A few tips on working remotely
In the last 10 years many companies and people have moved to remote environments for different reasons, such as getting the desired lifestyle or saving money in location costs. Today, we are all being pushed to work remotely and this has taken us by surprise. I have written this blog to share some tips I learned while working remotely for five years.
Embracing this challenge is fundamental, as it’s the only way to protect our beloved companies, jobs and lifestyles. Hopefully these tips will help you set up a remote culture faster and reduce unnecessary conflict in projects you are currently working on. So, let’s get started!
Tracking tasks & productivity: Making sure everyone is actually working and being productive is a hard thing to do and requires a lot of trust. If productivity is one of your concerns and you are considering tracking task completion, let me tell you a couple of things:
- If your company has specific tasks/roles that are directly linked to revenue, then you might want to consider tracking those tasks only. Make sure you have a good communication plan and explain why are you going to start tracking those tasks, the importance of it and the overall company impact (positive & negative).
- For all other tasks that do not have a valid reason to be tracked, my recommendation would be to not do it. It will look bad and demotivate your workforce. People will know that you do not trust them!
Communication & workflow: Communication in remote environments happens through virtual channels: WhatsApp, Slack, Emails and Zoom meetings. It is important to set up protocols (acknowledge when someone send a message, the same will you do when talking to someone f2f). It is almost like building a “rules & manners handbook”. In your personal life it might not matter and those “rules” will be develop organically. However, with remote work it is key. Failing at this impacts company culture, professional relationship quality and general happiness at work. Do not assume people know how to use these channels. I have friends that take forever to reply a message in WhatsApp but they are super responsive at work and vice versa. Setting protocols is setting expectations and when expectations are clear the possibility of conflicts and misunderstanding is greatly reduced.
Communication boost: Make sure everyone is extra clear that it is their responsibility to ask for clarification about what they have to do and be extra clear on what they need. Again, do not let everyone assume for themselves. Spending hours on emails back and forth (to have everything in written) is the tendency, especially in a very rigid company environment with a lack of peer trust. So, encourage people to pick up the phone or jump to zoom, be proactive and save time.
- Tasks & instructions: Tasks are part of our daily lives at work and how those are assigned, distributed and communicated impacts everything we do. Sending instructions or assigning tasks through email or instant messaging channels is the easiest way for tasks to get lost. Things will not get done, or at least not in time. I used to receive around 80 emails per day, while being booked back to back in meetings. Understanding that different roles have different workloads (emails received) is fundamental to keep conflict down. There are tons of platforms that are created to manage & track tasks such as: Trello, Asana and Monday. But these platforms are useless if employees and managers do not differentiate clearly what should go in an email and what should be a task assigned in Trello.
Project managers not managers: In remote work it is fundamental that leaders embrace being a project manager. Remote work requires extra clarification to avoid duplicity. You do not want to people working on the same task because of the lack of clarity! Set rules for the tool usage, how to report back, how to save findings, add comments, create more tasks, provide status updates and general team interactions. These tools come with tons of features and depend entirely on you to set up your style and make agreements on how it will be used. Be creative! Use labels, color code and do not assume (what is obvious is sometimes challenged in remote working environments). Encourage people after meetings to assign tasks and always assign owners.
That’s it for now! I worked remotely for five years leading Employee Experience teams across LATAM in a multinational company and I know remote culture might seems challenging. However, it just requires a different approach. Good luck everyone!
Laura Duarte: MA Service Design candidate at UAL London. Experience in Employee Experience, Communication, Change Management and Service Design. If anyone needs help drop me an email: lauraduartec@gmail.com.
