If you’re reading this, you’ve either made the decision to move your company to remote work or are actively considering it. From a moral standpoint, allowing your employees to work remotely right now is indisputably the right decision: WHO, the CDC, and other reputable organizations have proven that acts like quarantining and social distancing are highly effective to slow the spread of contagions like COVID-19. If you’ve already made this decision: thank you for doing what you can to keep your coworkers, families, and communities that much safer.
Anyway, you’re not reading this to get an opinion on the morality of remote work. You’re reading this because as icky as it is to admit with a global pandemic going on, you’re worried about the business impact of remote work.
I’m here to say it is totally possible to produce great work and push your company forward in a totally remote environment.
My goal for this post is to share the lessons I’ve learned for how to effectively structure your fully remote team to avoid confusion, keep productivity high, and make the most out of this usual moment in time.
Before we jump in, a few things -
First, a bit about who I am and why I feel qualified to write this post: I have been working fully remote for 4.5 years at a fully remote company of nearly 800 employees. I’ve done the office thing, I’ve done the remote thing, and I’m one of those highly exciting individuals who love documentation, rules, and process.
Second, I want to highlight how this article differs from some of the other “how to work remotely” articles you may see floating around:
This post is intended for managers and those in a position to set company policy — this article will not provide tips for remote work at large (although my tl;dr is: introverts, you’re going to love it. Extroverts, you are in for a challenge. Video chat is your friend).
The recommendations outlined here come from my own experience at an all-remote company that keeps specific business hours. From what I’ve seen, most content on remote work is produced by (incredibly innovative, successful) companies like Doist and GitLab that operate all-remote and asynchronously, meaning real-time meetings are discouraged to provide individuals with maximum flexibility. Given the (hopefully) temporary nature of your company’s remote situation, you likely want your remote experience to mimic your in-office experience as much as possible (see: synchronous communication). That’s what the recommendations below offer — tactics that easily transition from in-office to remote and back to the office again. That said, if you’re interested in going deep on remote work and asynchronous communication, I can’t recommend these companies’ blog posts enough.
Third, I want to acknowledge that the ideas outlined are nowhere near novel. In fact, most will seem obvious. But let’s be honest… just because you know what you should be doing doesn’t mean you’re actually doing it. If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: the bad habits you can get away with in an office will crush you in a remote environment. I aim to identify these particularly lethal workplace sins and prescribe ways to combat them. Less ambiguity, and more of the obvious — here, here!
Alright! Let’s get started, shall we?
Four Steps for Managing Your Newly All-Remote Team
Step #1: Clearly communicate your expectations for work during this period and constantly reinforce
Ideally as soon as your company decides to move to remote work, someone in your c-suite should message the entire company via email detailing (i) the decision to work remotely, (ii) expectations for remote work, and (iii) resources for employees that want to learn more. If your CEO/COO does not have time to write this, ghost write it for them. Seriously — emails from your c-suite have higher open rates (no offense). This is your opportunity to inspire confidence or sow a few weeks of lousy, half-assed work, so it’s worth ensuring everyone receives the message loud and clear.
After providing an overview of why your company has decided to move to remote work, clearly outline your expectations during this period of time. This should include, at minimum:
Mandated tool(s) for communication during this time and when they should be used (i.e. Zoom for video calls, Slack for more casual interactions, email for anything that should have a paper trail, etc.),
Work hour expectations (“We will continue to adhere to a 9am — 5pm ET work day while working remotely.”),
Work boundaries (“We acknowledge that you may receive more Slacks or emails outside of working hours, but please do not feel the need to answer until the next business day.”),
Where/how you will communicate updates to your company’s remote/work from home policy, and the frequency of updates.
In addition to setting expectations around how your company will function during this remote period, I recommend providing access to additional resources that remind your company of how you have their best interest in mind. A few potential examples:
Listing out Slack/Microsoft Teams channels that will be used for sharing updates (if applicable),
Link(s) to your company’s health care policy and contact information for member resources (if applicable),
Link(s) to any parental benefits offered (if applicable),
Updates to other perks/benefits (ex: “Reminder that employees can expense up to $25 a month on health and wellness, which can be used for at-home fitness subscriptions or exercise gear”).
Who to reach out with with general questions (this person/team should be CC’d)
Feel free to supplement this email with an all-company video call if desired. However, an all company video-call should not replace an email: you as a manager will want a tangible document to point to when you receive questions.
Once expectations are set from the c-suite, managers should enforce these standards, and add onto them by creating a framework of accountability.
Step #2: Manage effectively by focusing on clarity, transparency, and accountability
Like bad communication, sloppy and distant management is a fast-track to frustrated, unfocused teams in a fully remote environment. The easiest way to counteract this is by creating multiple touch points that introduce and reinforce accountability into your team’s day-to-day.
