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Guests, Leadership

Attracting and Retaining International Talent with Lona Alia

In this episode of Long-Distance Worklife, Wayne sits down with Lona Alia, head of revenue at SafetyWing, a social impact entrepreneur, Y Combinator founder, mentor at 500 Startups, Advisor at EU for Innovation, and an international nomad. 

SafetyWing is building the first global safety net for remote companies, remote workers, and nomads worldwide. It offers medical insurance for nomads and remote companies around the world. It is also developing other insurance products such as pension savings and income insurance. Its products are built and designed by a fully remote team of nomads distributed across three continents.

Question of the Week:

What do organizations need to take into account when recruiting people outside the United States?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's edition of the Long-Distance Worklife podcast, where we look at what it's like to work on remote and hybrid teams. We are examining remote work, technology, leadership, everything it takes to thrive and survive in the new long-distance workplace. Today, I am alone. Marisa's not with me, but I am not flying solo.

We have a really, really good interview with Lona Alia. Lona is the chief revenue officer at SafetyWing, and we are talking about recruiting and retaining employees internationally. And this is not just hiring people in different countries, but digital nomads. And the whole idea of creating a truly international and dispersed workplace. You're really going to enjoy the interview.

We go all over the place and it's really, really good stuff. So here is my interview with Lona Alia.

Hi everybody, this week on the Long-Distance Worklife, we are talking to Lona Alia, who is with SafetyWing. First of all, welcome, but also two sentences quick. What is SafetyWing? What do you do? Why do we care?

Lona Alia: Thank you. Thank you so much, Wayne. Really excited to be here. SafetyWing. We're building this global social safety net. And what that means is that we offer global benefits for remote workers, remote teams and nomads living around the world. The idea is that now we're hiring people from all over the world and they need to be covered somehow.

With remote health insurance, with retirement, with life and disability if something were to happen to them. So how do we cover these team members that are all over the world? So SafetyWing does that. I'm the head of revenue there. I'm also a Y Combinator founder. I'm an advisor to many different startups, and I'm also an original remote worker.

So I just love talking about remote work, hybrid, all of these fun things.

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Wayne: Well, that's why you're here. I mean, SafetyWing is lovely. And there's probably a three beer conversation that you could have about what are the benefits, you know, in different parts of the world, because American companies go, "Hey, we can give you health insurance and we can give you maternity leave." And people in the rest of the world goes, "Yeah."

And so the world is a very diverse place, but you are kind of uniquely positioned to help. So let's start with as we're thinking about digital nomad and hiring people in other countries, if you are thinking about doing that. What are the top three things that employers need to consider in recruiting and just as importantly, keeping people?

Lona: Sure. Absolutely. So I would recommend from my experience, I've grown a team from zero to 14 people in the last year or so, built the B2B sales team from scratch, and I hired people from all over the world. We have also 100% retention. So that tells you that what we're doing maybe is right. So a couple of things that I would say.

One is compensation. Think about that. Are you offering a flat compensation across all countries and cities, or are you doing a location based kind of like salary range? This is a very hot topic right now. Many people don't agree with one or the other. There's really no right way to do this.

Wayne: You can get a sense compensation and stuff is what you do. Very briefly, what we're talking about is if I have a company in New York and so I pay New York salary. But you're in the Philippines, and of course, the cost of living is lower and everything. Do I pay you a good salary from the Philippines or do I pay you a New York salary regardless of where you live?

I mean, that's what we're talking about. Yes. What are the pros and cons?

Lona: So, yeah, last week, I hosted this webinar with 300 people that showed up. So amazing. Like so many people were interested. We had about 70 questions live, and we had companies like Remote that help you hire people all over the world. Carta that which handles your equity does a few different hybrid companies. And we were talking about just this topic, right?

And it's like, what is the right way of doing it? So for example, GitLab, which is a great remote-first company, but also a public company. What they have chosen is to do location-based salary so they will tie your compensation based on what's best in that location that you're in. I'm not sure what happens as you move locations from place to place, which is a problem now as people want to be more free, they want to live all over the world.

Do they do you say like, "Okay, well, because it started in Bali and now you're coming to San Francisco, you're not going to be making $200,000 a year. You're actually going to be making, you know, I don't know, $30,000." I'm not sure what the price is in Bali. Right? So we had this conversation at Safety. We offer flat salaries across the board.

We take a salary that's maybe like in an average city in the US not in San Francisco and not in New York, but something that's in the middle. And we offer that across the board. So we feel but that makes it the, the most kind of competitive but also the fairest.

Do you think it's the right way to do it? We don't know. This is all an experiment that everybody is doing at this time.

Wayne: So and it's happening in the US as well. I mean, I hire you and you're living in San Jose, so I'm paying you commensurate with San Jose and then you decided during COVID that you're going to go move to Montana. Well, am I still paying you what I was paying you in San Jose, or do I pay you the average salary for Bozeman, Montana, which is very different.

Yes. So this is something all organizations are dealing with as people become more mobile.

Lona: Yes. The good thing to keep in mind about that is to stay flexible, to stay flexible with your team, with the best people that you have because you don't want to be in a situation where you lose that talent in the great era of great resignation. So that's because you decided that they moved around. Now they're going to get a lower salary, right?

You don't want to lose a great engineer, that head of people or that head of something just because they would like to be more mobile. And global mobility is the next thing, right? Like people want to be more mobile globally so that they can take advantage of things like a geo arbitrage, like what is geo arbitrage? It's like you can live in a lower cost country and keep that extra money that you will be spending on rent and insurance and all those things to yourself.

So a lot of people are waking up and saying like, "Wait a second, I don't have to live in the most expensive city in the world. I can go live in Colombia, pay $400 a month in rent, and then save the rest and invest it are like retire early." You know, things like that.

Wayne: Yeah. Oh man. The possibilities are so endless, as are the challenges associated with it, right? Yes. This is great. Unless you're trying to hire people in New York or San Francisco. Yes, you know that as well as anybody. So compensation is the first thing. A couple of other things that.

Lona: Yes, benefits is the other. So benefits is huge. What are you bringing to the table for the best talent in the world to join your company? Are you offering great benefits starting with health insurance, obviously, which is great in the US, but also worldwide. They do want to have some type of private health insurance, even though some countries do have good health care.

It's nice to have a private health insurance they can get in front of the line. So, for example, in the UK, there's the public health system has long lines if you want to get a surgery. But if you have private insurance, you don't have to go to the public hospital. You can go get that surgery done sooner. So things like that are great.

Some great benefits that I love that we offer where we're at doing location. Independence is a big one. So a lot of companies are trying to figure out what do they do with a young generation that wants to live and work abroad? Do they allow them to be location independent, which means that they don't have to be based in, you know, New York, if that's where the job is, can they be based in, you know, Bali for three months in Italy for another four, in Paris for another five?

