Remote Working: Finding a New Rhythm
As I clicked on the next Zoom link for my fourth back to back virtual meeting for the day, I felt the tension in my neck, the fatigue permeating behind my eyes and the brain fog stifling the remaining focus I had left. But, like the rest of my colleagues, I trucked along and signed in with my camera off so I could take a moment to reset.
“Everyone has their cameras off…” commented the meeting leader as the participants entered from the waiting room.
Guilt got the better of me and after checking that my face didn’t look as tired as I felt, I switched on my camera. My previous three meetings had been taxing to say the least: a 2 hour meeting that ran over into the break I’d diligently scheduled for myself, another “quick 15 minutes” turned into 1 hour, and the latter probably could have been an email. Not only was my energy depleted at this point, I was edgy, annoyed and hungry. It was 2pm and I hadn’t eaten any lunch yet. Combine hangry with the “think outside the box” meeting I was now on and I was struggling to hold back the full-on snappy sarcasm horses rearing at the end of the reins. It was only wednesday, but it felt like Friday given the kind of week I’d had so far.
Is this scenario familiar for you? If you answered “yes” you’re not alone. In a recent study by Microsoft researchers confirmed my experience above - “back to back meetings increase cumulative stress, they decrease the ability to focus and engage, and transitioning between meetings can be a high source of stress”. But it’s not only back-to-back virtual meetings that are adding the strain. Our lives are packed with technology - our work, our leisure, our down time are full of it. We talk about doing tech-fasts, unplugging, and taking a month off social media. Why? If tech is such a great thing, then why do we feel the need to step away from it? Don’t get me wrong, technology has had huge implications in life expectancy, innovative advances in health care, education, and the many comforts we have in our lives today. Technology is great, but like so many other things, too much of it can prove to be damaging to our wellbeing. The image above proves it. In this study participants engaged in 30 minute meetings. The top row shows the stress levels in back to back meetings with no breaks - red being high stress and blue being low stress. The row below shows stress levels when participants took 10 minute breaks between each meeting. Engaging in back to back meetings is not an efficient or effective use of our energies, nor does it increase our productivity - it reduces it.
Part of the challenge for many organizations has been making an overnight pivot from in-person services to virtual. Naturally, given the lack of time to think this change through, many have transferred their way of working in person, to Zoom. Two hour meetings in the boardroom have turned into 2 hour Zoom meetings. We’re in meetings that should be an email. People who don’t need to be at a meeting are invited “just in case”. What used to be five minute pop-my-head-into-your-office conversations have turned into scheduled meetings, that run over. Supervisors who struggle with having no visual on their team, burden their people with unnecessary check-ins and reporting. And then before we know it we’re on back to back calls, wondering how on earth this happened. The cherry on top is that we’re doing all of this at home. Now we’re really feeling the burn of an inconsistent, misaligned, jolty rhythm that doesn’t works.
Myth # 1: Remote work can transpire like in-person work.
Holding the same in-person practices and expectations for a remote environment is largely problematic. It’s causing burn-out, employee dissatisfaction, and reduced productivity. We now know that 40% of workers globally are thinking about handing in their notice because they are facing digital burnout. As employers, we need to rethink our expectations for how our people can and should work remotely, whether that’s fully remote or in a hybrid model. More and longer meetings do no increase productivity, they actually reduce it by eating into the time people need to complete the tasks from the meetings. In a study looking at the effectiveness of a 4-day work week in Iceland, researchers noted increase productivity when employers focused on being more efficient during their limited hours. The did this by cutting meetings, altering work patterns and re-organizing shift work. While these results aren’t about remote work, they do speak to how we can be more effective and efficient with the hours we have in a work day. Successful organizations are those who are open to changing they way they work and the expectations they hold. If you could change one thing about your remote environment, what would that be? What do you see could be altered, reorganized or reduced in the way you or your teams currently work? What would a wildly successful remote or hybrid model look like? If you’re a leader, there may be value in posing these questions to your teams.
Myth # 2: Virtual meetings should run like in-person meetings
Photo by Gabriel Benois on Unsplash
Video calls are more exhausting than in-person meetings because it is more difficult to stay focused and absorb the information. In person or virtually, 45-minutes marks the point when people start tuning out, so anything you have to share with your team after this point is largely unheard. Consider making 60-minute meetings 45 and 30-minute meetings 25 - and stick to it. This way you can build breaks into your day and reduce the stress related to meeting transitions. Some organizations have incorporated #MeetinglessMondays or Fridays, others have caped the number of internal meetings an employee can have per day or committed to meetings not starting or ending on the hour. How can you shorten your meetings or increase the engagement on longer ones? Much of the digital burnout comes from lack of engagement - do you notice your people multitasking on a video call? Perhaps you’re guilty of that yourself, after all, you have a lot to get done. Consider adding in polls, breakout rooms with thoughtful discussion questions, and limit powerpoint presentations when you can. Adults learn and retain information best through collaborative and engaging conversation and reflection.
