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Guests, Surviving Remote Work, Working Remotely

What are the Long Term Implications of Work From Home with Laurel Farrer

Laurel Farrer, the brains behind Distribute Consulting, joins Wayne to discuss the long-term effects of working from home, the impact this has had on communities all over the country, and even how some of the current tax laws don't support a "work from anywhere" concept. Distribute Consulting is an internationally renowned management consulting form that specializes in workplace mobility. 

Question of the Week:

What are the long-term impacts of working from home?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Long-Distance Worklife, where we take a look at remote work, technology, leadership and generally just surviving the virtual and hybrid workplace. My name is Wayne Turmel. I'm with The Kevin Eikenberry Group and Marisa is not with us today because we have another interview episode and I'm really looking forward to this one. 

Things have changed in the last two years, certainly when it comes to remote work. We've moved across the Rubicon and one of the questions that we get asked most often is what do we do now and what's next?

And the truth of the matter is, nobody knows. There are short term things that we know we have to figure out, like what's the return to office policy? But there are long term effects of both the pandemic and just the kind of critical mass around remote work that we've hit that we can't begin to really understand what the long term effects of this are going to be for a while. But somebody whose job it is to keep an eye on this stuff and who I've known for a very long time and she's a very smart lady, is Laurel Farrer from Distribute Consulting.

Without further ado, here's my conversation with her. I think you'll find it very, very thought provoking.

Everybody, I am really, really lucky today. We are going to have some good conversation with Laurel Farrer. She is the brains behind Distribute Consulting.

She is a well-known entity in the remote work space, particularly in government interactions with planning and thinking about this stuff and I'm going to be completely honest. We started a conversation, started a bunch of conversations, but we started a conversation on LinkedIn that I thought would be worthy of recording.

So we're going to talk about the good news. What's going on with remote work? What is the good news? What's the rosy picture? And you'll be shocked to discover I have some concerns that it's not all rosy as we think.

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Wayne: And this is the best human that I know of to talk to about this. So how are you?

Laurel Farrer: I'm so good. And I don't think anybody is going to be surprised about you having a controversial opinion, right?

Wayne: Maybe not. I'm trying to shake this whole grumpy old man thing, and it's not working really well at the moment, to tell you the truth. So you'll give us a really quick what have you been working on that started this particular LinkedIn post and we'll link to the post in the show notes.

Laurel: Yeah, well, what we're talking about here is the impact of workplace flexibility in virtual jobs, on economic development, specifically on rural economic development. So it doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that many, many, many people are moving out of urban centers or the decentralization of urban centers and then moving to various scenic destinations in order to work. That was a trend of the pandemic. And now that people are out there, they're tending to stay. And so we have seen this as a really exciting trend for the idea of stimulating dying economies in Midwestern United States and in national parks areas.

So this is actually what we were trying to do before the pandemic. We were working very closely with lots of governments and grants and nonprofit organizations to try to do this, and now it's just happening organically. So ultimately, the conversation is about how virtual jobs can positively or negatively impact economic development.

Wayne: So let's start with the kind of why do we want to do this? Give us the short version. What are the benefits? We'll start with the humans and then we'll go to the communities and the broader conversations. I mean, other than you can be somewhere nice.

What are the human needs that are driving this migration?

Laurel: Yeah. I mean, let's actually look at it from the the community side. So traditional economic development is a very expensive investment for a company or I should say a municipality. So first they have to attract companies, so they have to invest in their infrastructure, in their community programs in order to make it a place that a community
would want to offer to employees.

And then the company comes and they build the building and they bring the jobs, and then the people come. So there's billions of dollars that need to go into even preparing for a company to attract higher income tax.

So what this does is it turns the entire economic development cycle around and attracts the individuals first, and then the individuals bring their jobs with them and then eventually the companies come. So what it does is it really lowers that threshold of of investment that is required for a municipality, a city or a state or a county in order to attract new income taxes.

So what they really want to showcase and that's this is the indirect answer to your question, what people are going towards are opportunities like low cost of living, more affordable housing, outdoor recreation, community opportunities to be involved in city councils and Little League and stuff like that.

They're just looking for more involvement in that small town lifestyle.

Wayne: Well, and so there's a couple of things that I want to come back to. There's another reason that you haven't mentioned, which surprises me a little bit, which is the traditional brain drain that in North America at least has been the story of the last hundred years.

You grow up in a small town, you graduate high school, you've got about a three year window where you're either there forever or you go away to school and never come back. And so a lot of particularly rural towns are, as we used to say, the newlywed and the nearly dead.

