WLP242 "What's Going On" in Remote Work: Are we moving forward or backward?
Welcome to our regular news round-up episode, that has become a monthly feature in the light of such fast-moving change in the world of remote work. In these episodes, Pilar and Maya discuss a selection of recent news items, announcements, and publications, which reflect the way issues and policies are unfolding.
If you have a news item you’d like us to take a look at please do send it to us, and don’t forget you can always…
Episode 242 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast with host Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss. Headshots of Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss.
What’s Going On
This topical segment was recorded on June 30th 2020.
Productivity monitoring: Considerations for HR, from compliance to culture More and more companies are resorting to ‘employee monitoring solutions’, to manage their remote workforce. Are some of them conflating information security and data protection with managing performance? Because these really are separate issues. And the article pointed out that these apps may yield data employers don’t necessarily need or want to interpret, like health data… As ever, the combination of misaligned incentives and unforeseen consequences may have negative outcomes. Our favourite quote: “Surveillance is not a replacement for leadership”.
However, in We Work Harder When We Know Someone’s Watching, HBR reminds us that external accountability definitely can make us more productive. There’s a big difference between things we instigate and own for ourselves to feel connected and on-task, and something externally imposed, and this article does not use the word ‘surveillance’! Above all it reminds us of how different we all are in terms of what works for us in managing our time and attention and productivity, and this research reminds us of how important it is to discuss and agree within the team about what visible work means to each of us, and as a group.
Spain is introducing new legislation around ‘teletrabajo’ - consultation is ongoing. El Pais has been discussing it, and exploring things like who pays for electricity and internet, and the way this complexity can compromise flexibility - though of course these details need to get worked out. There are the usual worries about the impact on culture… of course. And about ‘take it or leave it’ situations developing, which is surely a concern way beyond Spain.
The Future for Work institute have published research (April/May fieldwork) about how employees view how leadership has handled the last few months, indicating that keyworkers in particular were mainly unimpressed… Obviously at the time of this survey there were many factors influencing this, and this research reminds us how very different people’s experiences of this strange time has been. We focus too much on the knowledge worker paradigm, when we talk about the future of work, and not everything can be done remotely… but flexibility, on the other hand, can be for everyone. Even middle managers - who may need to find new roles and self-identity, in a visible teamwork environment.
So, plenty of interesting challenges for Spain coming up, from economic uncertainty, long/late hours culture which closely connect social and professional contact spheres, as well as a tradition of small apartment living. What about where you live? UK and Spain are where Pilar and Maya know best, but we’d love to hear about other cultural impacts and experiences too.
Turning now to a more global perspective, our friend Teresa Douglas shared this article on LinkedIn about performance review: 4 Different Approaches Companies Are Taking to Performance Reviews This Year. Approaches range from postponing reviews altogether, engaging in a different process altogether (like regular individual check-ins and happiness management, which we love). Others are dangling the privilege of long-term remote as a ‘perk’ for those who are important enough, and/or giving everyone a positive review… so here we go again.
And in the UK, only 13% of UK working parents want to go back to ‘the old normal’ - big surprise, but good to see more everyday non-business press talking about this kind of research and trend. We’re glad to see people starting to think about what they actually want, and choices we can make to shape the future, rather than waiting to hear what the future of work is going to look like, moving on from these turbulent times we’ve all experienced. So interesting to see how the conversation is evolving, and how that’s affecting how we feel about work and where we do it.
And a quick update on Slack… Which has a brand new emoji pack to help with remote work, sounds like fun, but it actually reflects something we’ve talked a lot about on this show, using remote tools to briefly indicate our moods and contexts and what other people in our remote work environment are doing. Wonderful!
And Slack Connect is something we’re still trying to get our heads around (here’s a round-up of announcement articles from Angel List). Up to 20 organisations in one Slack channel… Interesting, to be able to DM people outside of your own colleagues, straying into the realms of email in many ways. But every organisation uses Slack differently, so we’re wondering what it’s really going to look like in use. Please tell us, if you’re using Slack Connect in your organisations and overlapping teams, because we’re really keen to hear user feedback on this. Is it time for an asynchronous collaboration renaissance, after the over-dependence on video through the recent remote revolution? Maybe we’ll hear from more from Slack on this front soon, just remember to control those notifications!
What’s Happening at Virtual not Distant and our community
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.
Shout out to Chris Coladonato, for joining the conversation about task interdependence and visible teamwork, reminding us how much there is to unpick there… Essential listening, episode 239 - if you work with other people in any way, do check it out. Thanks Andy Brogan for sharing it too.
The IAF England and Wales chapter are planning an online conference at the end of October, so do take a look at that.Annual Conference 2020 - the Power and Practice of Facilitation.
Over on LinkedIn, Diego Von Söhsten has been looking at Lessons Learned From Our Early Adopters in Their Forced Shift to Remote Work - interesting perspective on Agile and remote, so well worth checking out this concise read.
Sharath Jeevan is developing a short LinkedIn series on re-igniting inner-drive in our working lives. The series looks at how we may be deeply misunderstanding the role of work in our lives - and how we can re-ignite a deeper sense of Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery, both as employees and employers.
Maya has been attending (online) some sessions at the Future of Work summit… Learning about all sorts of things, including the mysterious world of TikTok, from a diverse and interesting range of speakers. You can buy access to sessions you have missed here (though nope, Maya still doesn’t ‘get’ TikTok).
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.
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