How could they be living this life that they want to live? And this is huge. I think a lot of young people want this benefits. So when they look at a company that is hiring, they will ask like, okay, is this remote? But also is it location independent means do I have freedom to live wherever I want? Or are you going to take me down to a location?

Wayne: Well, and what's interesting is more and more, because we're remote location really means time zone. Yeah, right. You can live in a village in Spain somewhere, right? Or you can live it in Hamburg because it's the same time zone. It makes no difference. 9:00 in the morning. It's 9:00 in the morning. Right. If you're trying to do work between Thailand and Spain, that's a different set of challenges.

Lona: Yes. But also I want to mention there are tax implications and a few things that you have to consider there to make sure that you're fully compliant. But there is a lot of companies solving for these things, though, not to worry. So if there's a heads of operations or heads of people person listening to this, like, "Oh my God, this is a problem I have, how do I solve this?"

And if you want to give your people this global mobility policy, there are solutions out there to help you give people what they want. Therefore, they can stay in your companies.

Wayne: Okay, so we've recruited people. We've somehow lured them into our evil trap, and they're now working with us as somebody who's done this multiple times yourself, what are the biggest mistakes people make when onboarding international team members do you think?

Lona: So, the biggest mistakes that I see that I've seen actually lately we've been talking about this is like the onboarding kind of wave of you on board people. A lot of new hires are falling off after onboarding because many companies are not taking this seriously. So, for example, when you're being onboarded in a company that's physical or you have an office, you might have like a body that helps you show you around you might have someone that's checking in day in and day out with you and you might have a training program in place.

So now that everything is remote, that onboarding has kind of went back to the back burner and not in the front lines so that people are not really paying that much attention, but we should pay a lot of attention to that because we want to make sure that if I hire women, I want the way to succeed. And for when to succeed is for him to understand my organization, to know the mission and values the culture, and to see it's firsthand to have this body that is assigned once a week.

You have a check in and you talk for an hour and answer any questions. Maybe you have notion as an internal knowledge database so that everything is written on there. So very good communication. Having someone to kind of like hold your hand for the first month or so is very important in the onboarding.

Wayne: And there's a couple of things about onboarding that you just said there. One is, you know, in the old days you would have a mentor or a buddy when you're working dispersed. What we might want to do is take that job of mentor and break it up between multiple people so that you're hearing multiple voices in your learning different parts of the organization rather than just following Bob around the office for a couple of days.

Lona: Well, I'm very thankful because I had one of the co-founders be my buddy, and basically we had weekly calls, and I cannot tell you how helpful that it was to parlay the culture of the company to me. And I was able to build the team with the culture that we want. And that's another thing. It's culture I like.

Mistakes that people make, especially in remote, is letting culture kind of take its own shape versus making an effort to really set the culture that you want and then making sure that steps are taken to, to to ensure that that culture is the one that you want.

Wayne: Yeah, just as a really simple example, and I'd love to hear something specific that you do at Safety, but what we do when somebody joins the team is their very first assignment is they have to set up a half hour face-to-face video call with every member of the team. It's not like, "Hey, everybody, joined the team."

Everybody says, "Hi, John," and then you never talk to John for a month, right? It jumpstarts that getting to know people and creating relationships and something as simple as that can make a big difference. What are some of the things maybe that you do very specifically that people can steal shamelessly?

Lona: Sure. Absolutely. So one thing is exactly what you said. Having this maybe half an hour or one hour, one on ones that you book with everybody in the team to get to know them. We do give a stipend of you know, you can do a lunch for free at each month so you get $30 per month to spend and have lunch with anybody that you want on the team continuously.

So that's nice that you can get a free lunch, you know, once a month. We have an internal NPS score that the CEO actually reports on each month. So there you can find out that NPS is Net Promoter Score, which is a very specific terminology, but it's basically a way of keeping track.

You can call it friends all you want, but you're monitoring the stuff you're monitoring to seeing. Are your people happy? Is the culture something that they love being in? And also, are they speaking their mind and being taken seriously? So this is something that we place a lot of effort in is being authentic, speaking your mind? That's a big part of our culture. Another great thing that the founders do is that they lead by example.

So for example, they take four days off like every quarter. They will take a week off. They will be off of Slack, off of email, off of everything. So you cannot reach them. Now, this sends a great signal to the rest of the team that, "Hey, this is our culture. You are it's okay to take days off because we want you to be healthy and we want you to be creative and we don't want you to burnout."

So these are signals that company leaders can give to their employees so that they can create the culture that they want.

Wayne: I love what you just said. And if you listen carefully, you can hear heads exploding all over North America at the notion of the management taking a week, a quarter and just disappearing. Yeah, people are having aneurysms listening to us right now. We have created a health crisis I think that that's important. And I, I love that you're taking your experience elsewhere and bringing it here as well as us just importing our dysfunction.

Lona: And something I mean, I grew up in, you know, New York and San Francisco. I saw my working years were in Silicon Valley, right? So I was distilled with this toxic culture of working 12 to 16 hours a day, of sleeping 4 hours a day. And that was heroic. And this is the culture that I grew up with. And I'm just like this is wrong.

And this this cannot be healthy. People are going to die. They're going to get cancer by being, you know, worked to death. And then who profits is the companies that are making millions and billions and trillions. Right. See, the Googles, the Apples, the Facebooks and the people, if they get cancer, who looks after them? Like what happens to them?

So this is serious stuff. This is, you know, the whole population waking up and the consciousness, the rising and now the new generation wants to have a life that is better than their previous ancestors has. So we need to wake up and people that are having an aneurysm need to wake up and say, okay, Gen Z is not going to work 14 hour days or 12 hour days.

They need work life integration. They need that balance. They don't want to be just working and not doing anything else. So what we have is.

Wayne: That is so, so important. And we're already coming up on the end of our time, which I knew would happen. And the giant list of questions that I provided are kind of irrelevant because this has been a great conversation. If there is one thing that if I'm a manager and I've got people in different countries and, you know, I'm trying to herd the cats and keep things organized, if there is one piece of advice that you would give them from your own experience, one practical tip or something that they can do, what should we leave them with, won't it?

Lona: Sure. That's something very simple. I as a founder, we are told, especially at the Y Combinator, that you should build things that people want. And when it comes to management, you should do things that people want. So you should listen to your people who are your people, your team members, your employees, your contractors? They are your people. What do they want?

Just ask them if they're leaving and they're getting another job. Please have an exit interview. Why are they leaving? Is it the benefits? Is it the working hours? Is it the burning out? Is it I don't know. Something else. What is it like? Just ask your people. It's that simple. Keep track. Make sure that they're healthy and they're doing well.

