Relaunching the Workplace, part I
Hoist the Colours! We’re embarking on a journey to a new world, where remote and onsite work complement each other
Close your eyes and imagine you are Jack Sparrow, on a quest to a hidden treasure. After visiting the Harbour of Tortuga to recruit a crew, you make your ship ready to cast off. Soon you’ll be exploring a tropical island with two of your best team members, but you’ll be captured and brought to a dark cave… from which you’ll escape. Finally, alone in a small boat, you will meet the villain. One second before being cut in pieces, your ship will appear and the pirate crew will get you to victory!
Now, open your eyes, back in 2021. Your team is building a product. To reach your goal, you need to recruit people, explore markets and solutions, meet external partners, battle against competitors… Are you gonna stay at the port?
The office workplace doesn’t have to remain docked. Sail with the wind!
A turning point
Work from Home, Work from Anywhere or Remote Work, Digital Nomadism: until 2019, those were growing trends but still marginal lifestyles.
Then, the 2020 pandemic brought Work from Home to many office workers. Neither anticipated nor an option, that didn’t please all people, especially those with children to look after while they were working. On another hand, companies that deployed effective tools discovered that they could function online, without crushing productivity too much — or sometimes, at all.
Today, lockdowns are hopefully behind us, and companies are reopening offices. However, employees’ expectations have changed. Even those who really like the social dynamics of an office have noticed that working away has some benefits on their life. HR are now tasked to redefine their policies in order to accommodate for Work From Home and, to some extend, Work From Anywhere.
While some were thinking that remote work was not here to stay, some structural changes were well underway even before the crisis and will continue to transform the concept of Workplace, thanks to the rise of online workflows.
Internet has disrupted time and space
It’s not a secret that the advent of Internet changed our habits on buying, watching movies, dating and so on. We enjoy doing those in the comfort of our home, or on the go, and we also squeeze those activities at convenient times. Who still waits for Monday mornings to go the bank, in order to send a wire transfer?
Building upon that, how could our daily office work, when it consists in transforming information, escape disruption? Organizations who experiment with new work methods eventually get a competitive advantage over those slower to move.
We all know the obvious perks, for the company, of renting less office space or getting access to a more-specialized, non-local, talent pool; and for the employee, to target affordable housing in more remote areas. In this post, I want to focus on how a remote position impacts a worker’s life and their productivity.
Where do I want to go today?
For dedaces, office workers’ life has been organized around commuting, then spending approximately 8 hours in the relative comfort of an office, and commuting back, then doing family chores and social activities.
Being no longer bound to a physical workplace opens up new freedom. Now one can choose between routine or exploring new locations outside of short vacation slots — which was a luxury until recently.
Have some chores to do at home, or activities in the neighborhood? Just work from home, and save those commute times.
Or maybe you are the type to get up and want to get going? Few things can beat some fresh air and a quick walk in the morning. How about you choose a new destination each morning? Settle for a fancy area in your city, and join a café, or, for more privacy, a coworking space. See new places and meet new faces. Try a new food deli every day!
Digital nomads also happen to work from home or commute to new areas. But these unconventional people opt for a new home every now and then! As a slow traveler, you can move to a new area or country several times a year, and take advantage of all those lunch breaks, evenings and weekends to discover new cultures. Some countries are more open than others, in terms of visas (even more true during this times of crisis). For instance, my passport untitles me to stay up to one year in the fantastic mountaneous country of Georgia. However, you’re usually supposed to be a tourist… that’s why digital nomad visas are becoming a reality, with Estonia pioneering the concept.
Meet and interact with people
But what about my dear colleagues? The ones that I talk to in online meetings, but no longer at the coffee machine. How to be the social animals we already are?
Let’s introduce the concept of workplace hubs. Remember, we can trade a single landlocked mothership forships of all sizes, for all kinds of uses, in all kinds of places. And even places to socialize with external people.
In online video games, and especially Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), players gather in various places such as villages, where they can meet strangers, trade items and find companions to start adventures. Then, these adventures bring them to remote places, sometimes together, sometimes on parallel paths. After a victory against a fierce monster (ironically, called ‘a boss’), they come back to these social hubs and chill. — A game community veteran
Our existing office could be seen as a hub for interaction and collaboration. Make them as confortable as a hotel where you would organise a workshop!
The Inner Hub: where we meet our colleagues
Nowadays, one can collaborate more and more efficiently using tools such as Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, processing information together in classified channels, or in online documents, sharing the screen or uploading a videos.
But, let’s face it, unless VR makes a giant leap in the next decade, there are still interactions that lose fidelity across internet networks. Trust me, I’ve worked a large part of my career as a network game programmer!
So, your remote team needs to meet somewhere at times. Let’s analyze the in-real-life meeting needs of people in a typical office company.
- A team often works closely together, in the same office or open space. It allows them to talk naturally together, with or without getting up from their seat. Psychology studies by Pr Leonhard Schilbach from the Max Planck Institute showed that just a gaze from somebody can enable reward structures in the brain. No glance, no motivation? Or at least, less job statisfaction on the long term, maybe. Make sure coworkers can work at a common place to start and complete a project, if they want to.
