Working remote during pandemic ?
Welcome to Sridhar’s newsletter number # 6. Appreciate you being here, so we can connect weekly on interesting topics. Add your email id here to get this directly to your inbox (https://sridhargarikipati.substack.com).
This week we are going to talk about working remote. The Wall Street Journal did an article this week mentioning about companies starting to think remote work isn’t working anymore post 4 months. Although there was positive and negative news around this as few are supporting remote work beyond pandemic and few aren’t. This definitely surprised me, my own team has delivered so well in last 4 months, and everyone was at their best during this time. Couple of my friends at different companies whom I have talked in last few months mentioned the same, how their teams have amazed in delivery during this time. Of course knowing big picture is not easy within my reach, but this definitely felt like having cracks in future of work we were all awaiting for remote work. I’m definitely in for world, where we can just work from anywhere. Yes, it’s not possible for all jobs, but the jobs which can be done remote, should allow one to embrace the remote work culture in organizations. It’s not good to have only one choice of work culture as world is changing and we cannot leave office setting as is. I personally don’t like, also doesn’t encourage my team to share their reason for taking work from home. We need culture shift as need to look at other side of office setting.
So many trends are coming around as world is changing, next generation expectations, lifestyle etc. are challenging the office setting. I met a digital nomad 5 years ago in Boston and was amazed by his work/travel routine. We will talk about this sometime later, but calling it out as regular office setting is pushed a lot in last decade but still we see resistance.
Coming back, this is not true remote working structure by many companies. As Pandemic has forced many who didn’t supported work from home option earlier to follow. Companies have shared remote working guidelines for the first time and many I would say trying to replicate the same onsite work culture to remote as well and for sure many assumed that now that employee doesn’t have to travel , they have additional time on their hands and pushing to deliver more than ever. This has been a problem with 9 to 5 job culture since long, history has shown always measuring by number of hours one logs doesn’t improves in productivity, creativity etc.
I will not talk much about the problem statement as we have seen this since more than a decade. More than a decade I have worked with teams from different geographies and learnt in hard way how to make it work when we don’t see each other directly. Understood that it requires more soft skills than working onsite as its just altogether different dimension. The reason why I say different dimension, is we cannot treat remote working is same as onsite working and expect the same. Yes, we all wants to see great results but we cannot follow same rule book for remote working as well. Both employer and employee needs to understand remote working dynamics to achieve success.
Not every team wins at working remote as well. Also I see this is not right time to judge productivity of remote work. Apart from working from home during this pandemic, people are juggling around multiple responsibilities at home as well. Just ask anyone having a toddler at home and see how many hide and seek they play while getting their work done. This leads to extending their work hours, adding more stress to existing stress they have. So for sure, this is not at all right time to measure remote work success.
This is like double edge sword where one group will be pleased to working from office and one from working from home or remote. There will be many for sure who says getting work done being remote is too hard or impossible. I have personally worked with remote teams more than a decade. Yes, it has struggles of being on same page, collaborating faster etc. initially, but all of this can be sorted out. If I have to describe in a word what is it needed to work remote successfully it would be DISCIPLINE. Every team struggles to make solid fist at first, if done few things right , adapt new changes as needed, will help to build a stronger team irrespective of where they are located.
Right leadership,
Trust within team,
Disciplined team,
These are the key flavors to form a successful remote team.
I personally did many small changes to regular team management cycle to form my own top performing team. Few examples as below,
Task assignments for the day should be very clear. We run in agile model, everyone is very clear of stories they are responsible for 2 weeks always as it’s our sprint schedule. Yes, every one does stand up calls etc. but direct connect within the team is well needed to ensure the day work is not impacted.
Team should be connected virtually throughout the day. When entire team is remote, use Instant messaging options of group chats. Avoid 1-1 communications over here so you won’t disturb the focus of others. Doesn’t matters if the ask is small or big, always do post the doubts, asks etc. , anyone from the team can jump in here and help each other. If it’s same ask for everyone, than quickly connect over the call to make it quick.
