When you first start looking into remote working, it’s easy to get caught up in, or turned off by, the evangelical zeal that accompanies the topic.
So, why go remote?
Productivity is a common problem in many organizations which are heavily invested in office work. Too often people are rewarded for being visible, rather than for the quality of their work.
By enabling remote working, it is productivity that is valued, not how often someone is visible or working late.
Principles
Trust, clarity and transparency are the 3 fundamental principles of remote working.
Without trust remote working doesn’t work. If you don’t trust your team then you’re doomed to failure because you’ll end up interrupting them just to reassure yourself they’re working.
When people work remotely they need absolute clarity on what you want them to achieve, and by when.
Finally transparency is key when you’re working remotely. Unless privacy is absolutely critical, such as when discussing team finances or performance. Otherwise, ALL discussions should be in open communication channels.
To help you get started, we’ve chosen the top 3 reasons scale-ups should consider hiring remote workers.
Talent
According to McKinsey’s ‘Why diversity matters’ report, ethnically-diverse companies are 35% more likely to out perform non-diverse organizations financially, with gender-diverse companies 15% more likely to outperform. So why restrict yourself?
- Global talent, not local talent. You want access to the best talent, anywhere in the world, and not be restricted to hiring people near an office or worrying about time zones.
- You want the best people and that shouldn’t be restricted. Top performers in any field are found across all different ethnicities, genders, nationalities and religions.
- You want people with an ability to see things differently and to create unexpected solutions to complex problems.
- You need the ability to stand in the shoes of your customer to understand their needs. A more diverse workforce is key for product development as well as attracting a more diverse customer base.
Wellbeing.
Work to (LIVE) to work (Just Live!)
- You want happy employees. Whether it;’s working from home or another country, remote-enabled employees are happier, healthier and more productive.
- You want your people to be more productive with fewer interruptions.
- You want your people to enjoy the moments that matter outside of work (life!).
- You want your people to feel trusted as adults (yes, really!)
Space.
Don’t get overly excited, we aren’t talking SpaceX (as cool as that would be!). We are talking workspace.
- You’re running out of space in the office for new/growing teams.
- You’re refurbishing the office and don’t have enough space while that’s happening.
- You want to save money on the cost of office space/rent.
We started this blog by touching on productivity. In scale-ups, it’s critical you are super productive. You want navy seals, not a regular army.
A recent study by Harvard Business Review found that remote employees contribute almost a full day more productivity per week versus employees in an office. A full day per week!
It’s easy to assume that someone who works remotely is more distracted because they don’t have a manager keeping tabs on them.
Estimates from a recent study by University of California, Irvine, show that refocusing your efforts after just one interruption can take up to 23 minutes. Remote workers avoid interruptions which people encounter in the office environment, and most importantly, they don’t lose the time needed to refocus after the interruption.
More and more people are wanting to work remotely. As a leader, how can you say yes and be confident that your teams will be successful? In our new book, Ready for Remote we provide a list of questions to help you decide if you’re ready to go remote, if you can tick all 5 items on our checklist, then you should feel confident that you can run a successful remote working environment.
Gary and Matt’s book, Ready for Remote is available to download now.
