WLP228 Connection and Disconnection: Who's Responsible for Connection in Remote Teams?
This is the third in our special series with ShieldGEO - make sure you catch up with the other episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Today we examine the critical question of whose responsibility it is, to maintain connection and ensure people don’t drift and become demotivated? Our regular host Bree Caggiati talks to a diverse range of guests new and old, to explore this topic.
Remote workers often have to take responsibility for things which are typically located with managers in colocated environments, but what about their own feelings of connection and disconnection?
Laurel Farrer defines management as the oversight of production, and for remote workers self-management is a crucial part of this picture. But the whole experience of work is so much more than the tangible outputs/products, and all of that needs to be managed too. For freelancers in particular, the bigger picture of how work fits in to your career, well-being, professional development etc, can easily get overlooked. Laurel’s company Distributed Consulting helps companies get this right in an intentional and sustainable way, because the right support for remote workers — particularly in hybrid teams — doesn’t usually happen organically.
Teresa Douglas, author of Working Remotely, actively focuses on what she can do as a team member, to maintain connections, in and out of work — but reminds us how important existing relationships of trust and psychological safety are, to this information flow. It can’t be all the worker’s responsibility: they need the right support in order to self-manage well.
Tim Burgess speaks for the duty of care directors and managers have when building a remote company, and the responsibility of the organisation for this aspect of well-being. And Dr Julianne Hold-Lunstad reminds us that systematic environmental risk factors — like loneliness in remote working, or even barriers in the physical environment — have to be considered in any risk assessment.
Isabelle Collins, founder of Belonging Space, draws parallels with other duties of care like health and safety - because managers should be able to identify and address disconnection as a risk factor they could reasonably be expected to consider in advance. From a moral and organisational perspective as well as that of the bottom line, remote colleagues need specific consideration and support.
So we need to pin down this idea organisational responsibility clearly. Tara Vasdani, principle lawyer at Remote Law Canada, discusses duty of care (from a Canadian legal point of view) as a relationship between two parties (the individual and the company in this case), and the test of their proximity and interrelatedness in terms of liability for negligence. Employers can’t afford to overlook their responsibilities just because employees are remote, and the emotional well-being of colleagues can also involve discrimination law if it impacts on their mental health.
Belonging goes both ways, as Isabelle reminds us, and means being part of something. Individuals need to take care of themselves and speak up when they need help.
But Marcus Wermuth, Engineering Manager at Buffer, points out that while the manager needs to create space for the conversations about disconnection and the employee needs to be ready to talk about it, there’s a higher level of responsibility for the organisation as a whole to create a culture which facilitates this, one that aligns authentically with its values. Managers are key to this, and they need support and training to fulfil this responsibility effectively.
Courtney Seiter, also from Buffer, reminds us of the business case for people being well and happy and avoiding burnout — that curse of the tech startup culture. People are the business’ greatest asset, so must be taken care of — including being aware of their life outside of work and the complex influences of everything from family to the local environment.
As Bree reflects, disconnection is not purely a remote work issue, it can take place in anywhere, it just tends to be highlighted in this environment. When Pilar taught part-time in a drama school she would sometimes be overlooked in critical communications (such as a class being cancelled), the ‘information isolation’ that Laurel talks about. Pilar reflected on how this made her feel, when no one thought to tell her.
But today we have better technological tools to put information where people can find it, using visible teamwork to have communication and data in an open and accessible place - remote teams can lead the way here. It’s a reminder that we need to consider our information flow in a qualitative way: think about who needs to know what when, and then design processes and apply the best tools to work around that. As ever, using the technology intentionally and effectively is what matters.
But what do you think matters, and where do you consider the responsibilities lie, for connection and disconnection in remote teams?
Please keep your feedback coming, we really enjoy it - please contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with any of your thoughts and ideas.
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