This leads us to another question - does this meeting need to be a meeting? Before scheduling a meeting with your colleagues really consider this question. Meetings should be reserved for discussions - when a conversation is needed to resolve issues, brainstorm ideas and/or make sure all voices are heard. If your intent is simply to share information, then an email might suffice. Are there elements of your traditional 2 hour meetings that can be an email? Converting information based content into an email allows you to 1) reduce the length of the meeting and 2) use the meeting for focused, engaging, collaborative discussion. Again, I know I’m repeating myself, but I can’t stress more the value of reserving meetings for conversations and dialogue, especially with remote employees and teams.
Myth # 3: The best way to connect with remote employees is over video conference
How do you connect with your people? Can you count 3+ forms of technology that you use on a daily basis? If not, you may need to rethink your various tech options. Asking yourself - what needs to be a video meeting vs. email vs. a text message vs. a phone call, is a helpful way to check your technology flexibility. When we break up our day with different types of technology, we can give our brain and eyes a break from the screen. Further, there may be people on your teams who prefer an audio interaction verses a video. Research has shown that distractions online are higher than in person. Not only are we distracted by our own face (our appearance, facial expressions, wrinkles, hair etc.), we are also focused on the various backgrounds of other participants - making video calls feel like we’re all in our own room. And our brain has to process all of these various environmental cues as well. When we break up the technology we are using to connect with others we also we give ourselves and our colleagues a chance to reduce digital fatigue. Of the list below, how many of these forms of tech do you and your people use no a daily basis?
Phone calls
Text Messages
Email
Video conference (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype etc.)
Online workplace platforms (e.g. Workplace by Facebook, Happeo, Slack, etc.)
Task Management Software (e.g. Monday.com, Trello etc.)
Myth # 4: If I can’t see my team, I can’t trust they’re getting the job done.
Some supervisor struggle to trust that their people are getting the job done if they can’t see them sitting at their desks doing the work. As leaders we often feel we need to be in control, to have all the answers, and be in the full know of all that is going on. This is a huge misconception of effective leadership. Steve jobs said it well:
“It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Your job as a leader is to help guide your team in the right direction given the information you have. Good leaders generate space to collect that information and leverage it into outcomes and results. The verb definition of the word ‘team’ is: to come together to achieve a common goal. Nowhere in that definition is there anything about one person making all the decisions and telling everyone what to do. When we’re faced with unprecedented circumstances that requires quick, immediate change, having a team in this sense can make all the difference in the world when it comes to successful outcomes.
I’m going to assume you have hired people on the premise that they will elevate your organization because of the attitude, skill set, experience, knowledge and expertise they bring to the table. If that’s the case, then micromanaging will only lead to the loss of those great employees. Instead, consider that it’s actually not up to you to determine or even define the ‘right’ way to work in a remote environment or even the best way to lead remotely - it’s your role to engage your team in such a way that you can define what works individually and as a team. I would venture to guess that the people on your team use technology differently, bring different levels of experience, different backgrounds and preferences, and different levels of enthusiasm about embracing more tech. How are you generating space for all those perspectives to be heard and leveraged? How are you collecting all that data to enhance your decision making? Consider asking your team this - what would a successful remote or hybrid environment look like and how do we get there? What do they need from you as a remote leader? Involve your teams in the process of design and creation - it will take the weight off your shoulders and gain their buy-in.
All that being said, you may have some individuals on your team who struggle with remote work - let’s be honest, it’s not for everyone given the plethora of distractions. A good Supervisor will check in to assess work progress and determine if other resources are needed. Using online Task Management Software may be also be helpful in monitoring work progress and reducing the temptation to schedule numerous check-in meetings.
Myth # 5: Remote employees will have better work-life blend
Some may, but many won’t. Remote work presents a very different work environment. If we lack clear boundaries and expectations around our work and personal lives, then when they start to blend they may also “fuse” (see Blending our Work and our Life for a deeper dive on this topic). I mean ‘fuse’, in the sense that they become muddled together. We begin saying “yes” to things we need to say “no” to because we’re so busy multitasking that we’re no longer doing anything deliberately and with conscious care - our best work becomes mediocre work at best. Supervisors must support their people is developing clear boundaries around work and their personal life; and employees must employ those boundaries if they want to achieve success in a remote environment.
Employers can support their people by putting in place clear expectations and policies around remote or hybrid work. How do your people schedule their day? How many virtual meetings are they having daily? What are your expectations or requirements regarding use of video on calls? When is it OK to keep the video on or off? What is your organization’s stance for what should be an email vs. a meeting and is everyone maintaining that standard in how they operate? What is your flexible with schedules and when/where your people are working? Who, or which positions in your organization are suitable for fully remote work or a hybrid model, and has that been clearly defined and communicated? These are only a few of the many questions that should be addressed, but they’re a good place to start.
What Now?
So where do we go from here? For many this pivot to remote work is still relatively new and perhaps it’s not clearly defined as you get a sense of what’s working and not working. Or perhaps you’re coming out of fully remote work model and shifting into a hybrid one. These kinds of changes are hard and often overwhelming so allow yourself (and your teams) to be tired, stressed, frustrated, without judgement. Notice how you’re feeling about it and do some digging - collect the data. What do you like and not like? What’s working and not working? Which myth stood out to you the most? Or more specifically which one are you struggling with the most? Whether you’re a frontline employee or a leader in an organization, being mindful of these various pieces allows you to generate the space the talk about them with your team and supervisors and develop next steps for a successful transition, whatever that needs to look like for your teams and organization.
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