"Working from home will save the world" and other reactions to the largest experiment in remote work
In August 2020, an HBR article reconducted a 2013 survey to examine how participants thoughts on working remotely have changed. Below are a few findings and my thoughts shaped by my 3.5+ years as a part of the distributed workforce.
The positive
1. “Knowledge workers should be evaluated on their outputs not their inputs anyway”
While a tough statement to defend during activities such as a brainstorming session, a joint troubleshooting adventure (yes, I said “adventure”), but this is an absolute must.
A decision tree to know if you are measuring on outputs or inputs
Are deadlines being met?
Are KPIs being accomplished?
If not, are the levers being pulled to do so?
If so, are the levers being evaluated as the right ones to pull?
If you got to the end of that decision tree and didn’t find two “yes”s you have problems no matter where you are working.
2. “We are spending 12% less time drawn into large meetings.”
YES! This is a big one. SO much time is wasted in meeting with extraneous attendees. The picture accompanying this post is the perfect meme to capture this aspect of the corporate culture. Meeting bloat is a problem with a quantifiable impact. Check out this calculator when in your next large meeting to determine its true cost (probably wait until after the meeting so you can pay attention).
I’ve seen two approaches to mitigate this impact on a personal level.
Blocking certain times throughout the week for deep work or
limiting your calendar to X number of meetings/ day.
There will always be an urgent or priority meeting that will cause you to violate these rules but these will come up whether you impose these rules on your calendar or not. Give yourself a fighting chance.
3. It seems we have been taking more direct charge of our time during lockdown.
Setting rules for your calendar is one element of taking direct charge of your time. The book Make Time encourages readers to:
set aside “highlight time” each day to accomplish the priority task(s) for that day and
challenges people to question the daily accomplishments in both your personal and professional life.
Are you accomplishing what you NEED TO in any given day? Are you prioritizing the right things in you day? Is your family getting enough time? Your health?
4. Standing back, the evidence suggests lockdown has helped us more effectively prioritize our work.
Due to pandemic-related layoffs and re-organizations, I know I’m alone in having lost key team members. These layoffs have forced us to do more with less. This constraint has made the question of: “Is this worth doing?” more relevant.
Some projects may move from the “must do” to “should do” list and some moved to the “won’t do” list. This is not a bad thing. As with all projects they should be tied back to the lever being pulled to accomplish some company objective/goal. If that tie cannot be made to supporting a strategic initiative, the project shouldn’t be on the docket, anyways.
The negative
I will be the first to admit that a distributed workforce is not all rainbows and unicorns. There are several traditional methods of collaboration that are harder when everyone is not in the same physical space.
1. Impromptu meetings are hard.
The “pop in” five-minute impromptu meeting or quick chat isn’t the easiest in a distributed workforce. This leads one to schedule meetings to discuss these often smaller topics/tasks. With the Outlook default meeting duration being 30 minutes this has a tendency to result in meeting Jenga where you are attempting to stack and move meetings around to fit into the day, all while the real work is not moving forward.
Playing meeting Jenga with responsibilities to deliver is no way to live your life.
Use a chat tool to collaborate, if possible. Be careful to only ask questions where you expect the answer to be binary or require a short response. The last thing you want is to have a novel come back as an explanation. On the flip side, if you are the explainer/answer-er, don’t be afraid to say “ let’s schedule a meeting to discuss this topic” if the answer is going to be too verbose.
The end solution here… is no different than when working in a co-located workforce. Some people prefer an email, chat, or a quick drop-in (via call until we return to our offices :)). Finding the styles/preferences of the people you are working with up, down, and across the organization is imperative, no matter where/how you are working.
2. Multi-tasking
The urge to multi-task in a townhalls or other large meeting can feel nearly irresistible but this results in you doing neither of these activities to the best of your ability. This may be inadvertent and the people you are working with will most likely not say anything, but is this fair to anyone?
You are not doing this out of malice towards your organization or coworkers, in fact, it’s the exact opposite you are trying to participate in the meeting and accomplish your to-do list at the same time. You are trying to do what is best for the company but nevertheless, this is a downside to a distributed workforce. If you were in person at the meeting, the drawl of your to-do list would not be as strong nor could you act on it without being disrespectful.
I have found during townhalls or other meetings where I am confident I will not be in a speaking role, I can go for a walk or otherwise get my exercise in for the day. This has its obvious drawbacks as you cannot take notes or correspond with teammates based on the items discussed in these meetings.
3. The collaboration tools
Slack, JIRA, Teams, helpdesk… oh my!
When added one by one to your daily interactions it does not seem overwhelming however for new team members or when looking at this in aggregate all of these collaboration tools can be sensory overload.
My coping mechanism: establish a triage system. Every day check your urgent items. identify those that can wait for a weekly process, execute your processes, and be OK if you miss something. You are not superhuman and you cannot control how all of the organization operates.
Conclusion
In conclusion, 3.5+ years into my own work from home adventure, I do feel that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Even before “going remote”, our meetings typically included an agency, a participant from another country, or an officemate that had a family matter that needed tending to, a doctor’s appointment, or other life happening that required us to have a meeting software (conference line, video, or screensharing, etc.) anyways. As with many things, a by-product of this pandemic is the acceleration of trends that were happening already.
After we go back to “normal“, I don’t expect 100% of companies to operate in their current distributed fashion but my hope is that it takes away some of the stigmas of working remotely.
Oh and it could save the world! -> check it out! ok… not alone but it is a step in the right direction!
