before the current situation caused by the coronavirus, remote work was hugely popular with both workers and their companies. For organizations, hiring remote employees gives them access to a wide talent pool, helping them to find the best professional for a certain job.

Even not living in a major metropolitan area, we can still access world-class talent if we consider hiring professionals who live elsewhere, allowing them to work remotely.

Technology has made it easier to work with someone on the other side of the world. For example, a basic (and free) Zoom account allows us to videoconference with co-workers, regardless of where they are in the globe.

But what about the current situation? Should we work remotely?

Regardless of the coronavirus, considering the fact that people often switch jobs for personal reasons, offering to our employees the option to work remotely can help keep them on our team.

Even workaholics have a life outside their job – the needs of family, friends or hobbies sometimes require an employee to move to a new location.

Rather than simply firing employees who need to move, companies instead offer the option to work remotely. After all, it’s better to hold on to a good, trained staff than to have to manage a new employee who needs extensive training and time to get up to speed.

Remote work gives people the freedom to be productive, and currently, handle the outbreak situation.

Remote work offers a worker the flexibility to complete daily chores while still being productive. As employees can organize their time the way they want, they can make sure that they have time for work as well as for other things, such as housework or family time.

This sort of situation, even forced right now, is perfect for workers who require a greater degree of flexibility in their day.

For example, in a normal scenario, working in an office, our day is dictated by the office schedule, and cutting out for two hours to pick up your children requires permission, canceling meetings, and whatnot. Yet if you work remotely, you could easily stop what you are doing and quickly take care of things.

Moreover, not everyone works efficiently at the same time. Some people are energetic in the late afternoon, while others prefer working in the early morning or even in the evening. Unconstrained by traditional working hours, remote work allows us to work whenever we are most productive, for sure, always keeping in mind that the ones that work assisting clients should respect the established period of time to support their customers.

This period when we will have to work remotely will be especially important for people involved in creative projects. It’s almost impossible to force inspiration just because the “official” workday has begun! If you are trying to develop a cure for coronavirus, you can’t guarantee that your muse will be ready to go exactly between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Working remotely improves the quality of work done by eliminating common office distractions.

Companies might be wary to introduce remote work as they might think that allowing employees to work outside the office would encourage them to be lazy.

The current situation can prove the thesis that, in fact, working in an office can be far less productive than working remotely.

When you work in an office, you are surrounded by other employees. Distractions are rife – a coffee break here, a little chat there, and soon enough half of your workday is already squandered.

Additionally, much of your work is tied to the work of other employees. This can lead to you being peppered with and distracted by questions that probably should wait, but that your co-workers nonetheless harass you with, as you are sitting right there – and “it will only take a second!”

Of course, if you work remotely from home during the quarantine, there are bound to be interruptions and distractions as well. The difference is that you can better administer such disruptions.

You can ignore emails that are not urgent until you finish your own work; you are protected from pestering co-workers, and you can tell your spouse that you are unreachable until noon.

In this way, remote work can allow us to better focus than we would if working in an office.

In addition, remote work can help corporations to see through the noise of unimportant details of the workday to the true quality of an employee’s work. If an employee works remotely, an organization can evaluate that employee solely based on the actual quality of his work. Think about it: What does it matter if someone starts their workday half an hour later if the work they submit on time is impeccable?

“Face time” does not equal productivity; neither does desk time. Let’s take this situation as an opportunity and give remote work a chance!

We’ve seen the benefits that remote work can offer. But if working remotely is so great for both employees and companies, why do so many companies still resist it, even during the coronavirus outbreak?

One frequent argument against remote work is that having workers in many different places makes it more difficult to build organizational culture. However, this perspective confuses “organizational culture” with “team building.”

Organizational culture is not about ensuring that our employees have the same lifestyle and lunch hour; it is about how our organization’s values are reflected through our workforce.

Things like a positive attitude toward customer needs and long-term productivity goals are what counts in building a lasting organizational culture. Regular face-to-face meetings between colleagues are not necessary, however, to understand and implement that culture.

Another reason that organizations resist remote work is that they believe that innovation only happens when employees collaborate face-to-face. Even if this is true, organizations still struggle to implement ideas that have already been developed through face-to-face meetings.

If you can’t implement each day’s new idea, there’s no need for workers to meet every day!

Furthermore, many leaders think that a body in a chair in an office equals productivity. In other words, if you’re not at the office, you’re not being productive. However, a leader doesn’t have more control over a worker just because s/he’s sitting across the hall. If anything, a leader is simply fooling himself into thinking he has control.  

Many organizations reject remote work offhand. These employers lazily contend that, while remote work might be fine for others, it just wouldn’t work for their company, however, during this outbreak, organizations of all sizes from all industries have successfully been introducing remote work, including some companies you might think too traditional or too big to change – AT&T, Aetna, Intel and even the U.S. government!

Unfortunately, we will not have time to test the waters and take it slow to see whether remote work really works for us.