Also if there are any silent talkers they may open up over chat option. I won’t recommend too much video conferencing as it does screen burnout and maintaining eye contact in all the meetings during the day is tough. So select your video conferences wisely.
Never hold the tasks more than 2 hours. It may sound pressurizing at first. What I mean here is , Once task is assigned I suggest myself or my teammate to spend initially few hours not more than 2 hours , come up with analysis, design approach etc. Even after 2 hours, if no progress on task is done, then do reach out in group chat or get on to voice call to discuss the challenge. Mostly within team someone will give a solution right away or at least you will have helping hand. This was crucial to implement as running in 2 weeks schedule, a missed day deliverable will cascade to rest of week deliverable.
Peer review of work is common. It’s important to understand each team member as although entire team is working on same project and we get on-board into team with required project skills, but not every one has same strengths in the required skill. Get the team into pairs in order to help each other during work, not just post work review. ( Note, we are not dividing the team into groups, Just making them pairs to know who is their first contact to reach out for help ) This builds team confidence in small pairs first and also complement each other’s strengths in long run for team’s performance.
Checkpoint meetings during mid-day. Initially we started this as often found that tasks are not moving ahead as per schedule even after half of the day. None came in group chat or asked for peer help. Yes, it happens every now and then. So we started mid-day checkpoint meeting. These are mostly informal, just a roll call and make sure they are rolling forward. If not, what anyone one of us can do to help the team member. Initial days lead have come for help a lot, and once team gets comfortable with each other, team will volunteer as well for help. Mostly done in 5 minutes calls and extends only for team member who is stuck. As that’s the time to make sure hurdles are taken care of, so they won’t get bleed to next day planned assignments.
Have conversations as WE, Instead of YOU. Always have conversations as a team, instead of sub groups. Although every team member works on different tasks having conversations about the work as WE gives the support to each other.
Know your remote team well. Know their surroundings, Situations. Say one is taking care of elder in the same room as working. So they may be a away for while for some time. Or Have a baby, can get away from desk multiple times to change diaper and be back. Knowing people situations while remote will help instead of running towards judgement. This requires hand shake between both the sides, as remote employee can schedule time on calendar as getting away from desk so others know they are away for a reason.
We have team meeting once every 2 weeks. Yes, we have daily stand up calls, checkpoint calls, other project calls as well. This one is purely a team meeting, where we just talk about other than project tasks. If anyone wants to talk about leave plan of theirs as an example so entire team is there. Team members were supportive in swapping leaves around them. Like, yes you can be take in Feb, I will take leave in April as I have my cousin wedding. Or few talk about their recent interest in learning or came back and asked openly to give a weekend class on new tool we are working on. This process brought so much openness into my team at least.
To excel at remote working, for me discipline is top priority. One should master the art of time management. Even at home, dress as at work. If dressing doesn’t disturbs you, may be sit in a place which is like your work place and doesn’t go back to desk till next day. Discipline is needed a lot especially when we work remote as we have so many factors around us compared to work place.
This is one of most key management skills needed for future. If you don’t know how to manage a remote team well, then it’s high time to learn. Yes, its needs to be learnt as one require more soft skills in managing remote teams compared to onsite team.
Trust your team
Check In as needed, Video conferencing
Set Expectations clear
Honest conversations
Sharing quick notes on HBR article I read month ago which demonstrates key points to build team for long haul. My quick pen notes was little messy, so typed it on OneNote and saved it for reference. Here is the link for pen notes. Doesn’t matter whether team is onsite or remote, building successful teams is everyday learning.
Remote working is not something new for most of us, it has existed way before this pandemic. It’s just that pandemic has forced most of the jobs which can be done remote to operate in remote way. Before we jump on to judgement of remote working isn’t working anymore, Organizations should look at plenty of material out there as since 2016 onward way many have embraced in remote working.
Here is excellent guide to go through to understand how to make it work. Click here.
Also for personal side, here are tips from NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly who spent nearly a year in space over isolation to go over. Click here
Let me know in comments or reply me over email to share what you are doing specially to make your remote team great.
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