Lona: Be empathetic, take steps. But really just ask their people, is that simple and keep tabs on it.

Wayne: Thank you so, so much. I knew that you were the right person to ask about this. We will have links to SafetyWing in the show notes. Thank you so much. I so enjoyed our time together.

Lona: Thank you. I really appreciate you doing all the best.

Wayne: I had such a good time talking to her today. I hope that you enjoyed and got great value from the conversation. If you are enjoying the Long-Distance Worklife, you've listened to podcasts before, here's where I beg and plead for you to like and subscribe. And please, for heaven's sake, tell your friends.

If you would like links to much of what we discuss today very thorough show notes you can find those at longdistanceworklife.com, and if you have read Long-Distance Leader or Long-Distance Teammate and you want more information on how to develop long-distance work skills for either yourself or your organization, reach out to us at KevinEikenberry.com or RemoteLeadershipInstitute.com.

We will talk to you next week. My name is Wayne Turmel. Thank you for joining us. Hope we've helped kept the weasels at bay and I look forward to seeing you next time. On the Long-Distance Worklife.

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Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Technology

Do We Really Need More Webmeeting Tools? with Hoyin Cheung

Hoyin Cheung from Remo joins Wayne Turmel to discuss webmeeting tools and leading remote meetings. Remo is an interactive virtual event platform that humanizes the online event experience, and brings people together worldwide. 

Question of the Week:

Is it the tools we have for webmeetings that make them suck, or the way we lead meetings?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Long-Distance Worklife podcast brought to you by The Kevin Eikenberry Group. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am glad to be with you today. We are going to look at a subject that is the bane of every Long-Distance Leader's life meetings and events, and how do we do those when we are all in the same place?

We are going to have a really interesting conversation with a young man named Hoyin Cheung, who runs a web platform called Remo. It's an interesting platform check it out. But also we talk about what's wrong with the way we meet online and how we can use it to build culture and create stronger team. So I hope you enjoy.

I am very happy to reconnect with Hoyin Cheung. He is the founder and kind of guiding light behind Remo, which is an online web meeting web event portal. He'll tell us all about that in a second. But really, we're here to talk about meetings and building culture and how do you do that in a remote and a hybrid way?

So again, how are you, man?

Hoyin Cheung: I'm doing awesome, Wayne. And we haven't talked we haven't spoken for a while. So I was super excited that you messaged me and thank you for inviting me on the podcast.

Wayne: We're delighted to have you. And you need to lower the bar on what excites you. But that's okay. I'm glad that you're here. And when I first saw Remo, I thought, "Wow, this is really cool." And it is. I mean, there's some very cool things, but nobody goes into software just to do cool things, right? There's a problem you're trying to solve for.

So, you know, in a world of WebEx and Teams and Zoom everything else. What were you trying to solve? Or what was the problem with humans getting together that you were trying to fix when you created Remo?

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Hoyin: Yeah, so when I originally created like I crafted this mission, which is like, how do we create authentic conversations that drive meaningful relationships? And one of the problems that we saw was that you've got great tools like WebEx and all that kind of stuff, but they are mostly designed more for like kind of like like a click, like a call conference, like a phone conference, and so a video conference to emerge from a normal conference call. And so that dynamic is more focused more on meetings.

But when you think about how humans interact, like at a happy hour or at a workshop or whatever, it's not just one person speaking at one time. Like there's multiple conversations happening at the same time. And that kind of human behavior dynamic is actually what we as humans are more used to. And there was no real easy way to create that type of dynamic with the current tools that you mentioned.

And so that's why when we created, we know we really laser focused on making it super easy to have conversations, have intimate conversations, and make have this sort of serendipity and feeling that you can meet people just like you could in real life.

Wayne: Yeah. And so what do you think? Before we began, we were talking about the difference between meetings and events. And maybe you could give me like a short description of how they're different and what when you're trying to build a culture, how do meetings not necessarily fit everything they need to do?

Hoyin: Yeah, that's a great question. So how to find like a meeting is something where like people are having in meetings for productivity reasons, like you're trying to productively discuss or make decisions about something. Right. It's typically a group of anywhere between two and maybe eight or ten people, and it's one person speaking out at a time. There's a very clear objective for that meeting and an agenda you're trying to get to some decisions or, you know, brains or whatever.

But when it comes to an event, event is more casual, more fluid. Like there's many small conversations happening and an event. It also serves like a different purpose, whereas like a larger group and it's not necessarily like productivity like maybe it's training, maybe it's a workshop, maybe it's a job fair, like the the event objective is a little bit I want I don't want to say it's less corporate, but not as productivity focused.

Wayne: And so that's an important visual because one of the things that we're running up against, especially as we begin to go back to work in kind of a hybrid environment where you've got people in the office and people not, it's all about creating the culture itself, of creating the corporate culture. And I know, yeah, I like the way one of the ways that your clients are using this and I found this fascinating was onboarding because I know that onboarding new people on a hybrid or remote team is a real challenge. Can you share what some of your clients are doing around that?

Hoyin: Yeah, sure. So we have we have a client and what they do is they create. So our platform is a map. Just imagine that it's like Google map. You're looking at Google Maps and you're represented by the circle and then imagine you zooming in to the Google map so far that you can see the outline of the building and the individual chairs and tables on there and your circle sits on one chair in one little chair.

And when you double click on a different table, your blue circle then moves that table, except that blue circle has your face in it. So it's like a like an avatar. And so what what what enterprises do is that they create custom a custom floor plan. They can change the background to match their branding so that there's like different table sections.

And each section has a person from a different department or different a different a different sort of station where each person will then go to that station, do the things they need to do in that station and then go to the next table and do this. So it becomes this kind of like little assembly line of people or they go through and try to get go through the onboarding process with them.

There's also what people do is they do like a workshop where they will sit at each person's table and walk through the whole process with them one at a time or or go through that or to even invite other people to come in from the rest of the company. And those people will have conversations with them to kind of get them started to get to know that kind of stuff. So it's it's a very, like, natural and organic way of giving new employee ease a more human experience.

Wayne: I'm curious, as you were laying this out and kind of working with this I'm a crusty old cis hat white guy, basically. Yeah, I am. I know what I am. And whenever I look at new technology, even when it's really cool, I always go, yeah, here's something else. You know, here's something else we got to learn. What have you experienced in trying to introduce this to organizations and to our listeners who are trying to introduce new tech or new tools into the organization.

What advice can you give people when they go, you know, can't we just Zoom this or, you know, can't we just do this on Microsoft Teams? How do you encourage them to adopt a new technology?

