Remote Working

 

The recent lock down due to Corona Virus outbreak has forced all of us to work from home. While some people might be used to such a practice, most others must be trying to cope with the new way of working. Many companies have adopted the practice and remote working trends as a concept have been rising globally with a steady increase in the percentage of people having the option to work from home. The full-time remote workforce numbers in the United States has increased 159% from 2017 to 2019. Many European countries also have similar trends indicating that remote work will soon be the new normal. Despite its growing popularity, many organizations haven’t been able to adopt this cultural shift because of various challenges associated with remote working. However, the sudden forced telecommuting due to the lock down, shall trigger the need to create organizational support system including technology adoption to accelerate the shift for seamless business continuity management.

This article explains on the myths, realities, challenges and opportunities of this practice and throws light on how it benefits all stake holders equally without compromising the organization productivity. It also elaborates the guidelines for Organisations, Managers and the Employees for a successful adoption of this pathbreaking way of working.

Facts around remote working globally

As per Gartner research, demand for remote work will increase by 30% by 2030, due to Generation Z fully entering the workforce.

• 64% of today’s professionals say they could work anywhere, and remote work policies are common these days with 71% of organizations having them in place.
• As per State of “Remote Work report 2019” by Owl Labs, remote workers are happier at work and are 13% more likely to stay at their current job for the next 5 years than their onsite counterparts.
• 77% of respondents of a recent survey reported greater productivity when working remotely compared to working in an office.
• 82% of respondents of a separate survey reported that they are happier when working remotely.
• State of the American Workplace 2017 study by Gallup found that 43% of employees have worked remotely with some frequency.
  • Research indicates that two to three days of working remotely is the most productive, as it allows to focus on work deliverables without distractions.
• 2015 Stanford study that tested the effects of telework on productivity found that the practice increased the productivity by 13%.
• There are also studies that reveal the flip side of remote working. One of the studies indicates that people working together in the same room tend to solve problems much quicker than remote collaborators. It also indicates that team cohesion suffers in remote work arrangements.
• While remote work is being increasingly demanded by employees and enabled by technology, 93% of the organizations leave it on manager’s discretion to decide who can or cannot work remotely.
• Only 56% of managers let their employees work remotely — even when policy allows it.

Myths Vs Realities around remote working

Myth	Reality
Remote work decreases productivity	Remote employees often try to manage their time in a way that they leverage their most productive hours well. Multiple surveys indicate that remote working, on the other hand, improves productivity as it allows to focus on work deliverables without distractions to the degree they do in the office.
Data is unsafe in remote working	Data protection is a necessity and strict storage and retrieval protocols needs to be in place through suitable technology adoption. Data can be unsafe even in office working environment with the lack of such measures.
Communication suffers	Most of the office communications in any case happen digitally irrespective of physical location. Technology provides multiple avenues of collaboration and communication, hence there is no barrier to communicating with remote employees.
Meetings are ineffective	There is no data to suggest that remote meetings are ineffective. In fact, these days, most of the meetings in geographically diversified organizations happen remotely using audio and video conferencing solutions. Effectiveness of meetings depend on the discipline followed in the agenda and not on the mode of participation.
Remote workers are lonely	Yes, remote workers can feel lonely if not engaged well. However, engagement doesn’t happen only through physical proximity. There are enough tools and technologies available these days to communicate and collaborate remotely and create an engaging digital way of working.
Company culture suffers	Culture is all about defining the core values and ways of working and living up to it. The same can be achieved through appropriate communication, collaboration and engagement irrespective of physical location. Most of the multinational organizations are already practicing it because of their diverse geographical spread.
Remote work lacks sincerity	The question is how does the organization measure sincerity? Is it the deliverables or mere physical presence? Sincerity comes from accountability and trust. Organizations’ policies and systems to uphold such values can be uniformly applied to all, irrespective of their mode of working.
Constant work distractions due to interruptions from home	The reality is that interruptions are there everywhere, no matter whether you are in office or at home. Only the nature of interruption changes. While it is kids or doorbells at home, it is the loud co-worker or team celebrations or colleagues frequently dropping by, at office are the reasons of distractions. Therefore, it’s better to accept it as a reality and learn how to effectively manage such distractions.

