21st Century Work Life

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (https://virtualnotdistant.com)

Maya has recently published "Finding Your Edge: Establishing And Maintaining Boundaries When You Work From Home", reflecting on issues on many minds right now as we all strive for balance between work and the rest of our lives. Pilar and Maya discuss integrators vs segmenters, using daylight and other sensory input as boundaries, and keeping tasks and roles in place when we work from home.

Interesting articles:

• I'm socially anxious, and working from home has been life-changing.
• Spain to launch trial of four-day working week.

and 38:20 Tech updates:

• Being in a BBC virtual studio audience recording,
• How to use Slack emoji to simplify work (and cut out noise),
• Taming the hybrid work chimera: Tips from Slack, WordPress, & Salesforce chiefs;
• Why Microsoft wants Discord

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London, today's episode explores mindset issues for new remote managers, and some changes which people new to this role may need to explore. (https://virtualnotdistant.com)

The episode is structured around Pilar's article Key mindset changes for the new remote manager

and covers the need to:

(4.09) 1. Adopt a coaching mindset

(8.09) 2. Embrace delegation and avoid interference

(10.04) 3. Make friends with your technology

(Including an interview with agile coach Mark Kilby (at 18.24), about how data visualisation can help explore issues of disengagement in remote teams)

(44.13) 4: Get Intentional

(47.14) Finally, 5: Don't make yourself indispensable

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London, where we help teams work together better online, https://virtualnotdistant.com

In today's episode Pilar and Maya take their regular look at what's going on in the remote work and collaboration space (which goes beyond work to include education and other spheres now using the same technology), and then explore the theme of social connection in remote teams.

Pilar took part in a panel at PA2021 for Project Access International with Bernie Mitchell (Episode 158), and Niklas Huppmann from Human Aid and Covid Africa.

It's so interesting how the tech is changing the way we learn, hopefully leading to greater opportunity for everyone.

Despite technical challenges ( likeSingle Sign-on for Programmable Video), the panel predicted that a hybrid approach blending online and face-to-face is what to expect in future, with interesting implications for building professional networks.

Pilar has also been working with BeNext on virtual leadership, and exploring the strengths of cohort based learning - a great strength of the online space, as People Matters agrees: Article: Ten reasons why cohort-based programs are the future of skilling — People Matters.

People talk about missing social interaction when forced to work from home, and often the solution seems to be to arrange specific out-of-work opportunities for this. But this is to imply that social interaction at work only takes place in the pub afterwards! Which isn't how it works in the colocated workspace - so why should it be online?

Recent episodes with Chris Coladonato (262) and Goncalo Silva (264) have some great ideas of how to do this well, and there's also episode 170 with Jochen Lillich on the DIRECTT framework (Decision, Insight, Result, Emotion, Contact, Troubles, Thanks) for working out loud - all ways to weave engagement and sociability throughout your day to day interactions.

How are you making space for sharing and connecting in your organisation? Don't forget to let us know, and maybe our in-house podcasting service could help, if you want a new way to relate to one another in your online team.

With everything segueing beautifully today, this takes us into our LinkedIn question of the month, Now that you're not working in an office together, how are you capturing the learning in your team that happens away from each other? generating fantastic and insightful responses from friends like Bart Van Roey (episode 261) - we'd love to know what you think too.

In this episode, Pilar talks to guest Francisco Corzo about the future of the workplace in Guatemala and the concept of Working Near Home. You can find the full show notes over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/near-home-in-guatemala Links to articles we refer to: Pilar and Francisco talk about the recent Forbes article: From Work from Home to Work Near Home, the beginning of a new office trend. Pilar's article on LinkedIn from a few years ago called Sharing Office Spaces across Organisations

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London, where we help those working apart rom each other feel closer together:

https://virtualnotdistant.com

5:21 Today, Pilar talks to Jennifer Riggins about the upcoming Aginext conference, (and why they're using the Spatial Chat app for their networking sessions), and then:

• Beth Maguire from Hubspot
• Gonçalo Silva, CTO at Doist
• Marcus Wermuth, engineering manager at Buffer,
• Morgan Legge head of sales and success at Convert.com

Discussing personal learning styles, embedding learning in organisational culture, practices for sharing and reflecting on learning - and much much more.