Hoyin: Yeah, so what we focus on is creating a human experience, and we create these amazing custom pull plans. Most of the time when people see the custom floor plan or these floor plans, they're like, Wow, what is that? It piques interest. It's visual. So there's no one. You have the peak interest, something that looks different. The second is, is that when creating these events, like we we teach like our our customers when they create the events, is that you're creating an interactive experience.

A lot of people, when they think, I'm just creating an event or I'm creating a meeting, it's just like kind of the physical world. What we do and how we differentiate ourselves is that we can teach you how to facilitate and make the event truly interactive that makes people jump off or simply like, "Oh, wow, this is not something I've attended before."

This is different. And all of the feedback in terms of how Remo has been successful to date is that people have a great experience inside Remo. They tell their friends and they come back to us and say, "I had a great experience that I can actually have a proper conversation with someone," and that's when that just starts to spread.

People just say, "Well, I heard about this and I want to join."

Wayne: That's one of the things that fascinates me because what we're discovering, as you know, people try to figure out what this is going to look like in a post-COVID world is a lot of what we call hybrid is just recreating the existing physical offices as best we can. Right, right? The meeting that we've always had, but with webcams and what you're talking about is thinking differently about what these events need to look like.

Right. It's not a glorified conference call, and it's not being in-person. It's this new thing. How is that received? Because you work all over the world. I mean, you're sitting in Hong Kong today and I'm in Las Vegas.

How does that get received across different cultures?

Hoyin: Well, what's interesting is that a lot of our customers are in the United States, but we also have Europe across Japan. What's interesting is, like, each what's funny about all the different cultures is that human interaction is actually really universal. I mean, if you think about it makes sense. Are we all one interaction to some degree, but how they interact and the agenda and that's different.

But the interaction system and also the floor plans are very different, like Japanese, like more cartoony type for plants and they love it. Western audiences like this 3D kind of asymmetric 3D floor plan and they love that. And so the differences isn't so much on like how the core function remote, but it's more of like how they dress it up.

You know what I mean? And those are kind of like where the key to is, is it really highlights the fact that we're not really that different from a cultural standpoint, like they, they do. There are some differences like the we how like the event is run, for example, but they are aiming for the same thing. Like if you're in Japan, you still want engagement from your employees and you're having breakouts and many employees kind of talk to each other, have these one on one networking speed, networking style.

That's something that works for them. And then they they love that. And so I think it's just it's just some slight differences how they know how to run the event.

Wayne: You know, it does get to an interesting question in this I think we had this conversation when you first introduced me to this a couple of years ago, which is it's easy to think about the technology, but there is a part of me that goes you can use, you know, to smoke sticks and smoke signals and communicate or you can have the greatest technology in the world and not communicate it.

All right. So what do you find? Is it really that we need new tools or do we need to be more intentional about how we communicate?

Hoyin: Yeah. So so the way I see it is, is like you can be intentional, but you will also you can be intentional. And also achieve your goal. You could have a tool, but if you're not intentional enough, the tool may not be can only help you so much. But if you were intentional and you had the tool, one plus one is not too one.

Plus one is like three or four like that. The benefits you get stack on actively, way worse things.

Wayne: I completely agree with you. What do you think? This is a chance to plug Remo now? What do you think is? If I'm intentional about events and you said this is not, you know, for one on one meetings, this is team meetings town halls, you can use it for culture building events like onboarding and others. What do you think is the intentionality piece that would really help somebody use this tool effect?

Hoyin: Intentionality is like really being focused on what? How do you encourage each like the right types of interactions. I'll give you a good example. So in Rio, we have this map view, which I kind of explain. We also have this webinar mode is called presentation but it looks like every other webinar mode out there and that was unique about remote is that you can bounce back and forth between this map and this presentation.

When you enter the presentation. This is an example of really great intentionality.

Like, we have this rule which is like the 10/20/10 rule, which is like you spend the first 10 minutes allowing people to network, and then you spend only 20 minutes talking about a topic which is short and sweet. And at the end of the 20 minutes, you then say, "Hey, everyone, I just spoke about this topic. I'm going to give each other you guys 5 minutes to talk about what challenges have you guys had."

And I want you to share that challenge with each person on the table. And then after that will come back up after 5 minutes and each person kind of shares that. Now, this is a very heavy facilitator, you know, style of of running a meeting. Like typically people don't really, really do that. But I see the next level of hybrid work is being able to have the more people learn how to learn and use these facilitation techniques.

So that they can structure and guide and intentionally guide the conversation and then bring that up forward so that it can become a lot more fruitful. And people can have can have that because it's hard to make these real connections virtually. And it's hard to know what to do sometimes. So you have to provide a little bit more guidance.

Wayne: Yeah. That Venn diagram of, you know, intentionality, human need and technology that enables that is really the sweet spot. Hoyin Cheung, thank you so much for being with us. We will make sure that there is a link to a chance for people to check out Remo. We'll put that in the show notes so that folks can do that.

Thank you so much. For helping us rethink about what we're doing with the technology. And it's just good to see you again.

Hoyin: Thank you so much. I really I'm so happy to be on. Thank you for inviting me.

Wayne: So some interesting stuff there, particularly the 10/20/10 formula that he mentioned. We will have links to that in the show notes which are at longdistanceworklife.com. Hope you enjoyed it if you did, please like and subscribe vibe. I know that's weasely podcast language, but it's important for us to help find an audience and we hope that you will join us again next time.

Until then, I'm Wayne Turmel. You can find us at kevineikenberry.com or at remoteleadershipinstitute.com. Have a great, great day. Don't let the weasels get you down. We'll see you next week. 

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Ask Wayne Anything, Leadership, Technology, Working Remotely

When Did Remote Work Start? – Ask Wayne Anything

For our first Ask Wayne Anything episode, Marisa asks Wayne Turmel about when remote work really started, some things companies were forced to learn when going remote in 2020, and ways managers can check-in without micromanaging.

The biggest surprise of the pandemic was bosses found out they could trust people to work without being watched. - Wayne Turmel

Questions of the Week:

When did remote work really start?

What are some things companies learned when forced to work remotely in 2020?

What are some ways managers could check-in with their staff without micromanaging?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Long-Distance Worklife podcast. My name is Wayne Turmel. Joining me is Marisa Eikenberry.

Marisa Eikenberry: Hi.

Wayne: There you go. As we've told you before, the purpose of this podcast is to help get our mitts around the long-distance work life. We're looking at remote work and technology and leadership and surviving the world of work. And while we are going to have interviews with experts and that kind of thing. One of the things that we're really excited about is the ability to answer your questions.

So if you're listening to us and you're excited by what you hear, we will give you a way for you to get your questions to us. In the meantime, though, I have been walking this planet a very long time. My adult life work career literally coincides with email. My first job was rolling out email to our organization.

Marisa: And for that I am so sorry.