I joined this videogame company for the camaraderie. I enjoy achieving difficult projects together as team. Now, during quarantine, I was alone at home, this can be depressing. I’d take crunch time at the office with my coworkers over staying alone every day. This isn’t for me, and I didn’t sign for this! — Guil
- Management is a true human skill, which means it does not only involve judging output results, but interacting with a person as a whole. Working remotely permanently could lead to only dealing with results and forgetting the human factor. Studies such as the ones by Livia Tomova from MIT even suspect seclusion of acting like hunger and damaging brain functions such as memory, cognition. Also, it makes it more wary of negative stimuli! Make sure coworkers have opportunities to meet IRL. Read A Guide to Managing Your (Newly) Remote Workers for more research resources and tips.
Currently working from home, our appraisal coordination meetings are now done over Zoom. It seems managers have less tolerance for mistakes. Does it mean that we are usually more lenient when we see people face to face, and that working online will raise up our expectations and results? Will it create new problems, such as demotivating people with harsh comments? Time will tell… — Stephen, a team lead
- When at the office, how do coworkers socialize? Outside of meeting marathons, there can be lonely days at the desk too. Do the coffee machine and lunch spaces provide enough opportunites to socialize? French people traditionally like to organize long team lunches at a restaurant, where everybody returns late, feeling more appeased than guilty! If the company has a nice fellowship vibe, some colleagues may have become friends and see each other at activities, parties, nightclubs or golf! And even if they don’t, some companies organize such internal events to trigger those friendly moments. Oganizing trips to make remote workers meet up outside of an office context is a great way to build the bond.
My colleagues and I always go to the same pub on Friday nights, where we also meet former colleagues. And we organize an apéro every month to welcome the newbies — Charlie
- Traditional large company running offices in several locations already have coworkers from remote cities working together. I bet they travel to their respective office from time to time. And most will go to the pub after 5 to talk together. Coworkers should have a safe channel to talk together about non-work-related topics.
Every year, my employer brings all (volunteer) coworkers in the country to Paris for a mega all inclusive holiday party. It’s a great way to chat over a beer — and later, dance — with colleagues we usually only know from emails, conf calls, and occasional business trips. But the most memorable moment is on the way in, when our local team floods in and transform the train bar in a busy late bar! — Thib
- Workers having remote clients also visit them for time to time. When you need to iterate closely to understand their needs and see them work, better travel to their workplace.
I remember contracting a small web agency to create our website, that was fairly technical. That was way before we had tools such as Slack, screen sharing and online prototyping tools, and we found it time consuming to exchange messages to iterate over requirements and prototypes. So they agreed to come and spend a week with us, so we could have much shorter iterations — we were actually making it together. — Abdel
Fully-remote companies, such as Automattic, the maker of Wordpress, require their staff to make time for travelling up to 4 weeks per year for team bonding and building events.
Outside of those, should you require staff to be present onsite 2–3 days out of 5 every week? While it retains a few advantages, this kills the possibility of slow travel and won’t let you hire any digital nomads. Also, if many people are onsite together while other ones are at home on a regular basis, there is a risk of desync. Make sure people always use remote workflows, even at the office! More about that in Part II.
In conclusion, the new workplace will be comprised of permanent and transient ad-hoc places. Sometimes, a big mothership with shiny sails. Sometimes, a small boat with paddles.
Now, coworkers and clients are not the only people one could meet in a work context.
The Outer Hub: build your social circle
Where and where do peers of the same industry meet? Conventions, trade-fair, conferences… Surely, online events have boomed, but the emotional engagement is not at the same level. Not only they will be great occasions to meet, after quarantine, and build up networks, but that would be an occasion to have a fun trip with some coworkers you don’t get to meet so often.
I remember getting overly drunk at a GDC party, since I was not used to those large wine glasses. Some game-industry peers I had chatted with all night took care of me and made sure I was sent back safely to my hotel! — Jeffrey.
These gathering events are great, but unless your job is to be your company’s advocate, you usually spend more mundane days writing content or code than attending conferences. Remote work offers opportunities to meet diverse people, if you make the effort.
While some people will prefer to spend daytime with their family, others such a single dudes — and moms/dads looking for a break — will make new friends at the coworking space or café they attend on a daily basis.
Adventurers on the lookout for long-lasting friendships could invest in memberships for coliving experiences such as Outside, or even join a Nomad Cruise and explore the world with like-minded people.
Pirates don’t spend all their life at the sea! Meeting strangers in a joint of Tortuga Island is part of the way of life! Remote workers are also entitled to serendipitous encounters.
It’s now clear that working remotely does not imply loneliness!
What about the disruption of time? What about non-office jobs?
In part II, we will look at the changes in work time patterns that internet has disrupted. We will also consider tasks and jobs that can’t be done remote and see if they can join our pirates gang adventures!
Thanks to Louis D. Havriliuc (Simbound) and Vincent Douvier (Corrin) for helping improve this article.
