21st Century Work Life

Pilar has been working on how the way in which are tasks are dependent on other team members' affects the visible teamwork practices we adopt - and why. This episode is brought to you by Virtual not Distant. Thanks go to Theresa Sigillito Hollema from www.interact-global.net for the inspiration - and she now has her book Virtual Teams Across Cultures on pre-order! he principles don't only help us to stay aligned in our teams, but they can help us to feel connected. (For more on Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams, check out our 7 episode series!) The principles of Visible Teamwork can be found here, and follow three areas: Deliberate Communication Work Visibility Planned Spontaneity Understanding the level of interdependence of your tasks will also help you see whether the systems of visible teamwork are going to help you mostly with coordination of the work, or to increase your sense of connection with each other. Pooled, sequential and reciprocal interdependence. For detailed show notes, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/task-interdependence-remote-teams

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd, please see the full show notes over on our website.

What's Going On

We're reading and discussing:

Covid-19 Just Accelerated What Was Already Happening [Long Read]

Five workplace trends will shape life after lockdown

Mapping "The Future of Work" Startup & Investor ecosystem.

Bill of Rights for Remote Work

Facebook and Google extend working from home to end of year and Facebook employees could receive pay cuts as they continue to work from home, also Google will let workers expense $1,000 worth of office furniture.

We also discuss remote tracking/monitoring apps and trends, Brexit negotiations on Zoom, accessibility of collaboration tools (Making collaboration accessible to all with Microsoft Teams and Accessibility overview of Microsoft Teams - Office Support), and online meeting fashion tips (yes, this is now a thing).

Bart, has a new book out in Belgium, with the Dutch title: "Voorbij Het Nieuwe Werken, een dialoogboek". ("Beyond the New Way of Work") www.futureofworkBE.org (#futureofworkBE)

Pilar has recently run two round tables for the Spanish energy company Iberdrola, who are approaching remote working from the green point of view, and more for Spanish speakers, take a look at Campo Virtual Latino.

Emotional Contagion

A recent conversation on LinkedIn led to a great dialogue, which was so interesting that Pilar pulled it all into an article: Do Emotions Spread through Collaboration Platforms?

So there you have it, lots going on in the world of remote, even beyond the present dependence on home-based working worldwide. If you have ideas, angles, and articles you'd like us to explore in future episodes, do get in touch

With the sudden "rush to remote", many teams and managers have sought training in working remotely - however, sometimes taking a different first step towards adapting to the new environment can be more beneficial to your team, in the current situation, and with a view to the future. In this episode, we give you an overview of four different types of interventions. If you need help with any of them, get in touch at www.virtualnotdistant.com

In this episode, inspired by the academic paper Team Development Interventions: Evidence-Based Approaches for Improving Teamwork published in the journal American Psychologist 2018, Vol. 73, No. 4, 517–531, Pilar goes through four different training interventions that might be suitable for your remote team, right now.

Think of the team competencies you might need to address. For example,rather than training in working remotely, your team might benefit undergoing training in other areas like "communicating in writing" (you'll probably need to do A LOT of that when working remotely), or "concise communication" - which can be done in writing and audio. "Giving and receiving feedback" (also necessary when working apart from each other as a team) or even "task management", or spend time together learning how to master three or four functions in MSTeams that will save you time and headaches in the future. (Pilar mentions her Remarkable tablet.)

1. Team Training. What are attitudes, skills and knowledge we need to work in a team? (By the way, don't assume that because someone knows how to use the tech, it doesn't mean that they know how to use it collaboratively)If you are losing visibility in the organisation, and are a highly specialised team, you might benefit from training in using everyday language to communicate with others.
2. Leadership Training

In-house training courses are the best option, because they enable peers to talk to each other, network and learn from each other. Sometimes, if there is a very specific issue that a manager has, coaching might be a better option."Transfer" is key, to be able to put all new information and learning into practice, as is feedback. Of course, attending any kind of training also gives you the space to reflect.

Improving Team Dynamics and TeamBuilding in Remote TeamsThese intervention have the aim of improving how people work together: co-ordination, nurture trust, discussion of values etcThese help with goal setting, problem-solving, role clarification… in any case, it's important to know what a teambuilding intervention can help you solve. As we talk about all this, we talk about the work, and how we engage with the work, and collaborate. These interventions will also surface a lot of hidden information, and a lot of information remains hidden in team members' heads when we're remote. Role clarity in remote teams, can give us role flexibility, making the team more resilient. Having a facilitator running these discussions can help, giving people the space to think without worrying about team dynamics as much.4) Team DebriefThese are great learning and teambuilding opportunities (Agile teams do this very well through their retrospectives!) and opportunities to celebrate success. (LINK TO CELEBRATIONS)They give us an opportunity to reconnect through the work. These sessions don't need to be very long, 18 minutes are an average good length, and are the most effective in improving team performance. These sessions are influenced by the team climate, (here it helps to have a facilitator to create a psychologically safe climate), learning to provide feedback. You might want to think in your team about the kind of questions that help you really learn from the experience. "Conclusions and agreements need to be documented".And of course we can help you with tailored management team-training and team facilitation. But why not run Team Debriefs in your team, led by different team members each time, so that you can discover new talents in your team, which have emerged recently in the remote space? Get in touch through www.virtualnotdistant.com

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant, a London-based consultancy where we help teams transition to remote working, and operate happily and productively in that environment.

Today we explore hiring remotely, and to do that we are joined by Jo Palmer from Pointer Remote Roles (04.33) to help us understand the unique perspective of the specialist hiring agency, and then by Morgan Legge from Convert (34.30) to look at how this global, fully distributed team finds new colleagues, who will be a fit within their framework of holacracy.

