Things Leaders Should Consider Now That Remote Work Becomes Inevitable
Covid-19 has been forcing many companies to ask their workforce to work from home. Remote work can be as productive if you pay attention to a few important points.
An increasing number of companies ask their people to work from home in order to flatten the curve. And if you’re in a leadership position, this lays at your feet some decisions to be made. Here are a few important points to consider before you send an email to announce everyone that they are going to WHF (Work From Home) until further notice.
Overcommunicate
I’m not going to go over the communication basics in remote settings. There are many good articles for that type of basic concepts.
There’s no doubt that your communication patterns are going to change. The main guideline is to always err on the side of overcommunication. Is it even possible to overcommunicate when everyone is remote? I’m not sure.
Core Hours or Not?
Decide whether you want to apply core hours when everyone must be online at the same time or you are going to adopt a result-focused, flexible-hours approach powered by mostly-asynchronous communication.
Applying core hours could be an easier transition for teams that are used to face-to-face communication. Asking a question over Slack during the day, and not receiving any response for a few hours could be frustrating at first.
Ensure that there’s an agreed-upon method in place to signal online-offline presence and also busyness, especially if you are allowing your people flexibility to decide in their working hours. This could simply be a shared calendar that everyone updates without neglecting, or status in your IM tool.
Comfortable Home Office
Ensure that everyone in your team understands the necessity of having a comfortable home office environment. I realize this is not always possible, but trying to work at the kitchen table or on a sofa in the living room could be OK for a day, but it is not going to be sustainable and productive in the long term.
If your company allows it, let them take their large monitor or other peripherals home to create a more productive working environment. Even better if you can secure some budget per person to spend on home office.
Weekly One-on-ones
These are strange and troubling times. Most of us have concerns about the health of our loved ones, the local communities, a potential slow down in the global economy.
As a leader, we need to focus on creating belonging despite the physical distances. If you’re not doing so already, consider running your 1:1s with a weekly cadence.
Retrospectives
It is important to run frequent retrospectives. You will be trying new processes and tools. It is important to inspect, review and adapt accordingly.
Discuss what’s working, what’s not working and what’s lacking with your teams. Readjust them accordingly.
Daily Sync
Daily sync meetings can help start the day with an increased sense of belonging, and understanding of what’s the state of tasks being performed.
Some leaders have strong feelings against daily standup/sync/huddles, but experiment with it before you categorically discard the idea in a remote setting.
Know Thy Tools
Tools are bad bosses. Don’t let them tell you how you should work.
List your concerns. Decide how you would like to tackle them. And then try to find tools that fit those needs.
We are exposed to many communication and teamwork tools. With remote work, it is important to establish good practices around when to use what tool, and it is also important for everyone to know how these tools work.
You have to acknowledge that you have different types of communication, and you can (should?) use different tools for different purposes.
IM = Quick Tap On The Shoulder
Use an instant messaging tool to replace the quick-top-on-the-shoulder type of discussion. Slack is the most popular choice for this, these days, but there are many others that are perfectly capable to fulfill this role.
This is not the best tool to have long asynchronous discussions, though. And certainly not a long-term documentation tool. For those, we need other tools.
For example, when you notice that the discussion goes deep into designing a solution, you need to move it to the following type of tool.
Forum = Long-Running Asynchronous Meeting
A tool that functions like an online forum is better suited for long-running async meetings where the discussion goes deeper into solving a problem or designing a part of the system.
Create a thread/topic per discussion, so that it’s clear from the subject line what’s being discussed in it.
It is also important to create categories (rooms) and subcategories to guide your people in choosing the right place where the thread is going to live.
These tools usually have good text search capabilities for historical needs. But I recommend documenting the decisions made in each thread using a more permanent tool, which brings us to the next type of tool.
Wiki = Decision Record
Use a wiki or a document repository or a knowledge base to record your decisions.
A document is only good when it is read and understood by everyone, so as a leader, you need to repeat that fact, and ensure that they are read.
Video Conferencing
When we communicate, it’s important to see other interlocutors as the non-verbal part is by far the largest part of a communication. Especially as a leader, you need to pay close attention to these non-verbal cues.
It is easy to waste a few minutes at the start of a meeting if people are not familiar with the tools or they don’t know where to find connection information. Come up with a method, and apply it consistently.
For example, you can consistently add the connection information to all of your meeting invites. Don’t forget to revisit existing recurring meetings and readjust them appropriately.
Encourage Public Channels
You need to increase the sense of belonging and connectedness in your team(s).
Encourage discussions on public channels. It’s very easy to DM someone, or create a private group to “avoid noise and distraction”. But it’s better to create specific channels where people can decide to join and listen, rather than making this decision on behalf of others.
Keep It Fun
Find ways to make this experience fun using virtual tools.
Consider creating special IM channels for sharing morning routine or pet/plant photos, discussing sports, hobbies, etc.
Consider using IM add-ons like Slack’s Donut to pair your people randomly to have water-cooler conversation.
Consider putting in place virtual team building events like brown bag sessions, trivia evenings, book clubs.
Thank you for reading.
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