Wayne: Yeah. Well, you know, what can I tell you? Whereas Marisa is going, "Yeah, and you rode to work on a dinosaur and you walk to school uphill both ways in your short coat." But it happens to be true. Marisa, on the other hand, being a millennial, a younger millennial, being a digital native and just having an entirely different work-life than mine has some questions.

And I thought what we would do in this episode of the podcast is just throw it open. I kind of have an idea of where she's going today, but not really. So I'm just going to leave it here. So, Marisa, the show is yours, lady.

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Marisa: Sounds great. So I guess one place for us to start. So, you know, right now, remote work is the big topic right now. And I mean, I've worked on a hybrid team for eight years. I know this is not new. And I'm sure, you know, you obviously have a lot more experience. So I guess my question is really, when did remote work really start?

Because, I mean, it feels like it's this new thing, but the concept isn't new at all. Right.

Wayne: Well, it's really not. Long time followers of Remote Leadership Institute have heard me say in the past, and it happens to be true. There's always been remote work, you know, whether it's drums sending messages to the next village or smoke signals or, you know, Genghis Khan ruled half the world and never held a Zoom meeting. So it's always been done.

And some people have done it better than others, you know. Julius Caesar did great out in the field. It's when he came back to the office. It's kind of went sideways. So remote work has always happened. And there's three things I think, that need to happen. The first is that everybody needs to be aligned around the mission and the purpose.

If everybody is doing the same things for the same reasons, you can somehow make this work. I think the second thing is there is accountability built in. There are processes. There are consequences. For doing things right and there are consequences for doing things wrong. Genghis was particularly good at this. You know, H.R. would probably quibble with his methods.

Marisa: I mean, potentially might get called in the office.

Wayne: Not that I haven't been tempted to bury somebody in an anthill up to their neck, I've just never actually done it. And there is nothing on my record to show that I have. So there's alignment, there's accountability, and process. There's got to be a way to do this. And then you maximize whatever technology you have at the moment to make the best of it.

And you know, in Genghi's case, his advantage technologically were horses and years you know, that the collapsible tents that they used allowed them to travel very easily and efficiently. And their ponies, the Mongol ponies, were built for long distance, and they were sturdier than a lot of the horses of the people that they ran into. We are doing better than horses in years.

Marisa: Thank God.

Wayne: Well, and, you know, as much as we complain about Microsoft Teams and Lord knows there's enough to complain about, we complain about Teams and Zoom and all of that stuff. Can you imagine doing what we do now? Ten years ago?

Marisa: For sure. I mean, it would have taken so much more time.

Wayne: You know, and so it's always remote. Work has always been possible. I have my first job, the same one that was rolling out email. I had a hybrid team. I had people in the office, but I had instructors because I was managing instructors all over the Western United States. And then 15-18 years ago. 18 years ago now. Good Lord, never do the math.

My advice to Marisa is never do the math when you're thinking about how long ago something happened, it is just debilitating. But 18 years ago, I started working full time from home. And so you know, when people say, "How long have you been in this field?" I've been writing and teaching about remote work for 18 plus years.

You know, remote work didn't start St. Patrick's Day 2020.

Marisa: Thank God.

Wayne: Well, it's funny. I feel a little bit like the crazy guy with the sandwich board who for years Kevin and I walked around saying "The end is near." And we were just kind of politely ignored. And now we have a new, a new sandwich board that says, "Told you."

Marisa: Right.

Wayne: And with the Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership and Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected Working Anywhere. Our timing was superb, but it wasn't like we weren't already here. So remote work, to answer your question specifically, has always existed. What happened was it took this virus to kind of push us across the Rubicon to where it ain't ever going back to what it was.

Marisa: Absolutely. As you were talking, it occurred to me that I watched my mom do remote work. God, 20 years ago, maybe not quite that long, but I was in middle school. So to your point, I'm not going to do the math.

Wayne: And please feel free to keep reminding me.

Marisa: Always, Wayne, always. It occurred to me that- So my mom used to be an editor for this online magazine. And, you know, her boss, she never met him in person. We never met him. And but she worked from home and she did all this editing, and she communicated with him over Yahoo messenger. And they would, you know, have phone calls and voice calls and all that kind of thing.

And, you know, full disclosure, when, you know, the Internet was becoming a big thing, both of my parents were super in on it. You know, the AOL chat rooms and the ICQ and all this other kind of stuff. It's part of why I got introduced to it so early, because my parents were all ready for it. But it even occurred to me that, you know, yeah, I was introduced to remote work directly, you know, eight years ago but I watched somebody do it 15-20 years ago.

Wayne: I think that is such an important point because it's really easy for people to assume that if you are a certain age, you are old and techno phobic and you know you need your handheld to know where the mouse is. And if you are younger, that you are absolutely comfortable working in a remote environment. And it's not true.

Being a digital native or being a certain age does not mean that you understand the dynamics of working. And that's something that organizations need to get their head around, which they haven't necessarily done a great job of collective like.

Marisa: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm very fortunate in that my job is tech. So for me, yeah, tech is not a big deal, but I know people my age and younger that, you know, they don't know how something works or the Cloud or, you know, whatever. And I've had to explain that. That's okay. That's totally normal. And just this assumption that, well, if you're young, you understand everything.

It's not true. We all were beginners.

Wayne: Well, and the dynamics of the workplace are different. And just because you can text a thousand words a minute and that is, you know, in your thumbs fly around like propellers and that's your preferred method of communication doesn't mean that you know how to use it well or appropriately.

Marisa: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, there's times even now that I'll send a Slack message that, "Oh man, that really should have been an email."

Wayne: Well, and over the course of this podcast, we are going to spend a lot of time talking about exactly those things. But I know you have very specific questions.

Marisa: Yes. So one of the other things that I kind of want to talk about is, you know, okay, so we've already discussed that like 2020 is this big, oh my God. You know, and it obviously taught us a lot about working remotely in hyper teams. And in some cases for many companies and many individuals, we weren't really ready for that lesson.

I know you and I, you know, this idea of, oh, okay, we're all going to work from home, not a big deal. But I guess the question I really have is like, what are some of the things that companies were kind of forced to come to terms with by doing this remote by fire kind of situation?

Wayne: Well, the biggest thing and there are going to be people with C in their job title who are not thrilled that I am sharing this. When the pandemic hit, when the decision was made, you know, to send a third of the workforce. And we have to remember that it's only a third of the workforce.

Marisa: Absolutely.

Wayne: But this notion that they had to go home and work, a lot of senior leaders, particularly senior leaders, but even line managers didn't believe that it was going to work. They put on a good face and whatever and they said, okay, we're going to make this work. And they went, this is going to be a disaster. And it wasn't a bunch of things happened that nobody expected.

