Human Soup

To most, remote work either sounds like a dream or a nightmare, the new frontier or the end of life as we know it, a delicious double chocolate cake with buttercream icing or your zipper the next morning. But there aren’t only two sides to anything…except actual coins… and paper (okay, there are two sides to a lot of things, but you get the point). Something like remote work contains multitudes – swaths of grey areas with unknowns in between. And, like anything worth doing, it means taking some risks, giving up a little of one thing in favor of another, and being comfortable with making some mistakes along the way.

By embracing, or at least dipping your metaphorical toe into, remote work, you can unleash the creativity in your organization and beyond, opening up possibilities that Don Draper could have only dreamed of. Whether you’re an organization in the creative field or not, you need to be a creative organization. The world is changing too fast not to be. Create, innovate, and adapt, or be left behind.

To help you decide whether it’s the right choice for your organization, we’ve created an unscientific and incredibly biased quiz. But before we dive in, let’s take a closer look at what remote work actually looks like. 

Going remote can lead to better (or worse) work/life balance

Remote work offers team members more flexibility to take care of the stuff of life; doing laundry, taking the dog to the vet for his unhealthy attachment to that old Easter egg, cat naps, and mid-day living room dance parties. What used to require a half day of PTO can now happen with a quick trip to the laundry room or a conference call from the car.

In addition to flexibility, the elimination of commute time is a gift of free time back. That’s time to watch that SpongeBob episode for the 40th time, do 30 minutes with the thigh master, carve intricate designs into soap bars, or take an online course in “The Art of Ghost Hunting and Paranormal Investigation.” 

Studies have shown that this has a positive impact on their productivity, morale, happiness, and overall well-being. As an employer, having freshly laundered, rested, and well-fed employees lead to higher job satisfaction and reduced stress. This, in turn, boosts productivity, morale, and creativity. When was the last time you had a good idea after a rushed shower, a stale protein bar, and an hour in traffic listening to talk radio? (Never. The answer is never). 

But working from the place we live can also start to make things seem fuzzy. Work can start to seep out of the walls of the digital office and into every aspect of life. It starts small, with an email from bed here, an 8 pm conference call there, and soon blurs the line between work and life until there isn’t one. 

The technology that made it possible to work from home can lead to the expectation that remote work means “always working,” which can quickly lead to burnout—the biggest killer of creative thinking.

The solution is a remote office culture that values work-life balance, encourages it, and supports it by modeling it (and staffing appropriately). But this behavior must be modeled from the very top and at all levels below. Promotions can’t be given to those that blur the lines – the ability to balance has to be a factor in those decisions; otherwise, it is a slippery slope to a burned-out organization. 

A remote structure can bring more diverse talent into the organization (or not). 

Remote jobs now make up 15% of work opportunities in the US, but according to a study by ZipRecruiter, more than 60% of job seekers hope to find remote opportunities. Plus, when hiring remote, you can hire from anywhere.  And if not anywhere-anywhere, then at least practically anywhere. Both these factors allow for a greater pool of the very best talent at potentially a lesser cost. (yay!) 

As an added bonus, when you hire from more rural areas, you’re helping those communities bring in revenue that they wouldn’t otherwise, helping small businesses and others who don’t have access to the big city income. 

If you look at this as an opportunity to build diverse and inclusive teams, you can recruit a diversity of experiences and ideas, and perspectives. And diverse teams are stronger, more innovative more agile teams. 

What a remote structure doesn’t do,  however, is ensure that you actually create diverse teams. That still takes you hiring people that are different from you. It still requires building a remote culture that celebrates and values diversity and inclusion. It still requires you to train your managers (and yourselves) about how to manage a diverse team. And it still requires an inclusive hiring process that avoids bias and discrimination. 

A remote structure changes your options. You, my friend, are still the one that needs to be intentional and make the changes. Building a diverse and inclusive remote team requires effort, but the benefits are worth it for both employees and the business.

A virtual workforce is a flatter, more motivated, self-directed, trusting workforce. Eventually. If you do things right. 

There’s nothing more democratizing than everyone being the same size on a Zoom screen. Okay, I’m sure there’s something more democratizing, but it doesn’t relate to this article. In a virtual office, there is no walking from a cramped cubicle by the bathroom to your boss’ leather-trimmed corner office with fine art on the wall and a view of the skyline. On Zoom, everyone is equal for a little while. Sure, someone might have a fancier background than others, but who’s to say if it’s virtual or what it looks like just outside the camera’s view?

The traditional hierarchical model is incompatible with a virtual environment, it’s like trying to eat soup with a fork. The line between boss and employee needs to blur, with employees empowered to figure out what needs to be done and how to do it. This requires a shift from a top-down model to a more collaborative approach.

And motivation doesn’t come with more money, it comes from creating an environment that encourages self-motivation, where you build trust, and it goes both ways. 

This is hard. Gone are the days of walking behind someone to see if they’re Amazon shopping in the middle of the day or checking the quality of someone’s work as they’re doing it. Some people are great at this, while others are not. But what happens is that self-directed and motivated employees stay and thrive while the others do not.

This doesn’t happen overnight, but leaders of remote organizations have to be ready to adapt, not just technologically and physically but also structurally. The organization must change from the top-down hierarchical model to thrive in the virtual world. If leadership isn’t ready to give up some of their power and trust their employees to do the work, it won’t work. By doing so, organizations can create a more motivated and self-directed workforce that is better equipped to thrive in a virtual setting.

Going remote can lead to lower overhead (but it probably shouldn’t.)

If you decide to move to remote, you get to lose that pesky and expensive office space. That’s great, right? You’ve just saved a lot of money, but you’ve also lost a lot of infrastructure for both effective work and effective connection and collaboration. 

While you may no longer need expensive office space, not everyone has the resources to work from home, like a private room to work in or reliable internet. To ensure everyone has what they need to succeed, it’s important to offer office equipment, laptops, and stipends for shared meeting spaces, internet, or phone services. And since you’ve hired a diverse workforce from all over (see above), you may need to provide different resources for different people – it’s not one size fits all. 

Remote work can also feel really lonely. In fact, a report by Igloo found that 70% of remote employees feel left out of their workplace. Without after-work drinks, lunch dates, or office romances, human connection can suffer, and this can negatively impact the team’s effectiveness. 

So that rent money? It should go to opportunities for team building and human connection, such as whole company retreats, regional meetups, and remote team dinners. By doing so, you can help your team feel valued and build a stronger, more effective team.

So, is remote work right for your organization? Take our totally biased quiz and find out!

Do you want to have a thriving diverse workforce full of people from all over with interesting perspectives? 

Do you want your employees to be creative and happy?

Are you prepared to model work-life balance from the top? (Yes.. this means you). 

Do you want to build an empowered self-motivated workforce? 

Are you willing to distribute some of your power to see others grow and thrive in your organization? 

Do you want to occasionally shop online during work hours too?

Are you willing to be just a square on screen? 

Are you willing to invest money in opportunities for in-person connection between your staff? 

Will you celebrate and acknowledge that everyone is different and has different needs to thrive?