From ／ Forbes
By ／ Jason Wingard
A recent Gartner survey of 317 CFOs and finance leaders found that 74% of companies plan to shift “at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-Covid 19.” Nearly one-quarter (23%) plan to convert at least 20% of previously on-site employees into permanent telecommuters.
Such transitions are already making news: Twitter and Square recently announced their employees could work remotely forever. Nationwide did, too, with the exception of four corporate offices. Even James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, told Bloomberg: “We’ve proven we can operate with no footprint. Can I see a future where part of every week, certainly part of every month, a lot of our employees will be at home? Absolutely.”
Although I am not surprised remote work has taken hold so rapidly in recent months, I am surprised it took a pandemic for corporate America to consider it a legitimate option. Not only can remote working save money — an estimated $11,000 per year for employees who telecommute just part time — and boost productivity, but it can also lead to a better quality of life for employees. In a May 2020 CNBC survey of 9,049 workers, 48% were working remotely — and, of those, 57% said they were “very satisfied” with their job.
While remote working can provide many opportunities for the companies of today and tomorrow, its adoption will only prove beneficial if the transition is completed in the right way. Here are three steps leaders should take to ensure successful remote working over the long term.
Be Thoughtful About Tech
In the frenzied, coronavirus-induced conversion from on-site to remote working, many companies discovered that their tool stacks were disjointed. One department may have used Skype for video calls, while another used Zoom. One team member may have emailed all their communications since they were not comfortable with Slack. Yet, in order for a remote team to operate efficiently, its tools must be aligned — and streamlined.
“While functioning remotely, strip the tool stack down to a minimum,” suggests the remote work playbook from GitLab — which, with 1,200+ employees in 67 countries, claims it is the largest all-remote company in the world. “Google Docs, a company-wide chat tool (like Microsoft Teams or Slack), and Zoom are all you need to start. If your team needs access to internal systems through a VPN, ensure that everyone has easy access and clear instructions on usage.”
Leaders should also consider offering or expanding tech “allowances” that subsidize employee purchases of home office supplies, such as ergonomic chairs or extra monitors, and should ensure staffers have access to adequate broadband. Some leaders might be surprised to learn that between 25% and 50% of Americans do not have access to high-speed internet at home. It is “vital to remember that people need to have reliable connectivity to use these cloud-based tools,” Angela Ashenden, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told Computerworld. “To enable and support remote working at scale, businesses will have to have policies on how they support those employees who don’t have good connectivity.”
Embrace Data & Documentation
When companies go fully remote, their previous communication protocols may no longer be adequate. After all, it is much more difficult to read body language, stop by a subordinate’s desk to take a daily pulse, or host spontaneous hallway brainstorms when a team is working from home. That is why experienced remote leaders underscore the importance of data and documentation. As Heather Wilson wrote for TaxJar, a remote company with more than 160 employees: “A good rule of thumb to consider for working remotely: If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.”
Documentation will not only aid in informing team members when they are working asynchronously; it will also create a public archive for future hires and organizational assessments. Zapier, an all-remote tech company, documents all decisions in a proprietary log called Async, which any employee can access to understand how past decisions were made. “In theory, this means we should get better at making decisions over time because everyone can benefit from the organizational decision-making muscle,” Wade Foster, the company’s CEO, told the Harvard Business Review.
Of course, data and documentation do no good when kept private — which is why many remote teams schedule daily or weekly standups. “These are excellent for sharing updates and holding the team accountable for progress, yes, but they also force teams to interact in real time and build connections,” Emily Mikailli wrote at Signifyd, a company that has been remote for nearly a decade. “Our years of distributed teams have helped us establish firm and non-negotiable procedures around documentation and sharing of information so that everyone who might benefit from certain knowledge has access to it.”
Develop a Culture of Trust
Not meeting in a physical office each day is no excuse for leaders to ignore culture. In fact, according to Laurel Farrer, CEO of Distribute Consulting: “Culture is actually more important in a virtual environment because being part of a very dynamic and engaging culture is how remote workers separate their work from their life in the same environment. So when they log on, they really feel like they’re part of something and very connected to their teammates. That tells their brain it’s work time.”
As I have written before, any newly remote culture should emphasize communication and connection. It should also be built upon trust: Recent analysis from Gartner finds that two-fifths of remote employees want more self-directed work. “Managers must trust their employees and shift away from directing their work to coaching them to success,” the study concluded. “To do this, managers should focus on employees’ work product and outputs rather than processes.”
This sentiment — that trust usurps all other cultural qualities when it comes to creating an effective long-term remote company — is echoed by many remote leaders. “[P]ivoting to a remote workforce requires a different mindset,” wrote David Hassell, CEO of remote tech company 15Five. “Leadership must focus on trusting their people. This includes offering more autonomy, entrusting the decisions made by individuals and teams, improving transparency through better communication skills, and holding people accountable for their own results.”
The bad news is a widespread and permanent shift to remote working will not occur naturally or seamlessly; it will require leaders to be thoughtful and deliberate, creating policies designed for a workforce that is truly remote — and not one that is temporarily staying home.
The good news is this shift may benefit the workforce, and the country, as a whole. “At present, shifting as many people as possible to home-based telework is a necessary response to a terrible crisis,” wrote Katherine Guyot and Isabel V. Sawhill for the Brookings Institution. “In the post-pandemic world, it may stay with us as a popular practice that, if done well, can improve job satisfaction, raise productivity, reduce emissions, and spread work to more remote regions.”