No one. And this really makes me angry when I think about how leaders underestimate their people. The first thing that happened is in a lot of organizations, employee engagement scores actually went up.

Marisa: Wow.

Wayne: Now, why is that? Well, what is employee engagement? Employee engagement is the amount of discretionary effort you put in. It's how much you care. It's. Well, what happened? Everybody's in trouble. I want to keep my job. I'm going to have to work extra hard and figure this out. My friends need me. We can get through this. This sense of all of a sudden we were all pulling together to achieve something.

And maybe they cared about the company they worked for. Maybe they didn't, but I guarantee they cared about their coworkers and they cared about their boss. And so people stepped up in ways that senior leaders never expected. And they overcame things that they never expected to do. So that was the biggest thing for a lot of organizations was a if people work from home and I'm not standing over them, you know, they're going to be watching The View all day and.

Marisa: And Facebook.

Wayne: And, you know, they're going to be on the tweet face link blog thing, you know, and it just didn't happen. They wildly underestimated the workforce. I think that's that's the first thing. And the second thing was and there are good and bad things about that. And of course, you know, over upcoming episodes, we're going to be talking about burnout and setting boundaries around our time and all the things that nobody was taught to do before they got thrown in the deep end for sure.

But I think the other thing is this notion that people won't work or won't do good work if the boss isn't standing over them, if they're not in the office where we can see them. And again, wildly underestimating people's desire not to suck at what they do.

Marisa: Absolutely. I mean, you know, some of us, it's we like what we do. We have a passion for what we do. This idea that, like, somebody has to be over us all the time. Like, no offense, if you've got people that you can't trust to work from home, then you shouldn't have hired him anyway.

Wayne: Yes. And you got to remember that there are businesses like call centers, for example, where that's the business model. All we need is somebody is but in the chair. And if they turn out to be good at the job and they stay a while, that's a bonus. Well, if that's your business model, you're going to have a really hard time going forward.

Marisa: That's totally fair. And I've definitely worked a temp job where, you know, I found out the turnover rate was like two years. I don't even want to know how they did everything in the last couple of years.

Wayne: In call centers, the turnover rate is often 100%.

Marisa: Absolutely.

Wayne: So I know there's another question and time is already flying, which should tell our audience, by the way, we love these questions. There are some really good discussions to be had. So get your questions to us. Go ahead, Marisa. One more.

Marisa: Yeah. So I guess, you know, in this whole thought process of, you know, managers being over top and seeing everything and, you know, let's get real, they were checking Facebook in the office too don't act like they don't didn't. But I guess what are some ways that managers who have these remote teams or these hybrid teams can kind of check in with their staff without micromanaging them?

Wayne: Yeah, I think the big difference is the word checking in. And we will go into way more depth in future shows on this. But I think there's a difference between checking in and checking up, checking in implies that it's expected. I'm going to be checking in with you. It's not a big deal. Checking up is getting that call out of the blue.

That says, how's it going? Checking up is, hey, I notice that you're way behind on your numbers. And I wasn't planning to have this conversation you know, the frequency checking in implies that there's been a discussion around how often this is going to happen and if it's expected that, I don't consider it intrusive. You know, yourself, the four scariest words in the English language are it's actually five words is have you got a second?

Marisa: Absolutely. Or can we talk.

Wayne: Oh, dear Lord, can we talk is terrifying. And it's funny because the person making the request, it's a legit request for information. Is this a good time or are you doing something? Have you got a minute to talk? Is a perfectly legitimate question. But when we're doing so and this is one thing about being remote is I can't see you heading my way across the cube farm, right?

So by the time you get to me, I'm not surprised that you're there. What happens is I'm working on whatever I'm working on. All of a sudden, it's "Have you got a second?"

Marisa: Mhm.

Wayne: And now it's Oh, no. What did I do? What's wrong now? I'll never get this work done now because I got to deal with this. And so I think. And we'll have to continue this conversation down the road. But I think that notion of checking in versus checking up when people feel like they are being spied on, when they feel like they are not trusted and respected, that the manager has to make sure we're working, you know, these kind of surprise inspections can actually be fairly demotivating.

And so I think just the language that we use, you know, using check in versus check up is going to make a big, big difference.

Marisa: Absolutely. And for those of you, you know, who are listening, who are not managers and you just want to, you know, give some feedback to your managers, I know something that I did with one of my managers was if you needed to check in with me or it's totally fine. But like, don't just say, hey, can we talk?

It's, hey, can we talk? I have some questions about this website because I know for me personally, my anxiety, you know, I'll shoot through the roof. "Oh, God, I'm getting fired." There's literally no reason for me to think that. But in my mind, that's where it's going.

Wayne: It's like when your spouse says, we have to talk. Nothing good starts with that sentence, even though perfectly innocent conversation start with that sentence. Hey, I want to tell you, you know about this thing. Yeah, but the human brain is wired to avoid pain and stay out of trouble. And so for a lot of remote workers, that's our default position.

This is a great conversation, Marisa. And I think we're going to have a lot more conversation on this topic on our next all question episode. For the time being, they can find the show notes. They can find links to everything that we've talked about, including articles at Kevin Eikenberry Group and Remote Leadership Institute blogs that talk about this very thing.

Thanks. These are great questions. I am really looking forward to hearing more about what's going on in that brain of yours.

Marisa: Absolutely. I've got plenty of questions. Just you wait.

Wayne: And by the way, everybody else, we do want your questions. There will be a way on longdistanceworklife.com on the show notes page to submit your questions for Marisa to ask us. For now, thank you for listening to this episode. If you liked it, you know the drill. You've listened to podcasts before plays like and subscribe and-

Marisa: Tell your friends.

Wayne: And tell your friends help other people. As I used to say in my standup days, if you enjoyed it, tell your friends if you didn't keep your mouth shut, it's our little secret. In the meantime, thank you, everybody. We're going to return you to the wild. Keep the weasels at bay. And we look forward to seeing you, hearing you, listening to you on our next podcast.

Thank you so much.

Marisa: See you next time!

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Working Remotely

Welcome to The Long-Distance Worklife

In this first episode, Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry discuss what The Long-Distance Worklife is all about, what they hope to accomplish in upcoming episodes, and their personal experiences working remotely.

Question of the Week:

What do you find so fascinating about remote work?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Long-Distance Worklife Podcast. For those of you who don't know us at the Kevin Eikenberry Group or the Remote Leadership Institute, my name is Wayne Turmel. I am the coauthor, along with Kevin Eikenberry, of The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership and The Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected While Working Anywhere.

This podcast is designed to help us navigate the long-distance work life. We're going to look at remote work, technology, leadership, and generally surviving this new world of work where we're not all in the same place at the same time. And speaking of not in the same place at the same time, I am joined by my co-host.