Some organizations believe that they are too invested in office work to make a successful shift to remote work during the quarantine. However, it doesn’t matter whether you administer employees at a start-up or at a multibillion-dollar established company: we can always introduce remote work into our normal workflow.

“Going remote” simply means that our workforce are not chained daily to their desks at the company office. It does not mean, however, that at the end of the coronavirus outbreak they cannot be there at all.

Working remotely is not an all-or-nothing commitment. Not in this case but, when possible, leaders might first test the waters by offering a few employees the opportunity to work remotely for a few days per week, for example. This way, we can see for ourselves whether remote work is a good option to the organization and get an idea of what we will need to pay particular attention to, before allowing more employees to work remotely for a longer period of time.

But whatever we do, we can not jump to make a decision. If we want to introduce remote work, we cannot base our final judgment on one single employee who has worked at home for just one week. Instead, we must have an entire team work remotely for a few days a week over a couple of months to get a better sense of whether the concept works for everyone, companies and it’s the staff. The quarantine period can be an opportunity for us to test it, but it's not enough.

Make sure that effective collaboration is nurtured between the workforce and with clients.

Most work projects involve some sort of collaboration. Designers need to talk to web programmers, project managers to reach out to clients. So how do we make sure employees are collaborating effectively while working remotely?

One way or another, we will have to ensure that our teams can communicate with each other. These lines of communication do not need to be open around the clock, but there must be at least some effective and consistent flow of information between remote workers and the home office.

We must make sure that our team members can work simultaneously – wherever they may be in the world – at least some portion of the time, so members can discuss urgent matters together.

At some startups companies, for example, the leaders required a four-hour overlap between employees working on the same project. This way, each employee had a half-day to work however he or she wanted, but also had at least four hours to discuss topics of concern to the whole team.

We can also make collaboration easier by making organizational information, aside from company secrets, open and easily accessible online or in some shared space, as the slack channel. One way that some companies successfully do this is by creating a shared calendar, so that everyone knows who’s available and when.

Importantly for the customer service and sales areas, you and your employees will have to be available for clients, who might be uneasy about dealing with remote workers. It’s understandable: building trust is just that much more difficult when a client can’t shake your hand or come visit an office to see your progress in person.

You should then be upfront and clear about your remote working system from the start. Be sure to be very attentive to your clients and give them plenty of opportunities to contribute to projects wherever they may be in the world!

This way, they will be able to see the fruits of their investment with their own eyes.

Even during this short period, do not forget there’s a person behind that slack/email address; personal relationships need to be nurtured.

Colleagues can turn into close friends or at least good acquaintances as people work together over time. But how does this work if workers do not see each other in person?

It’s a fact that no one can work 24/7 without having some sort of social interaction, and remote workers especially so. We all need to unwind from time to time, and it’s ideal when employees can do so with other colleagues to build and maintain a sense of team spirit.

Of course, remote workers can just go for a walk if they are feeling stressed. Nonetheless, it is important for employees to get to know each other on a more personal level.

To do this, you leaders can “copy” the new successful initiative that is arising, that created an online chat room for remote employees where they could spend breaks, just as an in-office team would in the coffee room or lunchroom.

Furthermore, during this situation, everyone, employees and employers need to be sensitive to how remote work can affect personal relationships. For instance, when you cannot see the other person’s smile or body language across the table, it’s easy to misinterpret just their words. From this, negative relationships can develop.

Thus, during the quarantine period, we must be extra careful about the way we communicate with each other. Leaders too must pay close attention to employees’ communications and encourage a friendly atmosphere.

Finally, we have to recognize that technology simply isn’t a perfect substitute for real-life interactions. We will have to make sure there’s some socializing in the “real world,” too.

While there are countless tools that make virtual collaboration possible, people still need to connect an online name with a face at some point. It doesn’t have to happen every day or even every month, but it does need to happen eventually to build trusting, loyal relationships. Keep in mind that the coronavirus crisis will pass.

Some remote employees can get caught in the trap of working too much, and then burn out. Be careful!

Because of the flexibility inherent to remote work, the workday looks a lot different for remote workers. So remember to keep your needs in mind.

For starters, remote workers run the risk of becoming lost in their work. While some people believe that working remotely we do not do as much work as while in the office, in fact, there is a real danger that remote workers actually do too much.

Because we aren’t bound to normal office hours, working remotely we might feel tempted to do a little extra here and there, and because of this, we can eventually burn out.

During this period, as leaders, we must be extra careful to not encourage this kind of behavior. After all, we can’t see burnout symptoms in front of us as we would if our employee was working in the office with us. Let’s be attentive and be positive that we will overcome this situation soon!

The key message in this article:

Modern technology means that regardless of the scenario, companies and employees can easily benefit from remote work. However, the dynamic created by remote work is different from the normal office routine, so more than ever, leaders need to rethink how they manage their employees to keep everybody happy and productive during the quarantine period. 

LITERATURE CITED

Fried, J., Hansson, H. D. 2013. Remote: Office Not Required. Illinois: Random House Audio.

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