“Remotability”
Once upon a time at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic (February 2020)
Over the last two decades, the remote working culture evolved at a slow pace. Many business contacts who are US-based have worked remotely from San Francisco or New York and been able to enjoy idyllic surrounds while holding down significant executive roles in global companies.
In Australia, remote working did not take off as quickly, and the traditional CBD and office environment became well established. The CBD workforce concentration has been so successful that even regional areas in Australia remain underdeveloped and relatively hard to access.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed this paradigm. Our remote working culture is now evolving at a rapid pace. “Jumping in and out of zoom meetings” is becoming an integral part of the workday. The regional areas distant from the cities are becoming desired locations to achieve the Shangri-La of work-life balance.
The common topic with many business owners seem to be: “what shape will the emerging working environment take and what are the platforms a new business owner needs to put into place?”
In a recent meeting, one participant was heard suggesting that “nothing much will change and things should be back to normal quite soon.” The rationale was that people are social animals, and they will want to go back to what they had before the pandemic arrived to challenge our traditional ways of thinking, working, and living.
Even as an optimistic person, I was entirely caught off guard by this perspective because there are several indicators that life as we knew it, may never return. One reason for this belief is that we were already experiencing an increased pace of change. Change in technology, change in business practices, and change in social and political dynamics. If you inject an inflection into this change dynamic for 6 to 12 months, the result must be a different frame of reference; not just a slight change.
Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist in New York with USV, commented in his blog recently:
“… I am also confident that we will not resume living and working as we did before the pandemic because some of the things we have adopted to get through this will reveal themselves as comparable or better than what we were doing before.”
Almost at the same time as Fred was writing his blog, Jack Dorsey, co-founder and part-time CEO for Twitter sent an email to all the Twitter staff saying that they could now work from home, remotely or anywhere, permanently.
These examples do not sound like returning to the old normal.
One concern that does arise from developments like this is real health risks to employees who are not experiencing regular face to face interaction with colleagues. Continuously working remotely from colleagues could enhance or facilitate withdrawal from society.
In Japan, the mental health phenomenon of withdrawing from society is a well-researched problem called “Hikikomori”. The New York Times (6th June 2019) quoted a Japan government source saying that the residents in Japan inflicted with Hikikomori numbered around 1.2 million. Hikikomori results in severe depression and mental illness.
Of course, many people that work remotely and feel some form of isolation may not suffer the severe symptoms of Hikikomori. However, it is not a coincidence that the published articles on mental health and the increase in the incidence of mental health have occurred at the same time as the increase in remote work and the period of the pandemic.
Regardless of how things evolve, it will be increasingly crucial for business owners and leaders to stay in touch with the relative health and wellbeing of their staff and provide appropriate support for the new working environment.
Fast forward eight months bringing truckloads of wisdom
Work from home now has its popular acronym – WFH. The number of companies who are encouraging or accommodating WFH is increasing each day. Of course, the tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter Slack, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Zoom have all been quick to make this decision and change policies.
A Harvard Business Review article, “Knowledge Workers Are More Productive from Home” - by Julian Birkinshaw et al. (31st August 2020) found that lockdown (or WFH) helps us focus on the work that matters. The extra focus resulted because there is a decrease in the incidents of large meetings. There are less internal meetings. There is more time to spend with customers and external partners. The research shows that in a WFH environment, we take more responsibility for our decisions. Other colleagues less influence us. Our self-esteem rises because the activities are deemed to be more worthwhile.
WFH seems to be a very positive experience for knowledge workers. What is not known are the longer-term implications. The broader impact is a work in progress.
In an article in Fast Company 14th October 2020, Arianna Huffington ( founder and CEO of Thrive Global) claims that the incidence of chronic health problems, mental health issues and inequality in the business and the broader community was rapidly rising before the onset of the pandemic. Once the pandemic established itself and WFH became familiar, she feared a perfect storm that would further exacerbate.
WFH and leadership
Of course, one critical part of the mix is the emerging role of the leader. The top-down authoritarian leadership function is unlikely to work in a remote working structure.
In a McKinsey article titled: “Sustaining and strengthening inclusion in our new remote environment” (22nd July 2020) Diana Ellsworth et al. recommends leaders develop skills and a leadership style which focuses on a humanised approach.
Many of Diana’s suggestions focus on a softer type of leadership which seeks support to develop each employee so that they may achieve their professional development goals. Implicit in this is the expectation they will also play their part in helping the organisation achieve its strategic objectives.
Some examples of desired remote leadership traits include:
“Demonstrate vulnerability and empathy,”
“Ask about people’s needs, acknowledge them, and tailor actions accordingly,” and
“Challenge personal assumptions, adopt a learning orientation and seek to understand others’ experiences and personal styles.”
Of course, contemporary leadership seems to require a lot of these methods and associated skills. The pandemic has merely fast-tracked the trend and, probably, left a lot of “old school” leaders in its wake.