The business case

Remote working can benefit both the organization and the employee equally, creating a win-win situation. It may appear that smaller companies may not be able to afford the technology infrastructure needed to support remote working. However, study shows that the benefits of remote working outweigh the cost burden. For example, RoI on technology infrastructure can be attributed to an increased productivity due to operational efficiency, and decreased office infrastructure requirement due to remote workforce. Reduction in attrition rate and absenteeism rate are some of the indirect benefits that impact positively in the long run as well.

For the employees, the biggest direct benefits come from time and cost saving from daily commuting, while improvement in physical and mental health because of less exposure to air and noise pollution from peak hour traffic.

Unless organizations find significant challenges in implementing remote working, the above benefits make a strong case for them to not just try but adopt it as a “way of working” policy. Like any other organizational change, this also has a fair share of challenges that ought to be addressed for a successful transition.    

Challenges for the organizations

1. Connectivity issues – The common challenges organizations face while allowing work from home is that their employees are not well connected through phone or internet, so there are frequent disruptions during the remote meetings. Most of the time remote team member gets disconnected from the conference calls due to bad connectivity. Everyone knows about this common challenge but find it difficult to address as they have limited control over the issue.
2. Technology hiccups – There are teething issues in any tools or technologies employees use in their day to day working. People who are not familiar with those issues struggle to use it effectively as they don’t get the required support while working remotely. Even tech savvy employees could face technical glitches beyond their know-how limits, hence their productivity suffers as well.
3. Data security risk – When you work from remote location, you could connect from any available network, such as home broadband or public wi-fi at airports, coffee shops etc. These connectivity options can be susceptible to cyberattacks or data thefts as they don’t provide the required data security layer normally available through office network or VPN. It’s therefore quite risky for organizations to allow remote working without establishing strict security protocols.
4. Team communication – One of the common challenges a team faces when all are not in one location, is the team communication. Whether it is with the manager or other colleagues, it becomes challenging as you do not get the chance to walk up to them to discuss issues concerning tasks or projects or even for informal talks during breaks. So you are confined to your system unless the organization has multiple avenues of communication and a culture of collaboration.
5. Emergency response – Some other issues such as instant availability and response from the remote employee in emergency situations has been the common causes of interruptions in seamless working. Such issues during a trying out phase certainly creates a strong bias against the practice and deters decision makers to adopt it in large scale.

Challenges for the employees

Remote working can also be challenging for the employees, particularly for people who are new to the practice.

1. Sense of isolation – Issues such as feeling lonely and disconnected from rest of the co-workers, bothers them with a sense of isolation. If you are working for too long in such conditions where you don’t get to see or interact with people around you, you might develop a fear of missing out (FOMO). Secondly, people normally have some degree of discomfort to have digital faceless conversations throughout the day without seeing or feeling the body language of others, which impacts their happiness.
2. Lack of empathy – Manager or other office colleagues can’t realize if the remote employee is grappling with some anxiety that they should empathize on. On the other hand, employees working remotely don’t feel comfortable sharing their personal issues over phone. So, they get any avenues to share their agony and get required support to overcome the personal problem.
3. Home interruptions – Whether it is the doorbell or a neighbor dropping by, or your kids needing your attention, all of that distracts you from your work and impacts the productivity. Finding an appropriate place in the house where you can work without distractions or attend to conference calls without interruptions can be an issue, particularly when you stay in a joint family with kids and old parents around.
4. Poor time management – Many managers don’t allow their team members to work from home as there is a fear that they will slack off without an oversight. But, in reality, it is the opposite. People end up being more self-conscious of their deliverables and stretch much beyond their normal working hours as there is no opening and closing time as such to remind winding up. This overwork causes mental fatigue and distress.

