Five ways your team may be struggling with remote work – John Yorke

The ability to have ad-hoc spontaneous interactions with co-workers is invaluable. In physical spaces understanding this led to the end of offices and teams being co-located. Just imagine going back to a physical office where everyone had an individual office and you could only talk to co-workers if you had made an appointment in advance.
What would that do to productivity? Yet when we are remote that is exactly the guidance many of us are given when we are restricted to using Webex or Zoom for interactions with co-workers.

The good news is that most people have adapted to remote work very well and companies have found they have survived the Covid crisis without a major loss of productivity.

However, many are still struggling with a few very common problems. Generally we have become familiar with a few tools for communication such as Webex, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. These are all excellent tools but they are designed for planned meetings not for the work that goes on between meetings. I found thinking of them as a physical meeting room which needs to be booked in advance helped me relate to why there were so many challenges surrounding this and why we struggle to communicate things which would have been so simple in a physical environment.

This is perhaps the most common and most harmful to productivity and can really be put down to human nature. Think of the most frequent interactions you had with your co-workers. “Can you tell me where to find the expense forms”, “You said you wanted this to be green, which specific green do you mean?”, Most of us when in an office would have many quick interactions with co-workers, often in the form of asking someone nearby in the form of a very quick interaction.
What this translates to in many remote settings is one of four outcomes

1. We wait, it isn’t worth a meeting for one question so we make a note and when we get to an already planned meeting we ask.

2. We wait until we have enough questions to justify calling a meeting. Naturally it would be rude to send a meeting request without sufficient notice so we delay, likely 24 hours or more. and You can’t have a meeting for less than 30 minutes so we fill that time with stuff.

3. We delay – We try to figure it out ourselves, in the case of new or inexperienced employees this could lead to feeling stuck until someone notices or not doing something critical.

4. We guess and potentially do the wrong thing and do not discover it is wrong until much later in the process which ends up delaying and costing more.

In all cases this results in delays, the communication cycles are slower and hugely costly, in almost all professions delays are expensive, the longer the delay the more expensive it becomes.
Any reduction in those feedback loops is hugely valuable to productivity. We instinctively understand this when co-located but when remote our fear of interrupting someone outweighs our desire to get a fast response and our chosen tools add friction to the machine.

The right tools enable spontaneous interactions and encourage free communication, some features to look for:

• See who is in a meeting prior to joining
• View whether people are busy (talking etc.)
• Pull others/invite others to join conversation
• Turnarounds – Pull entire team together
• Free transition between multiple breakout rooms

At the most fundamental level this covers practical considerations such as: I need to ask Sally a question, is she in a meeting, is she even in the office, is she busy. In a physical office I can look up and see a chair is empty or that she is talking to someone. I know immediately whether she is available or not and I know when she comes back.

But this also covers more subtle interactions: In a physical office I may observe that James is showing a preference to work on his own and has limited interactions, is there a problem, is he shy does he need support? All things that managers and co-workers notice when physically co-located but are often absent when remote.

Similarly there is the absence of data that is actually valuable. If you have a large team you may not notice someone is missing, but in a physical office if Jane doesn’t come to work we notice an empty seat and are concerned so we check that she is okay.

Team awareness is so important to effective team interactions, becoming comfortable with your co-workers leads to more effective communication, less barriers to getting things done and feeling more engaged and part of something more.

This is easily solved with the right tools and a mindset of being part of a team.
Features to look for in the right tool:

• Live information of who is online
• Always on throughout the day
• Live information of who is offline

When coming in to a physical office you are immersed in the hustle and bustle of office life the background noise the comings and goings the sense of being part of a larger community. Even if you come in and put your head down and work you still feel a sense of being part of something bigger. At home this feeling is simply not there, if there is noise it is the neighbor mowing their lawn or children playing, dogs barking of noises that making you feel part of your home community.

In a physical office you would see people and often interact with them even if your work does not require it you build relationships with work colleagues and with others you see in the office.