WLP238 Looking to the Future of Remote Work
Welcome to this month’s news and ideas round-up with Pilar and Maya - when we look at some topical thoughts and ideas, as well as some more timeless and evergreen ones.
If you like what we do, you can always…
What’s Going On
This topical segment was recorded on June 2nd 2020.
We both really enjoyed this great trends article from Robert Kropp Covid-19 Just Accelerated What Was Already Happening [Long Read] which not only sums up the present state of play but contains some fascinating and highly resonant flashbacks to the early days of ‘telecommuting’ - definitely recommended reading, and look out for more from Robert in an upcoming episode.
Five workplace trends will shape life after lockdown. The conversation continues to flow about what the future might look like, in the short and long term - predicting the future is something we are all doing just now to one extent or another, what’s your take? So much depends on what we expect, in terms of how people respond… So an inflection point like this is a good time to think about what we actually want the future of the workplace to be like.
Another lens through which to look at what might be, is to ‘follow the money’ - some very interesting startups and funding rounds also shed light on what we might expect from the future of work as described in Mapping “The Future of Work” Startup & Investor ecosystem. Of course there will be winners and losers from this list, so who would you put money on? Many emergent trends here, some of which reflect transitional needs or the needs of those who may be working online temporarily or reluctantly.
Bill of Rights for Remote Work Short and sweet, this manifesto from Hackernoon embraces a lot of concepts - from tech set-up to asynchronous deep work time to personal choices.
Facebook and Google extend working from home to end of year. More big tech companies embrace home-based working… But, it’s not a simple or uncontroversial remote success story, as exemplified by Facebook employees could receive pay cuts as they continue to work from home. On the other hand, Google will let workers expense $1,000 worth of office furniture, so it just goes to show that big employers have a lot to think about, when formulating new policy around this area. I am sure they’ll all remember that as the tech world pursues remote, employees have increasing choice about where to work, and will start forming opinions and applying filters long before you even meet them (see also episode 219 on remote onboarding).
Another disappointing trend is the emergence of tracking apps, for want of a better word, snooping software to monitor what remote employees are doing. Basecamp has changed their terms and conditions to avoid being associated with such apps, as discussed in their recent Rework episode Winston Sat At His Computer. Measure the outputs, not the activities! As we’ve been saying for years - and as Robert’s article identified at the top of this show, others have been saying for decades…
Accessibility issues are attracting welcome new attention, in Making collaboration accessible to all with Microsoft Teams and Accessibility overview of Microsoft Teams - Office Support. When online working is not optional, it has to be made available to all users, whatever adjustments are needed.
Certainly the ubiquity of online is pervading many aspects of life, including, as Channel 4 news recently remarked upon, the Brexit negotiations - there are fewer discreet side conversations and backroom deals, perhaps leading to greater transparency. A lot of the subtler aspects of diplomatic dealing are being reformulated on the fly to fit on a Zoom screen, and speaking of which - apparently big collars are the latest fashion for online meeting workwear: Want to stand out on screen? Zoom in on that colossal collar…
More fashion tips and ‘what’s going on’ in the world of remote work coming next month.
So now,
47.03 What’s Happening at Virtual not Distant
We love the sense of community which is growing around our podcast, and believe strongly in the power of audio conversation to facilitate that, look out for more information about our ‘podcasting for connection’ service if you need that within your organisation,
We say hello to Bart, who, together with five other colleagues, has a new book out in Belgium: "Voorbij Het Nieuwe Werken, een dialoogboek". His community-sourced translation of the title is "Beyond the New Way of Work" and the subtitle which is hard to translate: "a dialoguebook" or a book for dialogue... check out the website www.futureofworkBE.org or join their launch on 25th June 2020. #futureofworkBE
Pilar has recently run two round tables for the Spanish energy company Iberdrola. She was glad to hear remote work mentioned as a sustainable way of tackling climage change, a very progressive point of view for Spain especially, where remote working has been accelerating very fast to catch up lately. Facilitating an audio-only round-table brought its own challenges, and highlighted the extent to which we all respond to visual cues on video about taking turns in conversation - even an avatar or profile picture helps lend some ‘presence’ to an online conversation. You can listen to the roundtable here.
And more for Spanish speakers, take a look at Campo Virtual Latino where Pilar also did a talk recently, another newly-formed organisation responding to demand from an underserved community.
But we need to be careful that the ease of setting up the technology in response to this global emergency situation, has made it possible for managers and organisations to overlook the stress and crisis situation, in terms of their expectations of others. Just because the technology means you can work from home or from anywhere, doesn’t mean you easily can do so, when your context is turned upside down… And emergency business continuity has a human price to pay long term.
58.45 mins Emotional Contagion
A recent conversation on LinkedIn led to a great dialogue, which was so interesting that Pilar pulled it all into an article: Do Emotions Spread through Collaboration Platforms?
We encourage sharing of our emotional state in remote teams as part of Visible Teamwork, for providing a context - additional information about things which might affect how we work within the team, which might not be obvious to our remote buddies. But should we consider more how that can cascade and amplify feelings across a team, in a way that could potentially be unhelpful? What are useful and less useful ways of doing this, and what might be the unforeseen consequences of it?
A fascinating conversation ensued, which involved many members of our podcasting community, coming at this from different angles and perspectives. Mood vs emotion, emotional resonance and influence… And we're always learning something new, from the amazing remote work movement we are part of. Such as ‘reactji’... Apparently when you react to a comment with an emoji, that has its own name now. Who knew?
So there you have it, lots going on in the world of remote, even beyond the present dependence on home-based working worldwide. If you have ideas, angles, and articles you’d like us to explore in future episodes, do get in touch.
And do 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, or if we can help you with our training, coaching, and facilitation services during these challenging times.
If you like the podcast, you'll love our monthly round-up of inspirational content and ideas: