The utopian vision of remote work with the Coronavirus
I have been working remotely since 2015. At that time, when I decided I wanted to start working for myself, people looked at me as if I had gone crazy. Remote work? Are you crazy?
In the last five years, I dealt with several negative comments regarding the way I work, but I believe they were more correlated with doubts about remote work than with criticism per se.
Because of Coronavirus, remote work is a trending topic. I have been following this lately. I wanted to write, finally, an article about this.
Although I am a promoter of remote work and even have a project entitled Digital Nomadism in Portugal, I want to alert about the utopian scenario in which remote work is being projected.
In this article, I will share some views about remote work, and also a list of tools that I invite you to take a look to expand your mind on this topic.
The reality of remote work
Remote work is not a trend. It needs to be seen as “just” another way of working.
In the industrial revolution, most of the workforce moved to factories. With the increase in the services sector, more work moved to offices. Today it is natural that the type of work will adapt to the rise of technology and all the innovation that we see.
But like with all changes, it is necessary to implement things carefully and with a thoughtful structure so that the results achieved are positive.
Remote work was initially directly related to the areas of programming and tech. After all, the internet, online communication, and business in the cloud were the most directly associated with this model of work. But today, with the adaptation of almost all areas to technology, it is normal that most of the tasks are or can be done online.
Remote work can be associate with amazing things, both at the human level and for the companies themselves.
Besides the ones associated with the economy of natural resources or the management of time, I want to point to the fact that remote work promotes diversity¹. Diversity is something that all companies should currently have as a central concern. For me, the reach that it is possible with a broader hiring process is one of the most significant advantages of remote work.
But about the adoption of remote work on the businesses. I see a lot of people talking about remote work without thinking about it in a bigger picture. They don’t think about some of, in my opinion, fundamental questions such as:
- What are the goals that the company or the professional wants to achieve?
- Which metrics to measure productivity will be used?
- Which parameters will be taken into account to measure the success or the failure of the tasks?
- What management processes are going to be implemented?
- How to deal with the possibility of employees not having a good or stable internet connection?
- What tools will be provided to employees so that they can work from home in a focused and productive way?
- How will the professional’s work and emotional stress be monitored?
These are just some of the fundamental questions that must be asked.
I want to focus a little bit more on the last question. Something that requires a lot of attention when working remotely (especially in a way so fast, immediate, and unprepared like how is happening now) is the emotional stress.
Working alone after spending years working side by side in a team can be a shock. The burnout of remote workers is real². The lack of human and face-to-face contact makes monitoring burnout situations more complicated.
Communication is one of the most critical elements of a proper remote work procedure. Excellent communication can help to monitor situations of emotional stress, and it is the key to the achievement of positive outcomes for everyone.
However, implementing remote communication processes and policies, especially in such a fast and forced way, is not easy.
Communication and remote work
I am always shocked when I see teams and organizations communicating internally just by email. Or by WhatsApp. Or worse: through social media!
The communication between members and teams of an organization needs to be specific and on proper channels.
Also, in a remote environment, communication needs to be done in an inclusive way. No team member should feel that they are missing something or think that they are being left out just because they are not physically present in the office.
Today with the Coronavirus, many teams are working from home. It is an excellent opportunity for them to think about how they can communicate inclusively and responsibly if, in the future, one of their team members wants to work remotely.
We talked about digital communication, but it is also essential to speak of conversations offline.
Studies are showing that technology promotes loneliness³, and loneliness is directly related to remote work (20% of remote workers point to isolation as the biggest challenge of working remotely⁴). It is necessary to think about procedures to deal with it since when the technology is well used can also be the key to deal with loneliness⁵ — as contradictory it may seem.
The social element is one of the main reasons why I think it is essential to adopt remote work as an alternative and a normal way of working, and not as an overlap of the current work practice.
Not all people like to be alone. Not all people are more productive alone. Not everyone wants technology as a way to socialize. We are all different.
And since technology allows us to create adaptable scenarios, we should look more at remote work in a flexible approach and not as a work practice that fits all (click here to read more about my view).
Remote work as an imposition: it is not going to be a good thing
I read many remote work advocates say that Coronavirus will show that remote work is inevitable and that it will be the future of work. I am afraid I have to disagree.
