Prepared for the New Era of Remote Work?

Niraj Chokshi grabbed our attention in his recent NY Times article, “Out of the Office: More People Are Working Remotely, Survey Finds” (Link).

There he lists changes in the workplace, such as:

• “Employees are pushing companies to break down the long-established structures and policies that traditionally have influenced their workdays”
• “Last year, 43 percent of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely”
• “The share that reported working remotely four to five days a week grew by nearly the same amount, rising to 31 percent from 24 percent.”

Upwork also released an article on the subject last month entitled: “Freelancers predicted to become the U.S. workforce majority within a decade, with nearly 50% of millennial workers already freelancing”

There is no doubt that remote work, and increased flexibility, will become the new norm.

Will companies be ready for a significant change like this?

To find out, we’ve been researching what pressing issues come along with having a partially or fully remote workforce, across industries.

We’ve interviewed 16 companies to understand how they collaborate with remote team members, including: Stack Overflow, SkyScanner, Facebook, Airbnb, Google, SurveyMonkey, Adidas and Merrill Lynch.

Here are the top issues that came up consistently:

1Staying in-sync is a challenge when remote
Since much of communication is nonverbal, truly understanding your team requires some level of visual communication.

2Remote meetings are difficult to do well consistently
Even before the actual meeting starts, getting everyone on the calendar to meet at the same time is a major P.I.A. When the meeting takes place, it takes time to spark up a video conference and wait for quorum, connection, and a level of quality in reception to begin. Once the meeting is underway, getting colleagues to participate and engage is rare. No matter what industry our interviewees came from, these hurdles are always present.

3Collaborating across time zones is a significant challenge
Adding salt to the wound, reaching across time zones compound the issues above. Often resulting in a feeling of detachment between team members.

If you’re interested, leave a comment to get our latest analysis and soon to be released white-paper.

How do you prepare your own company for an increasingly remote workforce? Do you see it as a challenge or an opportunity? Or both?

You can sign up for Konch prelaunch here if you work in HR and here if you are part of a remote team.