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Can my team work remotely?
This is a question a lot of managers had at the start of the pandemic. COVID 19 forced a lot of companies to figure this out. The question left unanswered is "what will work look like after the pandemic?"
Let's talk about #distributedworkforce!
This is a question a lot of managers had at the start of the pandemic. COVID 19 forced a lot of companies to figure this out. The question left unanswered is "what will work look like after the pandemic?"
Let's talk about #distributedworkforce!
The real question is "can my team work effectively as a distributed workforce?"
Having everyone remote and everyone in office has its own set of pro's and con's. The post pandemic reality is that this format may not work for most companies.
Having everyone remote and everyone in office has its own set of pro's and con's. The post pandemic reality is that this format may not work for most companies.
While remote work provides great geographic flexibility, what an employee really values is flexibility in their work environment. A large portion of your workforce wants to be able to switch between remote/in-person options. (maybe based on their current project)
What is a distributed workforce?
A distributed workforce describes a group of employees working together who are both remote and in-office. This mix of location surfaces the real challenges of companies allowing this flexibility of remote work vs traditional office work.
A distributed workforce describes a group of employees working together who are both remote and in-office. This mix of location surfaces the real challenges of companies allowing this flexibility of remote work vs traditional office work.
What challenges?
Remote first work - the easiest mistake for companies trying distributed workforce is that it is the same as remote work. All remote work or "remote first" work centers around the idea that everyone will be connected via video chat or telecommunication.
Remote first work - the easiest mistake for companies trying distributed workforce is that it is the same as remote work. All remote work or "remote first" work centers around the idea that everyone will be connected via video chat or telecommunication.
For presenters, they instinctually think about emailing the PowerPoint presentation ahead of time, or how they will mute/unmute participants. For most distributed workforce meetings, you will find a mixture of remote vs "in the room" employees, all equally valuable.
As soon as we step into these "mixed" meetings, most of the attention is geared to the local employees. Things that we do very naturally with remote work, such as scanning the participants list before starting, is skipped over because the is focus on who is in the room with them
Another challenge is "Schrodinger's availability". Without clear boundaries it's easy to blur the lines between working at home and being at home. Cross functional partners may be apprehensive to reach out depending on arbitrary status icons.
"Swinging by someone's desk to ask a question" remotely suddenly feels like an intrusion because we don't know if they are busy, focused, stretching, or making lunch. Distributed or not, employees need to balance work and life.
An effective and successful distributed workforce starts with workplace culture. Being conscious of remote employees and setting up telecommunication meeting rooms to be inclusive of other partners. We also need to clear the stigma of remote employees and workload.
Leadership of a distributed workforce needs to provide clear guidance to team goals and if needed, standards set around how that will be tracked. It can be deliverables or KPI based, but the expectation needs to be the same for both local and remote employees.