Maybe I am wrong about this. But forcing work practices that were implemented without any preparation will make people realize that work from home is indeed possible… but it will not be something that will help the prompt adoption of remote work as an alternative.
I say this because without the right internal procedures, without guidelines, and without digital literacy and employee training, the results desired by the companies hardly will be achieved.
I believe in remote work. I believe in the advantages of offering this alternative and choice to all workers.
But we are pushing remote work on such suddenly way in companies, that the trust between the organization and their workers are not prepared for it. Trust does not exist — and trust is one of the pillars of a good remote work environment.
There were not implemented processes. They did not test any tools or train the employees to work in a remote environment. There are only last-minute decisions that have not taken into account essential factors for remote work to be implemented responsibly.
Saying that Coronavirus is good for remote work seems to be quite naive. At most, what will happen is that people will understand that it’s possible to work from home. And that they do not have to be in an office to have meetings. But they will continue without knowing how to work remotely without having adverse effects on the organization’s goals.
To all of those who have worked remotely for years like me and who have remote experience in different contexts, we need to be helpful but with responsibility. With our knowledge and expertise, we can help these businesses and people, but we can’t put any pressure or negative influence on them. We can not try to show that “I told you that work from home was the future” or “You should have started earlier.” It is not the time for this kind of attitude.
We need to help companies and workers to adapt to what is happening, the best they can and know. We need to try to minimize the issues that will occur due to the disorderly implementation of remote work. Only afterward, when everything calms down, we should try to help anyone who wants to be helped to implement the right procedures for a remote work flexible policy.
Tools I use and recommend for remote work
I gathered hundreds of tools and references on this AirTable’s board. You can see them in this link, and you can also copy the entire table to your AirTable account. Share the link with those looking for solutions and tools to work remotely. I will update and reorganize the board frequently.
Below, the tools that I use (or have used in the past) and that I recommend.
💬 Internal Communication // Virtual Office
👥 Meetings
🗓 Agenda Management // Meeting Preparation
🧮 Project and Task Management
📑 Collaborative Documents
- G Suite (Google Docs) — 20% discount on the G Suite Basic plan with this code: R3ALCXNL3A6XPMK | 20% discount on the G Suite Business plan with this code: 63Q9647C6PLMFF9
- Evernote
🖌 Collaborative Design
🖥 Collaborative Programming
🤔 Collaborative Work // Brainstorm
✍️ Digital Signatures
🔐 Security
🗄 Storage // Cloud // Sharing and Sending Files
- G Suite (Google Drive) — 20% discount on the G Suite Basic plan with this code: R3ALCXNL3A6XPMK | 20% discount on the G Suite Business plan with this code: 63Q9647C6PLMFF9
- Dropbox
- WeTransfer
📊 Performance // Metrics
🗣 Offline Communities
- Out Of Office — Work Club (US)
- GCREW (Lisbon, Portugal)
📲 Online Communities
- Workfrom Chat
- Comunidade Digital (Portuguese)
🙏 Health // Wellness
💪 Productivity // Individual Time Management
On the AirTable board, you will also find a tab with online guides and books.
Important note: always read the privacy policy of the tools you use in your work! Security is an issue that should be a central concern for a remote worker⁶.
. . .
[1] “Remote work is the next diversity frontier” — Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/90475260/remote-work-is-the-next-diversity-frontier
[2] “Tips for Preventing Depression and Burnout When Working From Home” — Thrive Global https://thriveglobal.com/stories/tips-for-preventing-depression-and-burnout-when-working-from-home/
[3] “Text or Talk: Is Technology Making You Lonely?” — Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/05/24/text-or-talk-is-technology-making-you-lonely/#258864442a7b
[4] “The 2020 State of Remote Work” — Buffer https://lp.buffer.com/state-of-remote-work-2020
[5] “Study reveals everyday technology helps fight loneliness” — Phys.org https://phys.org/news/2019-06-reveals-everyday-technology-loneliness.html
[6] “How remote working increases cyber security risks” — Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/f7127666-0c80-11ea-8fb7-8fcec0c3b0f9
