When you’re excited to read a great book, do you flip to the middle and start reading? Of course not. You start at the beginning. The past few weeks have seen a glut of posts that claim to know what it takes to be successful at remote working. Most of them skip past the most important components – the Preface to our story:
- Having the right ecosystem.
- Establishing the right culture.
- Hiring experienced leaders to guide this effort.
Want to position your business to be successful? Stop trying to make remote work fit within an in-person mindset, immediately. Embrace change, and start looking for people to lead this effort who deeply understand and embrace the foundations of remote learning and collaboration.
According to a recent poll conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM):
- Seventy-one percent of employers are struggling to adjust to remote work
- Sixty-five percent of employers say maintaining employee morale has been a challenge
- More than 1/3 of employers are facing difficulties with:
- Company culture
- Employee productivity
- Leave regulations
Now more than ever, organizations need leaders who are committed to creating and maintaining a thriving remote collaboration culture, one that emphasizes problem-solving, learning, and adapts to change.
Companies often prioritize terms such as velocity, efficiency, metrics, and process, but they take camaraderie for granted.
Pat Patterson, author of The Mesh Method
GitLab produced a great compendium on this topic, which led with:
ESTABLISH A REMOTE LEADERSHIP TEAM
https://about.gitlab.com/resources/downloads/ebook-remote-playbook.pdf
Rally a team of experts who have remote work experience, can
communicate nuances, and serve as resources to others. A core
part of this team’s role will be to document challenges in real
time, transparently prioritize those challenges, and assign
directly responsible individuals (DRIs) to find solutions.
There are a ton of qualified candidates on the job market right now, and odds are, you can find someone who possesses the right combination of experience, empathy, charisma, and sound decision-making.
