Remote working – include your colleagues
With the increased prevalence of working from home initiated by the Covid-19 pandemic, we all need to be more aware of the concern with remote working, which is to include your colleagues. Back in pre-coronavirus days, the concept of “working from home” was often reserved for senior employees, and used as a euphemism for ‘taking a paid day off’, and often considered by those who remain in the office as the person was not available. But remote working challenges have now fallen into the laps of more than just senior executives.
Now, in the pandemic world where working from home is the new normal, it is no longer a luxury for those with fast internet and an office-supplied computer and screen, and instead is for everyone who can work online. However, our culture and engrained beliefs have not yet caught up. Where there is a split between people working remotely and those working in an office, there can often be a tendency for people “on premises” to leave out those who are working remotely. This means that remote workers miss out on smaller, shorter and ad-hoc meetings and discussions. Importantly, they also may not be invited to meetings, or be included on email distribution, with the assumption that the person is unavailable in the same manner as if they were sick.
Work is something you do, not just a place you go
The location of your work is becoming less relevant, but there is still a social and cultural divide between those who are in a place of work, and those who deliver benefit and results from a non-office environment. Whilst we have been forced by the global situation to make changes to the location and method of our work, the psychological and cultural maturity of employees and processes have not yet caught up. What is happening in the transitionary stage caused by the pandemic, is that the maturity of understanding when some people are stuck at home, is that it is often forgotten that people working from home, are actually working from home – and would like the “interruption” of collaboration, communication and engagement. Even more important, is the mental health inclusion that the employee is missing out on – feeling a part of the community, and catching up on the smaller pieces of information that eventually become the big information.
Challenging the status quo of process
“We have always done it this way“, and “this is the process we must follow” is a barrier that often has cultural and practice impacts that hold back organisations from fully embracing a bifurcated workforce that may not be all in the same location. Practice of handing around documents, requiring physical sign-off, lodging paperwork in an in-tray, and the water-cooler conversations / coffee catchup – all fall off when people are spread into non-office locations. It is now a point of evolution and development for office workers to take the additional steps to include those who are working from home, as if they were physically in the office.
Mutual Knowledge
The mutual knowledge problem is a natural, yet detrimental, aspect of working remotely, in which people lack necessary information to be fully aligned. Initial barriers like distance, culture, language, and reliance on digital-only tools create the problem, and it only gets worse with time. As a result, remote workers will miss the minor situational contexts and may be on unequal footing when it comes to shared information or assumptions. This reduced common ground can create misunderstandings and obstacles to productive collaboration. Assumptions are made by leaders and staff that people have existing knowledge, or have read every communication, or have been informed on every bit of information. Over time, the gap in knowledge increases, as remote workers gradually diverge from information that is shared between people who are in close proximity to each other.
Social Presence
Studies show that 93% of our communication is non-verbal, and people miss out on the subtle cues of body language and tone that we are used to during face-to-face meetings. Much of this is also lost during video conferences like Zoom or Teams, because we are all on our best behaviour and the view only shows our face (when it is on). When remote, we also lose the physical intimacy of being in someone else’s presence, and the immediacy of having them right there alongside us. Being physically separated has a gradual decline in this connection, which needs active action to re-build.
Active Inclusion
Particularly important when there are a few people remote, is to actively include them in both the formal meetings, but also the informal and ad-hoc meetings and discussions. Social calls, summary of discussion emails, social instant messaging and “how you going” type of discussions need to be actively made to include the remote people.
