WLP291 Starting a New Role Remotely
In today’s episode Pilar catches up with long-time friend of this podcast, Marcus Wermuth to talk about his mid-pandemic transition into new role at Remote.
Marcus is now the full-time senior engineering manager at Remote, a role to which he recently transitioned from a similar job at Buffer.
Both positions are fully remote, and Marcus has been working in this way for many years. Marcus also writes and speaks about virtual team leadership - an area in which he has extensive experience and expertise. He presently manages five teams at Remote, as they continue to explode in size to meet growing demand for employer-of-record services in the new remote world.
Switching from one role to another, especially mid-pandemic, Marcus felt a lot of the transition essentially happened as an internal process, a beginning and ending that had to take place within his own home and head. He chose a quiet time at Buffer to exit, and the main ritual act was marked by leaving one Slack team on a Friday and being added to a new one on Monday! So, there were none of the usual dynamics of moving to a new organisation, though he did find using a newly-supplied device for the new job helped (even if the stack of apps to be used were pretty similar).
Culturally there were no huge differences either. The two remote-first organisations have similar values and behaviours, so his learning curve was not in the same league as for someone new to this way of working. Both organisations are set up as fully distributed, and designed with the right structures and practices to support this, which was equally helpful for Marcus as for anyone else coming in new.
Marcus Wermuth
Leaving old colleagues and relationships behind is always difficult. Even when you don’t see your workmates in person day-to-day, deep and meaningful connections have developed, and while they may theoretically be just as contactable as they ever were, it is of course very different when you’re no longer working together - especially when they move on to new positions too.
On international teams those relationships were always highly asynchronous, and especially when travel is subject to changeable restrictions, it’s easy to feel you’re rather alone and disconnected. This realisation further helped him be mindful of staying connected to friends and peers - as pandemic restrictions permitted - because of all that he was leaving behind socially with changing jobs, and relationship building is not always an acknowledged component of management skills development and requires conscious cultivation. Self awareness and intentionality both helped him a lot.
Marcus admitted it was tough at first, to build these same kind of connections with a new team, and really understand each other. With no gap between the two roles, plunging in to a very busy organisation, there was little space for reflection and ending. But he used all he had learned to structure his social onboarding effectively and seek out opportunities to get to know people and connect with them deliberately, alongside his professional onboarding activities. And as a trained coach and naturally curious person, this helped him not only with intentionality but with talking and listening skills which quickly move a relationship towards the right level of openness and alignment.
When you’re managing five teams suddenly, even getting to know your direct reports as individuals is a challenge. But he focused on getting to know the team leaders fast, as well as peer relationships, particularly while getting to know the new organisation and its structures. He feels there are still blind spots, whole parts of the business he hasn’t really needed to interact with yet, but all this work of building relationships outside of your direct team has to slot in around the work of the role itself somehow.
He found the process novel but also familiar, because building relationships continually is part of the virtual team leader skill set, and he’s also very clear about boundaries on the workday itself (further facilitated by the demands of a new puppy.) His external professional networks certainly helped in finding the new job in the first place, even if those weaker ties were less of a focus during the intensity of the transitional process.
Despite all the challenges of the changeover, Marcus reflected on the ease of the transition from one job to another in the remote space, compared to when this involves physically moving offices - which can mean a disruption to travel, routines, family life, and even having to relocate an entire household.
“I am not building my life around my work, but I put my work into my life where it fits.”
Whatever else changed, his immediate environment and home stayed the same, as well as the wider neighbourhood and context, a factor Marcus recognises as a great privilege and upside of location-independent working.
This aligns beautifully with the mission of his new employer to help people be employed wherever they are in the world while supporting employers to hire the best talent regardless of its location - and reminds him why he took on this role in the first place.
Despite all that this turbulent time has brought into Marcus’ life, he still finds time to create content which reflects his own professional development. You can sign up for his insightful newsletter here. You can also check out some beta chapters of his new book, Beyond Avatars: Making Virtual Leadership More Human, which is due for release this year. Connect with Marcus on social media - LinkedIn and Twitter.
We can’t wait to see what else Marcus creates and shares, and look forward to having him back on the podcast soon.
(If you enjoyed this conversation, you can hear more from Marcus in episode 264, our series on loneliness in remote teams, 229, 219 (on onboarding in remote teams), and 209, on the journey of the remote leader.
Don’t forget to keep in touch with us and tell us what you think. 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.
If you like the podcast, you'll love our monthly round-up of inspirational content and ideas:
(AND right now you’ll get our brilliant new guide to leading through visible teamwork when you subscribe!)