Key success factors

Like any other positive change, remote working also has its own set of challenges to deal with for a successful transition. Despite the challenges discussed above, remote working or telecommuting, is steadily gaining popularity, even though, it’s not an easy adjustment for the organization as well as employees and managers. Since this change has a strong cultural connotation, it needs to be addressed holistically by all stake holders to achieve same or even better level of productivity in the organization. With advanced tools and technologies, it is no longer a challenge to embrace such practices, but it would require the stake holders to adopt different ways of collaboration and communication than the traditional ways. Yes, it is possible with focused attention on certain key success factors as under:

For Organizations

1. A formal operating structure – Remote working model shall be most effective when employees are independent and accountable for their respective actions with very limited supervision. This is possible only when there is a formal organization with pre-defined operating protocols. Therefore, it is necessary to have proper organization structure, clear roles & responsibilities, well-documented policies and processes, clear decision & delegation matrix etc. which can ensure that the established systems are able to drive organizational performance with limited person dependency. Leaders must  set clear directions and communicate it effectively to foster an outcome-driven culture that empowers and holds teams accountable for their deliverables.
2.  An informal work culture – Motivating remote employees and instilling a sense of accountability in them depends on how the team and the manager engage with each other and communicate on a regular basis. People are more comfortable in an open and informal work environment where interpersonal relationship, collaboration and mutual support are at the core of organization culture.
3. IT infrastructure – It’s a no-brainer that manual processes cannot be managed remotely. Therefore, it is a necessity that organizations need to create an appropriate IT infrastructure not just for remote working but for overall performance optimization. 54% of HR leaders in a snap poll indicated that poor technology and/or infrastructure for remote working is the biggest barrier to effective remote working. There are broadly four components of IT infrastructure that are needed to support a remote working environment. Those are:
   • Seamless and secured network connectivity
   • Identity & access management
   • Cloud based ERP applications
   • Communication & collaboration platform.
4. Keeping pace with latest technologies – With more and more people joining the remote-working bandwagon, the experiment will lead to better innovation in coming days to improve the effectiveness of remote-working tools and technologies, communicate best practices and ideal use cases. Organizations should look forward to adopting such modern technologies to leverage the potential. Adopting best of technologies only may not help if employees are not trained to use them effectively for different purposes. So, guiding them on leveraging the available tools such as email, instant messaging, chatbots or multi chat applications, collaboration tools, intranet, internal social media platforms etc. will drive better and more consistent usage.
5. Data security – Training and educating employees on data security is extremely important as otherwise it can have serious consequences, when employees adopt unsafe work practices or use unauthorized tools because of lack of awareness, to get their work done. Policies and statutory obligations pertaining to storing, retrieving or sharing data also needs to be communicated to employees and NDAs be signed with them before giving access to the remote employees. 
6. Collaborative work environment – Empowering people at all levels and creating multiple avenues for them to share challenges, best practices, success stories and inputs for decision making, is the foundation for creating an inclusive organization. This is more important in a remote working context as it gives employees the space to be more accountable to the work deliverables, be empathetic towards each other, and share social interests with a larger population remotely.
7. Open Communication – Establishing a constant two-way communication system with multiple tools and platforms is key for a remote worker to stay engaged with the organization. At times, even over-communication is okay as otherwise they may receive less information from organizational channels than their other colleagues in office, putting them in disadvantageous situation.
8. Change Management – Working remotely is a huge operational and cultural change for an organization, hence it requires a systematic approach to manage the transition. Different stake holders in the organization may respond differently to the cultural shift and challenges associated with remote working. Organization needs to have a dedicated team with a structured protocol to identify the concerns, review what isn’t working, adopting remedial measures and changing it fast. For example, it can monitor delivery targets of remote employees vis-à-vis their onsite counterparts by analyzing their productivity each week and identify / implement ways to improve it till they achieve the targeted baseline.