And families are separated. One of the things that happened during the pandemic. My daughter manages a bar in Chicago and she's saying we can't find people because everybody went home to be with Mom and Dad. And so there are all these positive impacts and the on the family dynamic and in possibly saving small towns.

What do what do these places need in order to other than. You know, just being pretty. I mean, what do these towns need to do in order to have people come back?

Laurel: Yeah, this is really where we need to see the rise of municipal marketing, which is literally marketing your city and showing off what you have that is different than other cities. So exact same concepts and principles as marketing for a company is now moving into the public sector, which is really exciting.

This is, you know, how company firms are, how cities market themselves to like bring the Olympics to their city. Same concept just on a micro scale. So whatever it is that a company has to offer, they should show it off.

Like, do you have great restaurants? Do you have lots of parks? Do you have a great transportation infrastructure? Are you close to the airport? Are you, you know, whatever. Like every single city has something to brag about. And so it's just a matter of showcasing that.

At a minimum, though, they really need to invest in that digital infrastructure. So we obviously remote workers need Internet and they need strong, fast, consistent, reliable Internet. So that's going to be the one thing that holds any city or county back.

And unfortunately, that's a long and expensive process. So luckily, we've got the U.S. government that's involved in and in impacting that and improving that as much as possible. But that's going to be the biggest barrier to success for any small town.

Wayne: And when people are deciding to go somewhere else and for lots of reasons, I moved and this was not my primary motivation, but I moved from Illinois to Nevada and Nevada has no state income tax. I essentially got a raise.

Laurel: Yeah, exactly.

Wayne: And better weather and that. Means that federally we need to look at, what does it take if you, if the company is in one state and somebody else is in another? There's a lot of paperwork.

Laurel: There are so many laws that don't exist yet. Like, essentially, every company right now is operating illegally. So, like, there's a lot of laws about tourism, about, you know, nexus tax structures, about operational liability for employment laws on a local as well as federal level.

Like there are so many laws that will eventually need to be changed and that will change in order to accommodate more mobility. But right now, they don't exist yet. And so it's kind of a wave for the patterns of migration to help influence those laws before they are formed.

Wayne: Yeah, it's definitely I mean, in its worst case scenario, it's going to be Grapes of Wrath. And people are just loading up trucks and and moving somewhere else, which. It's funny you said people need to market their city.

But I think the cities are the ones that are in trouble. And as we are a increasingly urbanized civilization that is going to be an issue. I mean, one of the things just The New York Times today had an article on how the five biggest cities in America have actually lost population.

And if you are one of those people who's able to pack up and move to Idaho or Nevada or wherever. That's probably nothing you care about. If you are the approximately 3 million people in the city of Chicago who support all the people that come in to work every day.

Laurel: Hmm.

Wayne: And I don't see small town Utah sending Utah U-Hauls to the south side of Chicago saying, come live here.

Laurel: Mm hmm.

Wayne: I think there is a fundamental upheaval that is going to happen that isn't as smooth as just, oh, everybody move where they want to go.

Laurel: Yeah. Well, and we've also seen that as well because like Seattle's mayor just had a big article and called to the community for the major employers in the area to bring their employees back because they're dealing with such a problem of homelessness.

And so the city centers, especially in those hyper urbanized areas, are definitely going to shift because their entire economy has been built, built on the concept of centralized work locations. I mean, that was, you know, commercial districts for the past 200 years have been built on this concept.

So, yes, we are definitely going to have some growing pains and some shock factors. But we also have to think about the pros and cons here of, yes, those those hypergrowth areas are going to decline. However, let's look at the entire Rust Belt that we've been trying to rescue for all of these states and cities for the past hundred years, since since the last major industrial revolution. And now we have a solution that is viable and and inexpensive. So this is a big step in the in the direction of wealth distribution and, you know, disparity between all of our different regions in the country.

Wayne: One of the things that. I ponder is if we look at how businesses have developed, how industries have developed, physical proximity has been a factor, whether it's Silicon Valley, whether it's Detroit at the beginning of the last century, whether it's the financial districts in London and New York, the fact that people are in physical proximity, the fact that they mingle socially, the fact that they interbreed, and they also sit in bars hatching plans and doing things. And you get this critical mass of people with knowledge in a certain industry. What are we seeing or do we have any idea?

How you replace that brain synergy thing that happens in physical locations?

