Surviving Remote Work

I've been working remotely for about 3 years, on a 12 hour time difference to my entire company. A few people have asked me how to survive working from home (WFH) during a quarantine situation, so here's my survival guide!

First, let's establish why this is a unique and challenging work situation:

1. Most people have transitioned into WFH with little to no notice or prep time, so it's a sudden and unexpected change
2. Remote work tends to lead to feelings of isolation and under-appreciation, merely due to the change in communication medium and regularity
3. Productivity peaks and toughs like an energizer bunny's heart rate after smoking pot.
4. Work becomes less efficient; people keep communicating like they used to, but so much of the needed context and under-tone vanishes into the ether.
5. The need to over-communicate is misunderstood as "send an onslaught of messages" instead of "send 1 clear, well crafted message". Quality over quantity is critical and often overlooked.

These are not necessary evils of WFH life, rather forces to be aware of and work against. The one thing you should remember from this is that remote work is different. Therefore you need to act differently to survive. Below are a bunch of concepts; some may work for you, some might not. The list, while long, is certainly not exhaustive; every company and person is different, so apply nuance, a touch of creativity, a lot of humanity, and we'll all thrive!

Uncover WFH Limitations (mainly for managers)

Have you been to your employee's house? Probably not. So you can't assume they have the same work setup that you do. So just ask! If you're lucky, your company might subsidize or pay for some of these things - if you live near the office & it's currently empty, ask the boss if the office equipment can be temporarily loaned out for at home use. If not, it might be worth checking if the expense is tax deductible in their country/state.

• Do they have everything they need to WFH? Ideally, they should have access to decent internet, a dedicated space to work in (hopefully not the bed/couch), and a productive desk setup (laptop, monitors, keyboard, mouse, etc.)
• Do they need additional access to folders/files/programs etc. now that they can't look over Bob's shoulder to see what the status of something is?
• Ask what personal situations might impact their job. Do they have kids at home? Are they a primary caretaker for someone? Show support to those who are balancing career responsibilities with family life as it can be a very challenging time, especially for those now tasked with home-schooling the kiddos.

Set Individual & Team Expectations

"The source of all frustration is unmet expectations"

Think about the last time you were frustrated by something (maybe when you walked into the kitchen to discover husband didn't load the dishwasher) and reflect on why you were upset (likely because you expected said hubby to load the damn dishwasher!). The same concept applies at work. Regardless of whether you're a manager or not, you should kick this off straight away by establishing some ground-rules with your team, and communicate any limitations to the group.

• What do you expect of your team and what do they expect of each other when working remotely? (work hours, communication style, speed of output, etc.)
• Do they need to be online at specific times?
• Do they need to reply to messages within a certain timeframe? Many of us (particularly in different timezones) commit to a 24hr SLA on responding to messages. This prevents unwarranted follow ups 3 hours after the first message.
• Do they need to return phone calls at a certain times? 
• Is there a change to how the team and individuals should be prioritizing their work?
• Do you plan to establish additional meetings/syncs/checkin’s or start tracking output? If yes, what's the format, who is involved and when is it happening?

Schedule like a calendar fiend 

Most people who shift to 100% remote status start struggling with work hours: too many, not enough, weird hours, unable to sleep. It can also cause undue stress, frustration and impact your work engagement/motivation levels. These tips are suggestions to prevent this:

• Live by your calendar - let it rule your life! Not only does this help keep you on track, but it allows your peers to know when you are/aren’t available, and when they can book meetings with you.
• For those in strange timezones, I highly recommend doing calendar blocks for your “offline/sleep hours” so that you don’t get invited to meetings that are occurring while you’re asleep. This also means that people can schedule events while your asleep, for first thing in your morning - just make sure you don't sleep in!
• Schedule meetings directly into people’s calendars! Do not engage in scheduling ping pong where you’re asking for availability; this is SO inefficient. Use google’s “find a time feature” to ensure all participants are actually free at your chosen time, or enlist a neat scheduling tool like Meetingbird, Calendly or Mixmax.
• Remember people are in different timezones (google even shows you!), so respect their work hours by not scheduling calls in the middle of the night unless they have indicated they are going to be online (e.g. via the sleep blocking suggestion above)
• If your team has an agreed schedule or time you’ll all be online, arrange group meetings during that window of time only.
• Have a fixed schedule (or at least plan out each day’s schedule the day before) - c'mon people, you used to rock up at "9am" everyday without an aneurysm, I'm sure you can still do it now!
• Make a clear distinction between work and personal time - clock off and do personal things without looking at your work email/slack. Likewise, don't sit there on tik-tok or insta when you're supposed to be getting shit done.
• Be understanding that everyone may have different schedules based on their personal situation; just because someone isn’t working at the same time as you, doesn’t mean they are slacking off.
• Keep your slack status up to date. Always keep your Active/Inactive status correct, use do not disturb functionality when you are sleeping or strictly offline. You could even consider several updates a day so that people know you are “away from the desk”, when you will be back online, etc. This not only helps to increase communication efficiency and connectedness, but also helps with the perception of "hard work" and reduces the chance that people will assume you are slacking off.
• Try not to go straight from Sleep to Work; The BEST thing you can do in the morning is try to replicate your old schedule. Wake up, eat breakfast, have a shower, get dressed for the day, walk around the block and then “arrive at the office” to start work.
• Try not to go straight from Work to Sleep; you’ll find that you don’t sleep well and have trouble “switching off” your brain. I recommend having down time after work even if t's just 15 minutes of tech-free time before bed (e.g. reading/eating/chatting to your family)
• Get dressed! What you wear can really change your mind and mood; so if you’re feeling down, or inefficient, try getting out of your pajamas, have a shower and put on some nice clothes. Your productivity will thank you :)

Maintain past behaviors

Working from home should not mean that you throw all your hold habits and behaviors out the window.