Please find full shownotes over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/hiring-remotely

Welcome to the final part of our 'connection and disconnection' series with ShieldGEO, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant. Today we look back at these episodes and what we've learned from them, during an unexpectedly transitional time for the remote work space.

For today we share a round-table discussion, featuring Pilar and Maya from Virtual Not Distant , as well as Tim Burgess from ShieldGEO.

Please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/reflection-connection-disconnection for the full shownotes and links.

This show is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant, a London-based consultancy offering support to remote teams worldwide.

Please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/flexible-communication for full show notes

A recent article from Workplacesless What Happens to HR When Everyone is Suddenly Remote? takes an in-depth look at the 'emotional labour' that people-people do and how that has changed, on top of the logistical challenges and uncertainties they're dealing with. It's a good tie-in with our special 'connection and disconnection' series underway with ShieldGEO, and we shouldn't forget that HR professionals are at the forefront of supporting coping with these issues for everyone.

Looking ahead to what the workplace of the future might look like, we start with this one from Buro Happold Social distancing in the workplace: the new norm. We've never had an opportunity like this to truly rethink how we want to re-create the workplace we want - where we feel safe and effective and productive.

Mapping the way people move and looking at the tech we use (see also Maya's recent article about Crestron's thoughts on this) will help, but there will surely be new stress-producing factors and things to constrain spontaneity. We're going to have think differently about what face-to-face time means, and consciously make the most of it, whatever tech we use to control the environment. And here's a prescient article Pilar wrote 4 years ago… proving that it's always a good time to think holistically and creatively about what your workplace could look like, while considering what unique needs it fulfils for you.

There's even some research emerging now from Global Workplace Analytics suggesting that many workers do want to continue to work from home post-crisis, and they want flexibility and choice more than they want a fixed spot assigned to them in the office. This article about Tata in India suggests the same, a big corporation already deciding that a growing proportion of their workforce will work regularly from home permanently.

All of these environmental shifts remind us that we're going to have to change the way we work too, becoming more agile and resilient and flexible as an organisation, perhaps less hierarchical, to cope with the new world of work - and whatever changes are coming our way in future.

Which further connects with the important subject of well-being, and we liked this article Simon Deeley (do contact him if you want to learn more about his mentoring app) shared with us, about 9 Steps to Maintaining Your Work/life Boundaries - we get hung up on the physical boundaries but there are so many more things to think about, which can make a difference in your life.

And finally, we loved this statement on LinkedIn from Adam Weber from Emplify that as a company they've decided they're not working Fridays in May - to recognise the additional burdens and stresses on their employees. This is one great example of an organisation helping individuals maintain some boundaries.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd, a London-based consultancy helping teams transition to happy and productive office-optional working.

In the 6th episode of this special "connection and disconnection in remote teams" series in association with ShieldGEO, we explore what we can do individually, to strengthen feelings of connection with our remote colleagues. After looking at the manager's role previously, we need to remember we can all do our part, to support our own well-being and that of our teammates.

Our series host Bree Cagiatti and guests new and old explore this topic and its implications.

Please visit https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/self-help-connection for full shownotes.

An organisational change is the perfect time to give employees the option to work remotely. In this episode, our two guests talk about the challenges of introducing remote work in an organisation, as well as introducing a new digital collaboration ecosystem. For more detailed show notes and to get in touch, head over to www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/adopting-a-new-mindset-remote

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd, a London-based consultancy helping teams transition to happy and productive office-optional working.

Today we return to our special series in association with ShieldGEO on connection and disconnection in remote teams, and into this 5th episode we explore the role of the manager or employer in ensuring their team members remain connected when working remotely.

Please see full shownotes at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/connection-disconnection-manager for all the links and details of our wonderful guests featured in this episode.

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant, where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. For full show notes please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/learning-and-sharing

This topical segment was recorded on April 6th 2020

Maya experienced a meeting that was 'Zoom-bombed' - one of those new words 2020 will add to the lexicon. This phenomenon has attracted a lot of media coverage, and Zoom has taken steps to secure their own networks - so make sure you're running the most up to date version of the app. A good example of why transitioning shouldn't, in normal circumstances, happen without learning and planning…

And Zoom is not the only meeting app out there! Google has rolled out free access to advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite customers globally, and we found this list of hundreds of other possibilities to choose from as well, with different properties and integrations for different industries.

Among the plethora of remote work content, don't overlook these fine words by Prof Dr. Emerita Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux. Surreality meets satire - but we need humour wherever we can find it these days.

Pilar heard about a new co-working space which gives people black beads you can wear, if you want to signify you don't want to be disturbed. A way to physically manifest an attention status in a visible way… A Slack emoji come to life? Interesting how these shared signals and vocabulary emerge.

Research from HBR's Idea Watch suggests that people would rather have their job taken by a robot than another human - maybe because we couldn't be expected tocompete? But we'd rather work alongside a human replacement for any of our co-workers, if they get laid off.

An article in The StartUp on Medium caught Maya's eye, The Five Levels of Remote Work — and why you're probably at Level 2 - an insightful look at how to get beyond the meetings and chat and replication of the office, to an asynchronous nirvana. A good aspiratiomn for many teams who can work in this way and well worth a read.

Rowena Hennigan and Robert Kropp in Spain have compiled Remote Work Tree:

As Robert explained, they wanted to ease the transition by bringing together the best events and resources to help people new to remote working and leadership. They've tried to predict a learning path and what users might need, to step through the rich resources they have curated, put together at top speed - to help you avoid content overload.