Marisa Eikenberry: Hi, I'm Marisa Eikenberry. So I'm the web developer along with a lot of other tech things at the Kevin Eikenberry Group. Wayne and I have been coworkers for six, seven years. I think we just determined. So we've been working together for a long time and I've been thankful that this whole time I've been on a hybrid team.

Wayne: Yeah, and it's interesting because I am a 60-year-old cis white guy who started work long before the remote work thing was a thing.

Marisa, of course, is a digital native and I hate to call anybody a millennial because that's become a dirty word, but it's what she is, darn it. And so she's going to bring a fresh perspective to this old man as we do this. And in this first episode, we thought we would just talk about how we came to be here.

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Wayne: Marisa came to us six years ago, whatever it was, and, you know, and since has been caught up in COVID and everything else. I have been in the game a very long time studying remote work, long before this, as much as 15 or 16 years ago. And I thought today Marisa could ask me a question. Anything she wants to know about how I got here. And what I bring to the party. And I'll do the same for her.

And hopefully at the end of our time together, you will be sufficiently intrigued to continue following our adventures every week. So, Marisa, I am a little nervous about where you're going to take me, but have at it. What do you want to know, lady?

Marisa: All good. Don't be nervous at all. So obviously you've been doing this a lot longer than I have, and you have a lot more experience. So for our audience at home, what's the biggest remote lesson that you've learned while you've been doing all of this?

Wayne: Yeah, it's interesting. I started in the world of presentation skills, you know, stand at the front of the room, whatever.

And then about 15 years ago, I got fascinated by tools like WebEx and now Zoom and it and the way that we communicate. And so that was my initial entry into remote work was through the communication piece. But maybe the biggest aha for me and a lot of people are now having this aha. As we talk about what some post-COVID world look like and what is a hybrid team look like in all of those things is I think I learned very early on that effective remote teamwork whether it's a project team or, or a hybrid, whatever that looks like is not merely trying to recreate the office with webcams. I think that way lies madness.

That's how you wind up with beginning of day to end of day Zoom meetings. I think that's why email is such a nightmare because we're trying to recreate something rather than create something new. And I got this 'aha'- I've told you this story, I'm now sharing it with our listeners. I got this 'aha' maybe 11 or 12 years ago watching my daughter, who is exactly your age, deal with technology in a very different way than our old man.

So what happened was in her junior year, she was a cheerleader and their team was not great, but somehow they had won this competition and got invited to another one the following week. So they only had a few days to come up with an entirely new routine.

And I'm working from home and I have on a Monday afternoon, eight cheerleaders, teenage girls in my house. There is no work getting done. The volume level is the volume level downstairs-

Marisa: Yeah, I've been a teenage girl once. I get it.

Wayne: So I was kind of lurking in a very non creepy dad kind of way. And here's what I saw.

The kids are in the living room and they're not all there because the meeting was called on very short notice, and so there were several that weren't there. But what was happening was one was stealing my Wi-Fi to download music from iTunes. My daughter being Little Miss Bossy Pants was coord-, was choreographing the dance moves, and then the girls would get up and they'd do it together.

One of them would pull out their phone record. It uploaded to YouTube so that the people who weren't at the meeting could see it and- See, I love that. If you're not seeing this on the video, Marisa is nodding like, "Yes, old man, that's how it's done."

Marisa: It makes sense. It's genius.

Wayne: I'm sitting there with my mouth open like they've invented the fire and angered the gods because I know that me and my compatriots would still be sitting there with our calendars trying to coordinate when we were going to all get together and I realized that those who live in who who are digital natives think about technology differently.

And if we're going to change the way we work, if we're going to really create something new out of this hybrid mix, we have to rethink our relationship with technology. We have to rethink what it means to work together, what it means to collaborate and find new ways to do that that aren't simply, let's book a meeting and get on Zoom.

Does that kind of answer your question?

Marisa: Yeah, no, I think it does. And it does actually kind of remind me of some things, you know, while I was growing up and some of the experiences I had too. You were talking earlier about how we're trying almost recreate the office and all that. And it reminded me a little bit of when I was in college.

And so, you know, it wasn't that long ago that I was in college. This is my first major job out of college and the only one I've had. But I did have some online classes. Now for some people, you know, depending on what the class was, they were trying to like recreate the classroom experience and well, you got to be online at this specific time and da-da-da. Like, okay, that's fine.

But some of the best classes for me were the ones that weren't like that at all. They they had all the information, you could read the books, read the text, you know, watch the videos that you needed to do the discussion questions, whatever, but you could do it on your own pace. So, you know, there was one time there was a snow day at like right at the beginning of the semester.

I completed an entire class in a day because they had everything available already. And it was nice not having it try to recreate this classroom experience and you could just go in, learn it at your own pace, do as much or as little as you wanted to at the time. And it wasn't trying to be something that it wasn't.

Wayne: You know, I think that's so important and it's something we try to do to be blameless- shamelessly plug at Remote Leadership Institute and the Kevin Eikenberry Group, is create a new experience for learners because the way that we all learn is so different. Technology enables us to do things, and some of it is really good and some of it is not great, says the grumpy old man.

You know, e-learning, my whole frame around e-learning is I have taken plenty of courses that added value. But back in the day before I got in the training business, I sold cars for a brief, horrible period of my life, and I took the "So you want to be a Chrysler salesperson" training, which was back in the day on laserdisc I mean, I can't even- your eyes are glazing at the technology of laserdisc.

Marisa: I mean, I've heard of laserdisc.

Wayne: It's this giant thing the size of an LP that you put into a player about the size of a Chrysler and you would watch. It was purely video, it was purely one way. And then there was a test that you took by satellite and they would record your answers. And I hold two records at Van Nuys Chrysler, as I think about the effectiveness of this training, one was highest score ever for that dealership on the "So you want to be a Chrysler" salesperson.

Marisa: Congrats.

Wayne: Yeah, thanks. Second record was lease number of cars ever sold at Chrysler because in terms of compliance, academic knowledge, it was great. They transferred the knowledge to my head. What they couldn't do is when it was 110 degrees in the San Fernando Valley and my Celtic Canadian skin was bursting in the parking lot and somebody said, "Well, this is great. I need to go home and ask my wife."

Did I know enough or did I learn enough to overcome that objection? And so my relationship with technology is both being a child of my generation, but also being a little skeptical about a lot of a lot of things. And I think over the next few weeks, we're going to interview some people who are experts in technology.

And, you know, from time to time, we're going to bring in people who do certain types of tools and technology, and we're going to talk about it. And frankly, I am not wholeheartedly enamored. So those are going to be some interesting conversations. I think what I want to ask you, and this will help folks get to know you, but also I think it's very relevant to the audience for this podcast.

