WLP 227 What’s Going On, Technostress and Visible Teamwork
A more topical episode than usual, as these are unprecedented times for remote working. Maya and Pilar discuss a range of articles, and recap the principles of visible teamwork, which might come in handy for those being turned into remote teams.
03.10 mins What’s going on… Coronavirus is going on
And we’re proud to see the remote advocacy community coming together to share resources and support, to try and help the massive global experiment in whose midst we find ourselves.
However we want to try and find a balance between responding to the present emergency, and being realistic about the prospects and outcome for remote work transitioning as a long term business objective. Maya wrote about this recently in “Everybody Stay Away from the Office!” is NOT a Remote Work Strategy, where she identified that for larger organisations in particular having to abruptly transition to remote is really complicated, and the success or failure will depend to a large extent on where people are starting from - in terms of how much of their workflow and infrastructure is already cloud-based for example.
For individuals who have been keen to try remote working this could be a great opportunity to prove the point, but it’s hardly ideal conditions under which to try it out. We usually talk about ‘office-optional’ rather than remote work at Virtual Not Distant. What has being removed right now is the option, the choice… Already across Europe, and perhaps by the time you read this within the UK as well, with enforced lockdowns being imposed at short notice.
Essentially, there are two vast overlapping transformations, both business and social, being forced on the world unchosen, and for many people their first experience of working from home will be in this context of elevated stress and enforced social isolation, far from ideal circumstances. So we can only hope people whose experience is not wholly positive, will not judge the entire idea of remote work based on these extraordinary circumstances.
And no team, no individual, is unaffected by these events. Even those used to remote working are doing so in utterly unfamiliar contexts and circumstances, and as each jurisdiction responds to events with their own laws and policies we could find that our remote associates are living a different reality to each other. Cultural differences are going to be magnified and exaggerated, as different areas are affected in their turn.
15.10mins In Non-Corona Related News…
We’re focusing on the long-term support for managers and teams, dealing with transformation and chaos, to try to respond effectively and resiliently to present circumstances - then to evaluate their ongoing strategy towards remote and flexible working. Rework Episode 68 (the Basecamp podcast), is just one example of how organisations can reflect on big decisions, like whether to rent an office or not in the first place. There’s always lots to learn from the Basecamp team, (though they have withdrawn their free book offer since our recording date).
Eva Rimbau-Gilabert (who joined us in Episode 214) shared a report with us, a meta analysis of the mental health of workers in the digital era, which is full of interesting findings about ‘technostress’ and the effects of new ways of working - from overload to burnout to isolation to motivation challenges. Let’s remember that the tech is neutral - the work and the way it is done, is what matters. We need to master its use, and not let it control us or dictate our working rhythms. It’s a good reminder for all those brand-new home workers that while setting boundaries might not be top of their to-do list, ensuring emotional well-being will be vital in these difficult days.
Another recent article we’ve been reading (from the Telegraph in January), Workplace culture ‘must change’ to support women’s health, talks about changes in workplace culture in relation to women’s health - referencing research which reminds us that women’s minds and bodies and hormones are changing and cyclical, and need to be taken account of. Whether or not you have remote or flexible working as a policy, women’s health impacts on communications and relationships in the workplace, and there are plenty of workplaces where awareness needs to be raised about this (including men-only training, and even menopause experts in HR, where appropriate).
So that’s what’s going on, now we turn to:
35.10mins Listener feedback, and what’s coming up at Virtual Not Distant
We love hearing from our listeners, and the Online Communities episode featuring Hoxby.com brought lovely feedback from one of their members - do check out Episode 222 and Cat Lewis-Shand’s amazing testimonial for the network and what it has meant to her, it’s really powerful and moving.
And another conversation on the Onboarding (Episode 219), took place on our LinkedIn page - where everyone is welcome to join in the debate. Thanks for commenting Simon, and extending the concept of integration as the earliest phase of the onboarding process, how candidates form an impression of an organisation long before they attend an interview.
It was lovely to get a comment on an article from over a year ago, that’s still resonating thankfully - Exploding the myths: Challenging the clichés and assumptions about remote work. In this post Maya criticised some of the stereotypes around remote work and home working, and Carly Goka recently commented “I couldn’t agree more. Well said.” Thank you Carly! Glad that this message is still going strong.
Finally, don’t forget our special ‘Connection and Disconnection in remote work’ series which is still going on with Shield GEO. We’d love to hear your feedback, as these themes have taken on new meaning in present circumstances - just like Pilar’s book Online Meetings That Matter (check out Maya’s review of it here).
And check out a new network Pilar is involved with, Next Stage Radicals - we’ll update more on this soon.
Now on to our main theme for today (we do have a theme, despite all the fast-moving news diverting our attention):
43.26 mins Visible Teamwork
Visible Teamwork is our bespoke framework for managing teams who work online, in particular those who work remotely.
The three elements of Visible Teamwork are:
Deliberate Communication
Maya wrote a whole blog post about just one element of this facet, how we communicate our mood in remote teams - but the concept also embraces the way that every communication online needs to be intentional and specific, including advising people about our personal context and availability (for collaboration and conversation).
Building in ways to signal all these things, as well as to offer our team-mates work-specific information, will enable us to work together effectively, wherever we are.
Work Visibility
This encompasses having conversations in the open, making your workflow visible, and the making the work itself visible. It’s highly specific to the work itself, and the way you implement effective work visibility will depend on what you do and how you do it. But designing these processes involves agreements about how you communicate, what your process is, what values drive this and who needs what information/updates when, in order to do their own work.
This might be one of the most challenging areas for those newly and abruptly thrown into working from home… But we can help.
Planned Spontaneity
Finally, how we connect andcommunicate - within the work itself, through the technology we use, enabling direct conversations. And this concept includes things like meeting for ‘virtual coffees’, as well as the context signalling we mentioned above. (We have a whole podcast about this, Episode 221).
Learn more on our blog, at Good bye "Working Out Loud"; Hello "Visible Teamwork".