There are three frameworks/events I recommend incorporating into your team’s remote life ASAP. They’re all highly effective for managing in-office teams, too. They are: OKRs, task management, and stand-ups.
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results):
I’m going to keep this one brief because this is all very Google-able and I don’t want to risk sounding like a dummy. Anyway. OKRs are company and/or department goals typically set from the top-down. They are believed to be goals that, if accomplished, move the business forward. Every OKR should be measurable (“Hit $1M in Revenue”), have a goal completion date (“12/31/20”), and have a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) (“VP of Sales”).
Your company likely already has OKRs. If you don’t, this is a wonderful time to collaborate with senior leadership to come up with OKRs. If you have OKRs but they’re not measurable, they’re vague, or they simply don’t make sense, you should use this as an opportunity to refine them.
Company OKRs should live in a format that is easy to understand and accessible to the entire company. Every department should have OKRs, and every team should always understand how their day-to-day tasks impact company OKRs. Put another way, OKRs should guide the work your team is doing. You as a manager are responsible for helping the team prioritize projects that push OKRs forward. This brings us to…
Task Management:
There are a million task managers and project management tools out there, and you’re likely already using one. At minimum, your task manager should provide transparency into what your team is working on, task priority, their progress on that task, task completion date, and updates associated with that task. If you’re building out your own task manager (Google sheets works just fine), I recommend adding in a section for OKR that task is supporting, dependencies, and roadblocks.
In my experience, some people love task managers and other people will only update their task manager when forced (*waves*). Folks also tend to have very personal preferences when it comes to task management software, so you may find that your team is using a variety of tools. Now’s a good time to establish the system of record. Now that you’re remote, you should set expectations around not only which task manager will be used, but how frequently your team should be updating the tasks in your shared task manager.
In fact, a good time to review your team’s tasks is during…
Stand-Ups:
Daily stand-ups are a great way to introduce a frequent, recurring touch-base with your team and drive accountability. Daily stand-ups are a near ubiquitous part of any EPD (engineering, product, design) team’s schedule, where everyone on the team goes around and provides an update. Format can vary, but a popular one is covering what you did yesterday, what you’re doing today, and any roadblocks you have.
My team’s daily stand-ups tend to follow a similar format, and frequently include time for general questions at the end. We conduct our stand-ups on a video call with screen share capabilities and cap our stand-ups at 30 minutes. On the call, I will share my screen to display the team task manager and we’ll review outstanding high priority tasks as a team. This daily ritual provides a level of transparency and accountability that prevents someone or some project from stalling out. Added bonus: I’ve found our daily stand-ups actually reduce my proclivities towards micromanagement because I always know where things stand and when I’ll receive my next status update.
Step #3: When in doubt, jump on a video call.
There’s a reason communication is easier in-person: there’s more being communicated. When you’re talking to your coworker in the office, the message you receive is a combination of their words, tone of voice, facial expression, and body language. This is also the reason why remote work, where one-dimensional forms of communication like email or Slack are often the default, can feel, well, one-dimensional. While these tools have their merits, I recommend using video calls as much as possible, and always when there’s a problem or misunderstanding (“Hey, mind if we jump on a Zoom call for 3 mins to talk through this?”).
Here’s the long and short of it: You are far more likely to sound like a jerk and bungle your message in email/Slack than you are over video chat. Plus, people are just nicer when they can see they’re talking to a human being.
Basically use video calls for any conversation that will be more art than science. A few examples include conversations where emotions may run high (1:1s, personnel issues), discussions on complicated subject matter, or brainstorming sessions.
Look: we’re all a little on edge right now. Let’s do our teams a favor by creating the most empathetic environment possible. That means more video calls and fewer shitty, half-baked Slack messages.
Other important tips for your video calls:
Minimize your messaging app and mute notifications when you get on a call. What’s the point in being there if you’re distracted or multi-tasking?
Turn your video on even if you think you look horrible. Hats conceal dirty hair.
Don’t forget to start your calls with pleasantries! Remote work can feel transactional very quickly and you need to do everything in your power to counteract that.
Listen to your coworker’s response when you ask them how they’re doing. Care. Bad listening is incredibly obvious.
Step #4: Frame this as an opportunity
While you and your team work remotely, you should enjoy the benefits of working remotely. Make a beautiful lunch and eat it away from your computer. Go for a run in the middle of the afternoon. Read for 30 minutes as a break. Do your laundry. No commute and no direct oversight gives you and your team the time and freedom to architect your day, so architect away.
To be clear, none of us wish we were in this situation. However, I think it’s worth noting the silver linings when we can find them. Flexibility is a real one.
Lastly, try your hardest to put the conditions in place to make this remote test successful. Encourage your team to take advantage of their time away from the office by giving them the tools they need to perform. Even if you don’t like the idea of an all-remote company, every working person wants more work flexibility, so do right by your team and put effort into making these next few weeks work. You may just find that a more flexible work environment is exactly what the doctor ordered.