Maxine Morrison introduced Dr. Laura Hambley of Workplace EvOHlution, a Calgary-based consulting practice of psychologists who specialize in distributed workplaces. The tips provided by Dr. Hambley are especially timely in the COVID-19 period of working from home. The focus of Workplace EvOHlution develops the human elements of distributed work.
Dr. Hambley’s presentation addressed the opportunities and challenges of remote work and highlighted necessary habits to lead successful remote teams, including maintaining a healthy work-life balance, trust, and communication. She began by identifying the five components of distributed work as dispersed teams, telework, remote or mobile locations, flexible or agile assignments, and activity-based work. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust the first three of these into sudden prominence.
The pandemic provides opportunities for workers to balance their work and life activities while improving their productivity by managing distractions. Studies demonstrate that the average worker increases their productivity by between ten and thirty percent while working away from the traditional office. It also provides opportunities to provide strong remote leadership to other team members.
The challenges of remote work include
- Establishing clear boundaries between work and life
- Maintaining regular communication with your team and staff
- Ensuring productivity and engagement of team members
- Setting your structure and organizing your team
These challenges mean the skills required for face-to-face leadership are necessary but are not sufficient to lead remote teams. Distributed leadership must pay attention to relationships, flexibility (including fostering the appropriate work-life balance for every team member), improving productivity and cultural awareness.
Successful remote teams incorporate the following habits into their daily work routines.
- Establish personal boundaries by communicating your work hours, breaks, and contact information for urgent communications.
- Avoid scheduling meetings over lunch hours or outside regular working hours, limit responding to emails to specific periods (two per day) and use “delayed send” features when emailing outside work hours.
- Put people first by minimizing distractions to be attentive to others, asking about someone’s day, and sharing personal experiences and challenges.
- Practice inclusivity by saying the same thing to different people, keeping others in the loop, and not assuming someone has received something until followed up.
- Build trust by assuming people want to do good work, keep your promises and deliverables, and communicate delays promptly.
- Establish weekly personal and professional touchpoints by scheduling virtual coffee meetings and team huddles during high-activity projects.
- Use varied communications and not be overly reliant on any one communication method and tailor messages to individual needs.