WLP250 What’s Going On: Hybrid Workspaces and a Split Workforce
Welcome to episode 250 - a nice milestone to celebrate, so we even altered our usual running order to make this round number an occasion for Pilar and Maya to record together, and discuss what’s going on in the world of remote work right now in October 2020.
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03.45 Hybrid workspaces and practices
The workplace has certainly changed a lot, and while some people are back in the office, others cannot or will not return just yet. Will this create another dimension of difference? People Management are concerned about this: Beware the office politics of hybrid workplaces. We’ll have to see how this emerges and unfolds - and see who really has a chance to make a choice.
Because people will find ways to read into any form of difference, even how we cope in completely unprecedented conditions. At Virtual Not Distant we have always advocated for flexibility and remote working for everyone, but of course some benefit more directly than others in changed circumstances. This New York Times article picked up on tensions in some big tech companies: Parents Got More Time Off. Then the Backlash Started. While this difference may always have existed, the videoconferencing revolution has highlighted people’s personal circumstances in new and visible ways this year.
16.14 The evolution of remote work
Eva Rimbau shared this OECD study: Productivity gains from teleworking in the post COVID-19 era: How can public policies make it happen?, demonstrating large organisation understanding of remote working’s risks and rewards. Apparently remote working should ‘not be overdone’(!), but this suggests growing understanding of the need for appropriate monitoring and management. Meanwhile Spain now has some legal protection for home-based working, including ensuring expenses are met and working hours boundaries are respected.
It’s so interesting to see mainstream media suddenly discovering remote work and talking about it, and according to Fast Company, Gitlab are quite exemplary when it comes to this stuff. Extremely transparent and incredibly remote Gitlab’s radical vision for the future of work is a good introductory read (and check out their new certified course on Coursera, How to Manage a Remote Team).
28:40 Looking to the remote future...
Maya found this article which might be the salvation of Spain’s struggling tourist industry - Log on, chill out: holiday resorts lure remote workers to fill gap left by tourists. You don’t have to go to the Caribbean to work in the sun, and you’ll be made welcome in quieter-than-usual resorts. (And check out episode 212 from nearly a year ago, because the Canary Islands were well ahead of the game on this!)
Whereas back in the UK, Bosses are doing weird things to get people back in the office, according to Wired. What would you need, to get you back in the cubicle? Free food, free cabs? Of course anything that makes things safe is good, so a private cab makes sense, but surely we should question first whether people actually *need* to go back and do their work in that particular place? Obviously incentives matter, and maybe the free Covid tests will be an attraction too.
35.05 Leadership thoughts
Thanks for this ‘comfort reading’ share Chris Coladonato, Seven Ways to Rally Your Remote Team in Confusing Times - some gems here in this nice fluffy listicle, also surprisingly touchy-feely for Inc.
The traits of good remote leaders · Intense Minimalism shared by Valentina Thorner on Linkedin is also a great read, including very up-to-date research. For us it highlighted that people are starting to realise different aptitudes and behaviours are needed for remote leadership, and why some teams might be struggling for reasons they haven’t recognised fully, and there’s a definite shortage of experience for many leaders in this area. “This difference in traits might explain why a lot of organizations that are seeing benefits of remote work — even during a pandemic! — are still thinking to go back to the office. The problem might not be (only) organizational: it might be personal.”
So we’ll need to look out for traditionally-experienced leaders feeling threatened or undermined by the needs of a new kind of work, and consider this in the light of increasing demands for monitoring - perhaps it’s about more than a need to control.
42.30 Random tech changes which make remote better
Pilar is very impressed with how Word online (in Office 365) now transcribes dictation. Amazing how this tech is evolving - do take a look!
Also, did you know you can record the pronunciation of your name, in your LinkedIn profile? So now if you want to hear the difference between Pilar’s name in English and Spanish, go and have a listen.
43.30 Virtual Not Distant announcements
Speaking of LinkedIn, a great conversation emerged here about asynchronous communication - do take a look this thread full of some amazing ideas from the fabulous remote community.
Pilar contributed to this recent Washington Post article How to work remotely through time-zone changes, also focusing on asynchronous communication - this time from the perspective of US nationals who had ended up remote working from afar - once again great to see this stuff reaching the mainstream conversation.
Maya’s new book “Out of the Office”, first in the Healthy Happy Homeworking series, is about to publish! So please sign up for presale discount notification, and news of forthcoming releases. And do share it with any friends particularly if they are struggling with any aspects of working from home, or may not have chosen to do this in the first place.
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