You are literally a millennial. I mean, you know, that's your age group. And I would suspect that you kind of expected at least a semi traditional employment path, including things like going to an office and having a job. And the world hasn't quite worked out that way. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're, from employment on, kind of record with remote work has been?

And then I have another question that I want to follow up with.

Marisa: Absolutely. So just to give some, you know, disclosure for some people. So I'm technically a younger millennial. So I was technically alive when, you know, Google came out, but I'm young enough that I don't remember pre-Google, if that helps it all. But you know, before we get to my exact employment, I do want to talk about my interview process for the Kevin Eikenberry Group because being that that company was already hybrid.

So I met with Kevin. I actually had an interview in the office, but all of my subsequent interviews were all either over the phone or over Zoom. And it was so strange to me because I was interviewing with another company at the same time and I was on campus. I didn't have a car. I was, you know, an hour and a half from Indy.

But the other company that I was working with, they could have picked up the phone and called and talked to me. But instead somebody drove all the way to my campus just to interview me in person, which at the time I was flattered, like "Oh my gosh, you want to come all the way just because I'm in between classes and you want to talk to me, that's great."

But I'm realizing now how ineffective that was when all they could have done was open up Zoom. Let's talk face to face. You can still see me, we can still have a conversation and he wouldn't have had to waste the gas.

Wayne: Well, it's interesting because there's a part of me that says that flattering you was an intentional move.

That human beings have certain needs that slightly met certain social needs. And, you know, we the fact that we can do everything electronically raises the question of whether we should. But go ahead. So once you got hired.

Marisa: Yeah, so once I got hired. So being that I was already down in Indy, my experience was I went into the office every day and I expected that.

Well, okay, I didn't go in the office quite every day. Because everybody else was off at a conference. So the office was actually empty that very first day that I came in. So I learned very quickly this whole idea of, yeah, you're probably going to be in the office every day, but if everybody's traveling and they're off somewhere else, you're not going to sit in the office by yourself.

So I was already kind of used to this idea of as long as I have a laptop and an Internet connection, I can do my job. I don't have to be in the office. Even though I was there, for the most part, every day. But what really changed everything was when I got married. So my husband lived, you know, three hours away-

Wayne: Full disclosure, just, you know, in case anybody thinks your last name is a wild coincidence, indeed, you are actually married to Kevin Eikenberry's son, Parker, correct?

Marisa: Correct. So I'm Kevin's daughter-in-law, and yeah, obviously not planned, but my husband and I were dating at the time that I got the job. So you know, full disclosure. But anyway, so he was working 3 hours away from Indy and his job, he can't go remote. He worked at a news station like he had to be on site.

But when we got married, there was no reason for me to quit my job because if I just need a laptop and an Internet connection, it doesn't matter where I am. So I went from going into the office all the time, every day to I'm moving 3 hours away and I'm now remote all the time. And it was definitely an adjustment for sure.

I know that some people have some of the same experiences that I had, you know, when 2020 happened, just this idea that I'm working in my apartment, I'm, you know, living and working in the same place and trying to find those you know, stops, I guess, or the separation between, you know, here's where I'm working and now I am no longer working and now I am home.

I am a wife. I am, you know, being social and all of that kind of stuff. Thankfully, we had an apartment where I actually had a separate office and shut the door every day. And I know that not everybody is quite that lucky. But, you know, I did have to learn some of those lessons before this pandemic happened.

Wayne: Well, that's probably a good place for us to end today's conversation, because your experience is, of course, what so many people have experienced. It's also interesting that you say 2020, the way we say 9/11.

Marisa: Fair.

Wayne: It's become a thing, right? It's become a defining point and it has forever changed the way we work. And so the purpose of this podcast going forward is to try to make sense of that.

If you have enjoyed what you've heard today, and would like to hear more, we are going to have interviews with people who are experts in the space. We are going to take your questions and Marisa's questions. The episodes are going to be alternated. There will be like a little bit of a different style each week. Please, like and subscribe.

We would love you to join us next week for this. Also, if you want the show notes or you want links to anything that we ever talk about, you can find that at longdistanceworklife.com, which is the home page for this podcast. And you can reach either Marisa and I through KevinEikenberry.com or RemoteLeadershipInstitute.com.

Marisa, anything you want to say before we release people into the wild to get on with their workday?

Marisa: If people would love to give us a review, I know that we've only had just this one episode, but that would really help people find this podcast and tell your friends.

Tell them about it. Send them an episode. We'd love to hear your guys's feedback and improve this podcast as we go.

Wayne: So on behalf of Marisa, my name's Wayne Turmel. If you haven't read The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership or Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected Anywhere, may I humbly suggest that's not a bad place to start? Our goal is to help you keep the weasels at bay. Now go. We release you into the wild you know, and hope we can help you survive your long-distance worklife.

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The Long-Distance Worklife Podcast album art
Working Remotely

Long-Distance Worklife Trailer

In the Long-Distance Worklife Wayne Turmel, a remote leadership expert, teams up with Marisa Eikenberry to answer questions about working remotely and help you lead, work, and thrive in remote and hybrid teams.

We'll look at the way we work in remote and hybrid teams. Each week, we bring you provocative discussions about what it takes to work remotely, master technology, develop your leadership skills, and just plain survive the way we’re expected to work today. We’ll bring you new and exciting voices in the world of remote and hybrid work. In addition to conversations with diverse and unique voices, Wayne and Marisa will take your questions, making us the most relevant source for navigating the Long-Distance Worklife.

Additional Resources:

Transcription

Wayne Turmel: The way we work has changed forever. Many of us are working remotely, and even when we go into the office, we might be, probably are, better on hybrid teams where not everyone's working in the same place at the same time. Some of us are even becoming full time digital nomads. These changes, and the flexibility it gives our lives, are great but it brings challenges and the need for new skills and ways of working and thinking.

And that's what the Long-Distance Worklife is all about. I'm Wayne Turmel, coauthor of The Long-Distance Leader and The Long-Distance Teammate. And for almost 20 years I've been studying and teaching about how people communicate and make remote work happen, or don't as the case may be. But this isn't about me. That's why I'm not doing the show alone.

Marisa Eikenberry: I'm Marisa Eikenberry, part of the Kevin Eikenberry Team. As somebody with less experience in the workforce, I have a lot of questions. Some weeks we'll answer my questions and some of yours as well. Our goal is to discuss topics crucial to the long-distance work life.

How do you build relationships?

How will technology shape how we work and live in the future?

What does it mean to be a professional? And what has to change about the way we think about work in general?

Wayne: I'm excited about speaking to Marisa and to new, diverse and interesting voices from around the world about what it means to lead and work in a long-distance workplace. Join us for the Long-Distance Worklife brought to you by The Kevin Eikenberry Group.

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