WLP290: What Do the Many Versions of “Remote” Look Like?
As 2021 draws to a close, Pilar and Maya take this episode to reflect on the changing landscape of remote work, and the end of another turbulent and transformative year in the present and future of work.
Many changes have continued through this past year, including the explosion of the use of the word/idea of ‘hybrid’ work. And greater differentiation emerges all the time.
Even pre-pandemic, different teams/organisations ‘did’ remote work differently, depending on their objectives, activities, and intentions. For example, Automattic who had such diversity in work style that some teams were always very asynchronous and others far more interdependent, so async remains the default to ensure nothing gets lost while people connect in real time whenever they need to. Conversely, there are teams like MeetEdgar - who default to a highly synchronous workday with set hours, regardless of role, and hired with that intention.
And at a team level, we have to treat hybrid as a further subset of remote, and actually letting go of an office (like Automattic did) is a huge step. The competitive and compartmentalised nature of interdepartmental budgeting means that if you let that lease go, your team may never get it back, or you may not be able to convert it straight to budget for IT or retreats, in some businesses. Others like Dropbox have approached things differently and completely redesigned and repurposed their office buildings to reflect changing collaboration needs, in a digital-first world of work.
Technology and tools have continued to proliferate, but in some ways they have undifferentiated, in terms of their possible use cases - we may think of things like Trello as an asynchronous tool, but some teams use the comments for real-time conversation, for example. Other teams have become accidentally async and realised they no longer need to have all those meetings because their workflow is managing itself organically - but haven’t considered what they need to do to replace the relationship-building that direct conversation supports.
Virtual Not Distant’s new workshop on Loneliness will help teams address this in the new year, but hopefully, we won’t reach the point where we’re afraid to pick up the phone and have a chat. Or the point that people associate calls only with bad news or problems!
Real-time calls, audio or video, are particularly important when someone is new and a relationship has to be established in the first place - unlike the Virtual Not Distant podcasting team, where we know that from the moment we hang up on this conversation recording, everything about the production and publication will happen asynchronously. Not only do we have high levels of trust and confidence in each other that everything will happen in order for deadlines to be hit, we’re all very clear about our roles and activities for each stage - supported by checklists and familiar procedures.
For anyone job hunting this is an essential aspect of remote culture to clarify, even shifting teams within an organisation, it’s well worth checking out the degree of synchronicity expected and happening. This is rarely specified in job ads (though there are clues), and should be explored at interview in order to find a great fit - if only to see the extent to which they are conscious of it and deliberately shaping it.
Because the period of flux continues, and there is little time for teams anywhere to step out and reflect, develop policy, and be intentional, a lot of these practices are still emerging, and doing so organically. It's not just new hires who need consideration, in the face of the ‘great resignation’ every manager needs to think about how comfortable everyone is, with the way their teams are communicating and interacting.
Finally, we need to abandon stereotypes about generation and age. Sure, younger people might be digital natives, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use communications tools for business, and it’s easy to underestimate the extent to which we all learn by osmosis and observation in the workplace, or how much we glean from audio and video communications. This is not a new issue - back in episode 6 (!) in 2014, Pilar first discussed this! So, we need to find good ways in the remote space to replicate mentoring, role modelling, non-management support and everything else which helps shape professional and personal development.
This conversation will continue to evolve in 2022, and we’d love you to be part of it.
But before we go,
36.08 Virtual Not Distant news
The new workshop on overcoming loneliness in remote teams is fully piloted and ready to go, combining the insights of Pilar and her podcasting partner from My Pocket Psych, Richard McKinnon.
Loneliness is a complex and intangible concept, hard to recognise and talk about, and just starting the conversation makes a huge difference. Every team’s needs will be unique, but getting some external input and facilitation is a great way to open up the subject and begin to air individual issues - then you can build a plan to make positive changes for the future. Learn more about the workshop here.
40.52 Thank you to our community
At the heart of Virtual Not Distant, is the idea that while we may work and live wherever we choose, we remain part of a community and network at all times. This podcast is our way of connecting with your ears on a regular basis, but it’s part of a wider conversation which goes on in and around social media and our content, which feeds and inspires us at all times. We are so grateful to everyone who has guested, commented, shared, or connected, and in particular we want to thank:
Louda Connoway, who on LinkedIn shared the Management Café episodes on giving thanks for a job well done, and towards psychological safety in virtual teams (and lots of likes too!)
Theresa Sigillito Hollema commented on a post - "I was fortunate to interview an international team that had improved psychological safety during the pandemic. One change factor was how they used chat - asynchronous communication! Here is how they did it. " Do take a look!
Jennifer Riggins commented on the Aginext conference post -- "Really looking forward to closing out this event with this conversation! [with Pilar.]
Tammy Bjelland’s insightful remark on our recent blog about asynchronous comms: “Not only do I love this content, but also I love the practice of summarizing an async conversation in a useful way!” Meta-async-asyc :-)
Pedro Valero, Hector Olea Leon, Jo Clarke, Amie van Woudenberg and Bart Van Roey for being vital parts of our sharing and caring community on LinkedIn as well
Rowena Hennigan has a new newsletter on Linked about remote wellbeing, well worth signing up for
And this message on Twitter from Gemma made our day:
“Thanks for the follow. Just a quick message to say I LOVE your podcast. I’m a massive fan of your conversations and considered opinions over remote working. I always feel like I listen to your podcast like it’s a conversation in a cafe that I’m overhearing and want to know more about - really welcoming!”
We must also thank wonderful Becky who has been working with us behind the scenes at Virtual Not Distant (and is responsible for compiling the webpage you are reading right now) - wishing you all success and happiness in pastures new.
And the same thanks and good wishes to YOU, every lovely listener and reader out there - we appreciate you being part of our community, and whatever and wherever you are celebrating, we send you our very best for peaceful, healthy, and happy times. See you in 2022!
Don’t forget to keep in touch and let us know the changes you have seen in the remote work landscape this year. We have a form for you to contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with your thoughts and ideas about anything we have discussed in this episode or others, as well as links or themes you’d like us to explore in future episodes.
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