For Managers

1. Focus on work output and not employee’s time – Always trust that your employees would deliver their best even if you can’t see them. You just need to define their monthly, weekly or daily work schedule and communicate to them so well that they develop a sense of accountability for their deliverables, no matter where they are working from. Lack of visibility into the routines of the direct reports often bothers the managers, and they assume that remote working is not productive. However, a Gartner survey reveals that remote working has been more productive for most of the employees and such worries are mostly blown out of proportion. Therefore, it is important to focus on outcomes in performance and productivity and not on the amount of time they have spent in their routine.
2. Share openly – If you don’t openly share the business strategy, convey the big picture, and articulate what is expected from the employee, then remember, your remote employees will have a very myopic view of their deliverables. This will require you to micro manage the team, which is not possible in a remote working environment. Therefore, having a structured two-way communication between the manager and the employee, opens up the avenues to understand each other’s expectations. The senior management also needs to ensure that the front-line managers are well-informed and always up-to-date with organizational developments, so that they can cascade information down, as needed.
3. Be empathetic and caring – Empathy is the cornerstone of a positive work culture and understanding the experiences of your colleagues is a great way to foster team bonding, particularly in a remote environment. Creating avenues for sharing achievement, best practices, success stories, challenges, and concerns is vital to creating a human connection.
4. Implement an effective working structure – Individuals or teams working remotely can have lack of clarity on many important business issues. There might be delay in decision making or deliveries due to uncertainty arising about who to talk to on specific issues and how to resolve them. Having a formal or informal working protocol with decision making and communication structure will help the team being on the same page and deliver together.
5. Adopt agile way of planning and reviewing – The team needs to plan and review their deliverables on the go, through digitally enabled meetings such as audio and video conferencing, with flexibility to plan and execute quick changes. The team can adopt agile practices such as daily huddles, weekly check-ins, sprint planning, and review sessions. This is ideal for knowledge workers in a remote environment.

For Employees

1. Ensure stable internet connectivity – Remote access to organization’s tools and technologies such as cloud applications, video conferencing system, collaboration platform etc. requires a stable internet connection. Any disruption in that directly impacts individual’s productivity, hence    becomes a key prerequisite for work from home. Basic infrastructure the employee needs to have at home is a fast, stable and secure internet connection. VPN (virtual private network) access is one of the first steps organization expects you to have to enable remote system access.
2. Have a dedicated working space – It is obvious to get distracted by family members if you don’t have a dedicated or secluded working area that is free from house-hold noise. Just having a space may not help, unless everyone at home is sensitized about the sanctity of working from home and the negative impact their distractions can have on your productivity. If possible , it is better to lock the door from inside to avoid kids or other family members barging in during important conference calls.
3. Over communicate – When you are physically not available in the office, there is a possibility of you being overlooked unintentionally during key meetings and decisions. Therefore, you must constantly get in touch with all stake holders to stay updated on key developments in the areas relevant to your job responsibilities. It is okay to overcommunicate than being disconnected from others. One way to practice it is to talk to some colleagues every day, which may or may not be work related.
4. Put a structure to your routine – Its not easy to maintain a strict work routine while you are at home, so procrastination creeps in. Therefore, you need to go that extra mile to bring some discipline to your work from home regime. Some of the best practices could be as under:
   • Understand the DO’s & DON’Ts of remote working of your organization and follow it religiously
   • Maintain and follow Tasks and Calendars for your daily deliverables
   • Schedule regular check-in meetings with manager and stake holders
   • Be proactive with your communication – don’t let others follow up
   • Be responsive through communication channels such as email, chat, collaboration platforms etc.  
   • Maintain and share work progress and status updates with manager and stake holders
   • Have a balance between worktime and personal time
   • Learn how to manage the feeling of isolation and loneliness

To summarize, remote working can achieve higher productivity with right operating structure, an informal work culture, well-documented policies and processes and an advanced technology infrastructure. Employees working from home are likely to be happier and more motivated because of the convenience they enjoy out of reduced commuting time and better work-life balance. The forced locked down situation gives an opportunity to the organizations to accelerate the development of technology infrastructure that can support remote working. This is also an opportunity to create an organization culture that boosts employee morale and attracts younger generations who are more inclined to avail remote-working options. So, this is the most opportune time for organizations to redesign the remote working policy to make progressive and futuristic changes for a better business continuity management.

About the author

Pradipta Lenka is a senior HR professional having deep passion in organizational efficiency and operational excellence. He helps organizations in optimizing their people productivity through HR transformation.