How to be effective – working remotely

July 10, 2020 | by Bryan Ward

Has everyone seen the iconic holiday movie Home Alone? In the movie when Kevin realized he was “home alone,” he immediately became self-motivated, felt independent and established a routine. Like all humans, Kevin desired structure. As time passed, he expanded his routine, experienced “challenges” and then the reality of his “new norm” sank in. He quickly became emotional and missed his family. Sound familiar?

Kevin had been well prepared by his family to survive, but when he lost the connection to his family, he became emotional and looked forward to the day when they would reconnect. Perhaps many of us remote workers feel like Kevin—home and alone. Being effective while working remotely is a challenge, but being a good team member can be a stretch. The foundation and relationships we established before the disruption may have given us a “head start,” but not a clear path forward as leaders and team members.

Working remotely is not new and, in fact, it has been around for nearly 40 years[i]; however, recently, many companies reversed this trend and brought workers back to the office, citing they would be more productive, innovative and agile. This healthy argument of whether employees are more productive working remotely or at the office still takes place today, but according to a national Gallup poll, it was discovered that remote employees actually work longer hours and are more productive than non-remote team members. So, why are we still having this discussion? Working remotely does have its challenges, and the most critical is maintaining professional relationships and career development[ii]. Here’s the reality: Remote working is the future, and it has reported that 51% of workers would change jobs for flextime, and 37% of workers would move for a role that allowed remotely at least part time. So, how do we effectively contribute when working remotely?

Self-motivation is the key to effectively contributing when working remotely. Self-motivation means to do or achieve something because of one’s own enthusiasm or interest—without needing pressure or impetus from others. This type of motivation keeps us inspired to be effective, and it gives us the energy to be available for our team members.

One technique to ensure success is to apply the principles of leading a remote team to yourself. Below are five principles for leading a remote team to apply to your “home office”:

• Develop successful relationships.
  • Become a reliable team member. Participate in all team touch points and be someone who is available even if remote. Take 6-7 minutes at the start of a meeting. Do not “jump right in”. Allow the water-cooler talk to take place, and open with how is everyone doing? Make space for human connections. Create a personal and informal moment. This technique has been around since the 1950’s.

• Set clear expectations.
  • Through your self-motivation, create clear expectations for yourself and communicate those when interacting with your leadership and team members.

• Communicate openly and honestly.
  • Share how you feel about working from home when the isolation catches up with you or when you are having a great day. Also, share your schedule. Your leadership and team members will appreciate this. Showing this structure may provide benefit to a team member struggling with this part of remote work.

• Schedule frequent “check in’s”.
  • Just like your leadership will schedule frequent check in’s—do the same with team members. When not working at the office, you cannot just “run into” someone, so do it remotely. Call, Skype, text or chat.

• Be a systems thinker when rhythm and workflow has changed.
  • Create a project plan, remote work process and/or checklist to be most efficient with your time. Your leadership and team members will appreciate that.
  • Along with creating a project plan focused on your work, establish a personal project plan as well.
    • Create a new routine—a work routine
      • Start time, End Time, Shower, Dress
    • Move
      • Walk; keep your level of physical of activity as you would at the office
    • Strike a balance—avoid email and chat overload
      • Turn off when you are done working for the day

These are challenging times due to the unknown. When will this disruption end? When will I go back to the office? Will the office change? These are all reasonable questions to ask yourself. Utilize the self-motivation mindset to think of this time in a positive way. Approach this time as adding a new skill to your repertoire. Remote working is not a wholesale approach and cannot replace face-to-face, but by applying leading remote team principles to yourself, you will become a better leader, team member, and most importantly, you will be effectively using this time for future applications.

This is an opportunity to learn and grow as an individual or company—just like Kevin did before he and his family reunited in Home Alone—as we will all do professionally in the near future.

[i] IBM began having team members work from home nearly 40 years ago. By 2009, 40% of their 386,000 were working remotely.

[ii] Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business School