Remote

My Take

Remote is a book tilted towards Life in Work-Life balance.

Many opinions expressed by the authors are valid and derived from their own experiences. But they are explicitly biased against traditional work mechanisms. The potency of the book's message is affected by this underlying discontent.

It also affects the believability of Remote as an idea, because the authors throw out the current notion of work in entirety, without explaining possible ways to shift to Remote work gradually.

My suggestion would be to understand the message but carefully think and choose these principles in your work. Not all are relevant or applicable at all times.

Summary

Offices have become interruption factories; it is becoming increasingly hard to get meaningful work done. Add to it the long commutes, and you are wasting time that can be better utilized to build your business.

It's now possible to work remotely, because of advances in Technology. The big transition with a distributed workforce is going from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration - not having to work at the same time to work together. If you're free to pick where to work from and when to work, you don't need to be extraordinarily lucky or hard-working to make your work life fit with your passions.

Great talent is everywhere and not everyone wants to move to "insert-your-favorite-talent-hub-here". Letting people work remotely is about promoting quality of life, about getting access to the best people wherever they are. Reduced costs is a good side-effect, but not the goal.

Remote work is not without cost or compromise. You should just focus on reaping the benefits and mitigating the drawbacks. Your company may already be working remotely without your even knowing it. From dealing with outside firms for Legal, CPA, Accounting, and Payroll needs to be communicating over email with co-located colleagues, your company may be more remote than you think.

There is no guarantee of productivity, inside or outside the office. People conform to your expectations - they slack when you assume that everyone's a slacker, or surprise you if you trust them and expect them to excel. Trust issues are due to poor hiring decisions - don't hire people you don't trust, or work for bosses who don't trust you.

The number one counter to distractions is interesting, fulfilling work. Use distractions as warnings that work is not well-defined, tasks are menial, or the perception that the whole project is pointless.

The habit of bothering anyone for anything at any time, with no regard for personal productivity, is a real problem. Recognize that not every question needs an answer immediately. Questions you can wait hours to learn the answers to are fine to put in an email. Questions that require answers in the next few minutes can go into an instant message. All the other "sky-is-falling" designated questions can go through the telephone.

To successfully work remotely, some overlap in working hours is necessary. A good four hours may be necessary to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team. This also frees up the rest of your day for distraction-free work. Use shared screens or recordings to collaborate on the work itself. Use screencasts to demonstrate new features narrate the experience - these screencasts do not need to be perfect.

Everything related to work needs to be available to everyone at all times. Identify and publish tools to be used by the entire team, so that things don't stay in inboxes. Have a single permanent chatroom where everyone hangs out all day. It can also be used to answer questions about work, but its primary function is to provide social cohesion.

To instill a sense of company cohesion and to share forward motion, everyone needs to feel that they're in the loop. Progress is a joy best shared with co-workers. Meetings are good, but only when used sparingly. When meetings are the norm and overused, we grow numb to the outcome. Too many meetings can destroy morale and motivation.

Remote work doesn't mean being chained to your home-office desk. Nothing substitutes real, live human interaction. Work out of a co-working space.

It's easy to overwork, without any constraints around time and place. View work as a marathon. Check in, and check out, at a reasonable time. Get your ergonomics right, to survive remote working in the long term. No work arrangement is without trade-offs. There will be days when remote work will seem bad. It's important to try remote as a team or a group, rather than with a solo individual. All involved should feel the trade-offs together.

It's possible to work remotely with clients and do well, but there are some guidelines. Let the prospective client know up front that you don't live where they live. Second, provide references. Third, show them work often. Fourth, be very available. Lastly, get the client involved and let them follow along.

The world has never been smaller and markets have never been more open. Being remote allows your employees to move, removing any constraints on where they work from. Think about overlap and legal/accounting ramifications, when recruiting internationally. Also be mindful of the language barriers.

Hire as many people with optimistic outlook as you can. See their work product. Ask questions that directly deal with their line of work. Practice equal pay for equal work, irrespective of location.

Great workers exhibit two key qualities: Smart and Get Things Done. Remote work speeds up the process of getting the wrong people off the bus and the right people on board.

Being a good writer is an essential part of being a good remote worker. A cover letter along with the resume is a good mechanism to assess an applicant's writing skills. The best way to accurately judge work is to hire the person to do a little paid work, typically for a week or two. Candidates who have been contractors in the past are generally better at remote work positions.

For remote work, extend it to no asshole-y behavior allowed, no drama allowed, no bad vibes allowed. Magic and creativity thrive in diverse cultures. You have to do even more to encourage and nurture diversity and personal development. Encourage your team's other interests to bloom.

In general, it's best to start remote work in your company as early as possible. Start early if you can, but if you can't, start small.

The job of the manager is not to manage chairs, but to lead and verify the work. She should know the intricacies of what they the team is working on, should know what needs to be done, understand why delays might happen, be creative with solutions to sticky problem, divide the work into manageable chunks, and help put the right people on the right projects.

Frequent check-ins with all your employees is a good idea, especially with remote workers. The goal here is really to just keep a consistent, open line of communication. Remove roadblocks by empowering everyone to make decisions on their own. Accept the fact that people will make mistakes, but not intentionally, and that mistakes are the price of learning and self-sufficiency.

Your team should get together every now and then. It could be preplanned meetings like annual meetups, or to sprint together to finish a specific project. Going to industry conferences is another idea for team bonding. Just because you work remotely most of the time doesn't mean you have to, or should, work remotely all the time.

Don't treat remote workers as second-class citizens. Level the playing field by having managers work remotely, often or all the time. The mechanics are pretty simple: have great intercom systems, use shared apps to ensure everyone is seeing the same thing while collaborating, and hold as many discussions as possible on email and other online messaging platforms.

It's overwork, not underwork, that's the real enemy in a successful remote-working environment. Abundance and value are often opposites.

Working from home offers you far greater freedom and flexibility. But without clear boundaries and routines, things can go awry. Most people have some sort of routine to be productive. Using props to demarcate work from home is one way. Others divide their day into chunks like Catch-up, Collaboration, and Serious Work. Remote work is not binary; Make use of the flexibility. It need not be all remote or all office; you can mix-and-match. It may be harder to get into the flow when you're sitting in complete isolation. Then a coffee shop or a co-working space may be a better place to work out of, without interruptions from coworkers but still provide enough buzzing white noise.

Use the freedom of remote work to travel the world, if that is what you dream about. Keep in mind that you still have to respect the laws of remote collaboration, such as overlapping with your teammates enough to ensure real-time communication. The nomadic lifestyle can be cheaper too. Routine has a tendency to numb creativity - change in scenery can lead to all sorts of new ideas. Having family close and available is a good way to counterbalance the loss of daily in-person contact with coworkers.

To not be ignored at work, do exceptional work.