Enjoy!

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant (https://virtualnotdistant.com) in London, in today's "what's going on?" series Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss discuss:

• Pandemic working is not remote working
• But this wasn't what I meant, when I said working from home was great!
• Older employees are adapting to remote work better than younger workers

• Hawaii's Remote Work Program Comes With Free Flights
• Repeople (Nomad City)

• 'Moodbeam': A wristband that tells your boss if you are unhappy. The Future Of Trello Is On The Horizon: Take a Sneak Peek and Going Beyond The Board: A Whole New Trello Is Here.
• Healthy Happy Homeworking mailing list: Don't be a Zoom Zombie!)
• The launch of Microsoft Viva - the 'employee experience platform'.

45.37 Virtual not Distant news

• A LinkedIn discussion which became a blog post,
• Making the Most of Virtual Facilitation: Using the Asynchronous Space
• Maya's community for homeworkers: Healthy Happy Homeworking Facebook group,
• Richard MacKinnon's WorkLifePsych.club

These are not Virtual Not Distant communities, but we're always listening to you too.

Hello and welcome to episode 262 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London.

Before we dive in the interview a quick reminder about our Podcasting for Connection service - podcasting is a great asynchronous tool that can help maintain a sense of belonging.

Chris Coladonato works in learning and development at a large insurance enterprise, and is a great advocate for remote work. She is very active on social media and we've long enjoyed the insightful content she shares and discusses, from virtual commutes to networking and connection.

17.00 Teamwork and staying connected

35.45 External social media

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn, Twitter and her blog.

Speaking of LinkedIn, we had a great conversation over on our own page, about getting started with working remotely… And if you love podcasting as much as we do, you'll want to follow Adventures in Podcasting, for news about a new book from Pilar coming soon.

A special bonus episode, of this podcast brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (http://virtualnotdistant.com),

Today we talk to Bart Van Roey and Viviane Kock about their new book "Beyond New Ways of Working" - 'dialogue book' in Dutch, which is extending the conversation about remote work and the future of work in more ways than one.

Contact Viviane via her own website at Formation et consultance en télétravail - NestYourDesk and Bart at ihop : for people and business,

Welcome to our first recording of 2021, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London.

https://virtualnotdistant.com

2.39 We share and discuss a great message from a LinkedIn connection in Guatemala, Francisco Corzo.

20.24 Communications and collaboration in 2021

36.10 Community news, including Minds at Work and our own Podcasting for connection service.

Do keep in touch and let us know 'what's going on' in your remote work world.

Welcome to our first podcast episode of 2021, and happy new year to you wherever and whenever you are listening - from Virtual Not Distant in London (http://virtualnotdistant.com).

Today we reflect further on culture in organisations, and bring you a great interview someone whose job revolves around this critical issue.

Pilar spoke with Stella Huang in December 2020,

Shield GEO take their retreats very seriously as a globally distributed organisation, and shifting them online during the throes of 2020 was a highly tactical endeavour.

Being unable to do that the following year, they still wanted to connect people the best way they could, switching from a one-off annual get together to a regular cadence of monthly hour-long events.

Please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/culture-virtual-retreats for full shownotes.

Ensuring that human element of connectedness is at the heart of the new 'Podcasting for Connection' offering from Virtual Not Distant, which focuses on how we relate to and value one another outside of and around the work, which helps and supports the work we do together.

Pilar will be developing this theme through 2021, and working with organisations to focus on culture across boundaries as the future of work evolves. Please do share your thoughts with her and help us create the content and services you need, to support you through this pivotal and important time for all remote and hybrid organisations.