Changing the way we work
The world is changing, and so are we. In the old days, everyone was in the same room, simply because we were small and just got started. As we grow, and grow, we are starting to realise finding people is not that easy anymore.
Our company is based in the east of the Netherlands, right at the German border. And even though it’s conveniently close to a large university, it’s getting harder and harder to find people. Especially since we require more and more experienced employees, green graduates don’t always fit the bill anymore.
But luckily we build software, and our industry makes it easy to work remotely. Or does it? Well, the tools are there, but moving from a company that does everything on-site to a company that can accommodate remote workers is not as easy as it sounds. Every change is hard, but changing the way people work sometimes feels near impossible.
The reality is we have to move towards remote. The alternatives are just not viable. We could try and find great people and convince them to relocate, but that takes a lot of time, effort, and money if it works at all. Training university grads is something we already do, but it takes years and does not always yield the expected result. Remotes are the obvious solution.
It’s far easier to find a great remote than it is to find an average on-site engineer. But integrating said remote into an on-site team is a challenge. We have tried and failed. The remotes do great work, but eventually leave as they feel left out, isolated, or uninspired.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
We have a problem: We suck at remote. Our teams are technically adapt, the work they do is meaningful, and they produce great things. We pride ourselves on giving freedom and responsibility to our people. We allow everyone to work the way they want to. Except if you are remote, then you usually get an assignment, and we tend to forget somewhat you exist.
So, we suck at remote but at the same time, we also believe remotes are our only viable option to grow both in people and expertise. An exciting challenge, especially since we know why the remotes leave, but we *still* don’t seem to be able to make the changes needed to keep them effectively.
As a company, we don’t believe in forcing people to do their work one way or the other. We don’t tell people how to do their job, but we do try to create the context for great work. Historically we are very result oriented, probably more result oriented than people or team oriented. Now don’t get me wrong, I love working for my company. I love my job, but we do tend to build things as individuals and not as a team.
Building stuff solo is perfectly fine if the group provides enough social interaction to offset the solo work. I work alone and have fun when I take a break and join the group in a social activity in the office. I have never seen this as a problem until we got remotes.
When a remote joins our team they find a set of individuals highly motivated to do their work, but not used to working together as a team. There is no social interaction online because the on-site group provides those needs for the people at the office. Additionally, those on-site social interactions usually turn into ad-hoc meetings, where the important stuff is discussed and decided. To the group, this feels comfortable and prevents a lot of structured meetings, but to the remote, it seems like they are not part of the team.
The first thing we noticed when adding a remote to a team was that it takes a lot of effort by the team to change their behaviour. And that effort needs to be done for someone who is new, unknown and has limited usefulness in the beginning. It just wasn’t working; it was far too easy for the team to go back to their original way of working and leave the remote to fend for herself.
We decided that if we were serious about becoming remote friendly, we would need to go further. We would need to force the teams to change their behaviour, but how to do that without telling someone how to do their job?
We started a program. When a team allowed a remote worker to join their team, one of the on-site team members could choose to be sent to a country of their choice for three months, all expenses paid. Now this wasn’t supposed to be a holiday but more of a learning experience, the team member would have to do their job from there. Just like their new remote would have to.
The idea being that if we sent out core members of a team at the same time as adding a remote worker, the remote would not be alone anymore. The remote would have the support of a seasoned, respected, and essential team member who was dealing with the same problems. And the on-site team couldn’t fall back into old behaviours because those wouldn’t work anymore.
Back at home the company is listening carefully and making changes as we go. The original team member has a lot more ‘pull’ in the organisation to get stuff changed and step by step we are getting better.
Even though we just started, I believe this strategy is working. The program makes adding remote workers exciting. It’s an adventure for the on-site people. It’s good PR, and our internal Facebook is blowing up with enthusiastic people posting pictures from all around the world. And stuff is changing, because people want it to change. We are doing more in chat, streaming more, and we are even slowly changing the way we communicate as a group.
It’s too early to tell if we will successfully make the transition, but not early enough to share this part of our journey. I’d love to hear your feedback and tips in the comments!