• Keep doing your check in’s and stand up meetings as per usual (or consider doing more if needed to keep accountability high)
• Do your 1-1’s; Definitely have the camera on to keep that personal touch
• Get dressed for work
• Despite what seems like all of social media supporting the behaviour of day drinking, don't drink while you're working :)

Don’t lose the human touch

Feeling Isolated is a common problem that comes with remote work, especially if you/your team are fully quarantining.

• Whenever possible always use the richest form of human interaction. Video Meeting > Phone Call > Written Message
• Use emoji, especially if it’s something that can be perceived as negative! So much of our communication is through body language, tone, volume, expressions, gestures - all of these things disappear with written text. Emoji help you to convey a message in the right tone 🤗
• Be EXCESSIVELY NICE - written comms are less emotional. Sharp requests, no explanations, or demands are left to fester in online comms and bleed into other discussions/work quality and even work engagement. This is a real problem. So be as nice, polite, and considerate as you possibly can manage when you talk to others (“thank you”, “please” and “do you think that timeline is achievable?” never hurt anyone). 
• Be aware of how people respond to your messages. Don't be afraid of apologizing if you think the person may have been negatively impacted by something you said, or interpreted your message differently to your intention. The extra effort makes a BIG difference for the recipient.
• Force yourself to ask the other person how their day is going, the first time you talk to them each day (something you do automatically in person)
• Remember what social things you did at the office: find someone at their desk, accidentally bump into each other in the lift, have lunch together, play pingpong. Now try to replicate these interactions online: Call your teammates once a day to check in and see how they’re doing, Send a message just saying “hi how are you today?”, Set up a specific lunch time video hangout or play a game together.

Over communicate

While working from home, you have limited forms/platforms of communication. Make sure that you over communicate details to reduce mismatched expectations; but remember! Quality over Quantity!

• Try to always add in context! You don’t need to write an essay, but when remote, people are continually context switching. You can be part of 10 different conversations at the same time on slack, but only manage 1-2 in person. This makes it easy to forget details and get distracted. Make it easy for everyone and recap context with a link to prior conversations, respond in threads, add topic headers to your messages or quickly recap context in a sentence.
• When asking for things to be done: give more context/rationale than you would in person; remote people can't overhear other conversations which normally help frame understanding. Doing context well, will also reduce the number of questions people come back with & therefore get you the intended results faster - magic!
• Don't assume that someone already knows what's going on

Clearly communicate

Especially for people that are now in different timezones it can be confronting to wake up to an onslaught of messages and requests (100+ unread slack messages anyone?). Here’s how to limit that:

• Write just ONE slack comment in response/on a topic; go back and edit the comment to add additional thoughts if needed, rather than sending additional messages
• Try to keep similar work hours (or slack online hours) that you normally would. If you don't normally message people at midnight, don't start doing that now.
• Try to have one slack message per topic (If you start merging 5 topics into on message, it gets hard to respond in thread)
• If you have a whole list of things to talk about, try sending an agenda (and editing the agenda as you think of more things) instead & scheduling a call

Share the Love

Out of sight usually = out of mind. Don't let that happen!! People can start to feel underappreciated, insecure and lose motivation if they don’t feel like they are appreciated, contributing in a meaningful way or a valued member of the team

• DON'T micromanage your team's daily tasks (that would show you don't trust them), but DO keep tabs on progress. A good way of doing this is to ask for updates & blockers so you can understand their workload & help them where needed, but refrain from telling them what/how/when to do their job.
• Remind yourself that everyone probably has 1 million other things on their plate that you aren't aware of, because you aren't seeing them happen. So instead of mandating deadlines, get their buy in and commitment by asking what else they have going on, and what deadline they can reasonably commit to.
• Share your progress/updates with the team and work in public documents where possible (i.e. keep work visible). This helps perceptions of hard work and triggers a more natural & instinctive acknowledgement of good work.

Get fun!

Because life would be miserable and boring without fun social interactions! We're all feeling the quarantine pain, so now's your time to really #FlattenTheCurve of death by boredom.

Try:

• Use a funny filter while on video chats - coz cat ears on the historically uptight legal counsel is bloody gold.
• At the beginning of meetings, spend 5 minutes to chit chat water-cooler style
• Schedule a video-chat lunch together; yep, BYO food, conversations and awkwardly watch each other eat. Just don't slurp too loudly!
• Host online group yoga or a core workout class that doesn't require equipment
• Participate in and encourage your team to join in for group activities. There's some cool products out there like that let you watch movies together at the same time. Isn't technology amazing? I used Synaptop while dating my hubby from the other side of the world. Netflix Party is another sweet AF option.
• Play a game online together at the end of Friday’s; Pogo and Houseparty seem like cool options. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is an excellent game for building communication and teamwork.
• Remember the days of the Mannequin Challenge? Try instigating a workplace challenge! There's plenty going around the internet right now, largely oriented around the use of toilet paper...
• Consider starting a Company Spotify Playlist - every contributes fave songs of the week. You could even host a listening party on Friday's before everyone clocks off for the weekend.

I hope something hit home for you - You've got this!