The challenge for leaders remains real and is ongoing. A survey published by People Matters and incorporating some Gartner research (on 1st October 2020) claimed:
“49% of workers still do not clearly understand what is expected of them as they work remotely.”
“Over half of global workers report they have not been well-trained to create, manage, and execute work remotely productively.”
“82% of company leaders plan to allow employees to work some of the time remotely.”
Many business leaders are looking at how to make remote work optimal. Candice Cheng (People Matters 29th September 2020) has tracked the trending concerns of leaders by the searches for training and seminars on LinkedIn. Recently the demand for training and guidance on how to work effectively in a remote and distributed team have been in hot demand. Leaders and employees are searching for topics on productivity, effectively manage a remote workforce, Communicating in virtual meetings, leading at a distance, setting up a home office and managing remote teams.
Team A, Team B or Hybrid Organisation,
Some of the business leaders with whom I work are now implementing a hybrid approach or a “Team A”, “Team B “ organisation structure. Initially, the rationale behind this is to provide more individual space so staff can work safely and at the same time minimise the requirement for extra rented office floor space.
In a Harvard Business Review article titled “How to Manage a Hybrid Team” (7th October 2020), Rebecca Knight outlines succinct principles required for leaders to make the hybrid model work for all stakeholders.
Leaders should set clear priorities and objectives, be inclusive, be fair to everyone and reflect on personal biases and predispositions. Leaders also need to be flexibly attuned to the stress levels of their team members. The fun factor in the work environment needs to measured regularly.
I was facilitating an account review with a large company client recently. There were many important issues to cover that directly related to the business results. However, one of the critical agenda items was employee health. Many of the team leaders had been managing hybrid or remote teams for at least six months, working long hours and without a holiday.
The relative health of some team leaders was raised as a concern. They were named as requiring a holiday or a break. The increased stress levels of the leaders are was not raised as a passing concern or something that should be addressed at an undefined time in the future. It was a “there and then” business priority with specific actions around helping these leaders get a break. The other half of the discussion revolved around putting in place measures aimed at allowing the business to carry in their absence.
The critical consideration for the hybrid model is to ensure the team leaders have the requisite skills to lead in this environment. Some stories around this include leaders who still insist on knowing when the team members start and stop work. When are they taking their breaks? Probably this approach will be short-lived. It will result in frustration and lost productivity from both sides. The more common model which is evolving has a focus on clear objectives and measurable deliverables.
Bringing Employees Back to the Office
Slack Technologies’ CEO and co-founder, Stewart Butterfield, says that “tech companies cannot bring employees back to the office even if they want to.” He forecasts that tech companies have to make peace with permanent remote work. Already it is clear to see that there is a market force at play. If competitors are giving the option to employees to work remotely, then it will be challenging to go against this development. In a market that is competitive on talent, individual companies cannot decide in isolation that their employees must come to the office.
Technology and alignment
Even though there has been rapid adoption and adaptation towards remote work, companies are just now starting to figure out remote work. (Fast Company Impact Council - 14th October 2020). How are employees interacting and working with technology and with each other? How are body language and intonation understood over a remote meeting? There is a lot more work needed to ensure the human experience is truly meaningful.
“That is going to mean stuff like periphery movement, body language, then 3D audio, those kinds of things…it might also involve telepresence experiences within virtual reality and augmented reality frameworks.” (Fast Company Impact Council - 14th October 2020.)
A corollary to this is the consideration around the new organisational structure and operational ability. How is the requirement for innovation and speed balanced with the need for alignment?
The technology suite that is available for remote work and collaboration has evolved rapidly. Even though these companies hail from across the US and globally, the rapid evolution has shown the power of the culture initially developed in Silicon Valley. The issue now is how best to use each application so that productivity and alignment are enhanced.
Remote Work and The New Rules of Business
In the environment of increased remote work, Fast Company and their Impact Council have come up with suggestions for the new rules of business for the next 25 years. These are:
Bring Democracy to work
Invest in Community
Define purpose
Be Authentic
Curiosity is currency
Change is constant
These rules are important because they become signposts for the strategic direction, strategy development and the strategic imperatives. Once distilled, the rules seem more of an evolution rather than a revolution. As an example, change has been constant in business for some time. The pace of change is the piece which has sped up.
The most important values and considerations that become apparent from these rules are honesty, continuous learning, environment and community, collaboration and listening. All of this is done in the context of a clear purpose.
Remote Work Jargon
Of course, WFH has already fostered a new lexicon, and this will continue to evolve as the remote working reality normalises. (Fast Company 12th October 2020). Some of the new words also serve as a heads up for leaders. Some of the new words are:
Essential Worker – this has proved to be a mixed blessing. Working in pandemic hotspots as a medical worker, teacher or supermarket employee can also be quite dangerous.
Zoom Fatigue can result from back to back zoom meetings.
Comic relief or security concerns can arise from Zoom Bombing meeting attendees.
Blursday becomes the day when the employee is not sure what day it is.