Laurel: Yeah. You know, what's interesting about this is the cities that we've worked with and consulted on projects with are actually coming to us to find a solution to prevent that from happening, because these cycles of similar talent attracting itself and just, you know, becoming more and more and more saturated as a talent pool really affected the diversification of industries in that region.

And so suddenly they only have this very specific demographic and it's very problematic for the sustainability of their economy. So they come to us to say we need to bring other industries towards us so that we can have more diversified industries, a wider range of professional demographics in our in our residents and citizens. And so that's what we try to help them do.

Wayne: I get that. And I think that there is still a there is still a value. I mean, I would not want to be a professional violinist 20 years from now when there is no such thing as a city big enough to have a philharmonic orchestra.

What happens to, you know, because people are going to spend their money and their philanthropy in their own community because that's what happens. And so there's a lot of stuff, but and none of which is going to cure the problem.

And if I'm the one who's getting the chance to move. There's a lot of "It's not my problem" involved in that. So let's take a look at kind of going forward.

Laurel: Mm hmm.

Wayne: What if I'm thinking of ditching the city? I'm bailing San Francisco, I'm bailing New York and bailing whatever. How do I go home to Mom and not lose my mind? I'm serious. People that are used to living, I mean people in red states right now, "All these people from California are coming and screwing up our demographic."

Well, guess what? They are going to vote the way they want to vote and there are going to be changes. So what happens? How do if I'm a migrant, if I'm a digital migrant, and that's the term I've been using these days, again, going back to The Grapes of Wrath and the back of grandma's truck.

If I'm a digital migrant, what do I need to do not to lose my darn mind?

Laurel: Yeah, well, I think it's important to say that. I mean, we don't have to go back to our roots. Right. That for me, I also made the same decision about five years ago. Like, hey, we can live anywhere.

And so where do we want to go? Our decisions were based on whether on education for our kids, as well as how do we get as far away from our families as possible. So I think that's what we get to see is like we get to choose whatever is and is not important to us.

So I think what we're going to see more as opposed to like selecting where we want to live based on industry, it's going to be more of a shift on where do we want to live based on culture.

So what we're seeing right now is a big rise in outdoor recreation and artistic communities, right? So we're seeing like Austin and Denver are just exploding because people are like, oh, that's great, I get to be outside and have a great job.

So I think we're going to continue to see a snowballing effect of something like that, that people are going to create these cultural hubs of things that they are all interested in together, like skiing communities and and, you know, beach communities and things that you can't change like the weather.

And then they're going to migrate to those more often and start to build more similarities based on those. That's my projection. I'm not sure about that. But that's that's where I see us headed as people are that it's like the Great Lake relocation and the Great Resignation are marrying each other.

People are going to other employers because of their culture. And I think people are going to go to a different city because of the culture as well.

Wayne: Well, very quickly, because as fully expected, we are out of time. But let's talk about the employers for a minute.

Laurel: Mm hmm.

Wayne: What are some of the structural things inside organizations that they need to think about if they're going to be an employer of choice for these digital nomads?

What are the things they need to think about because we've got time zones and we've got people who aren't really good at guiding their time. And it's really easy to spend all your time glued to your computer and like that.

So what are some of the things the employers need to think about?

Laurel: Yeah, I think asynchronous communication is massive because of the reason that you just said that. We need to make sure that we are able to operate in a way that is not dependent on sharing time and location. So obviously that's a really big first step.

But more on the compliance side, they really need to be aware of the fact that there is not really such thing as work from anywhere. So these companies that are touting like you could be anywhere and, you know, move around as much as you like and that's fine with us.

Like that is going to spin the company into bankruptcy faster than they can blink. Like it is not sustainable, it is not legal and is not scalable. So while that might work for a very small organization of independent contractors only like that's one thing and that's what we hear about in the media.

But for large organizations, over a hundred employees that and that are employees, not independent contractors, it's a much more serious decision. And there needs to be very careful consideration of where they allow their employees to live and whether or not the employer of records in those particular regions are a good match for the company.

Wayne: So much to unpack and well, thank you so much, because there is a lot of things that we need to think about, right? We need to think about our own individual wants and needs as organizations. We need to think about our wants and needs and staying in business and staying out of jail and all of those things.

And there are large scale seismic changes going on that is more than just I get to avoid my commute every day. So these conversations are going to be going on for a very long time, and I am delighted that you are part of this conversation.

Laurel, thank you so much. We will have links to Distribute Consulting and some other stuff in our show notes at longdistanceworklife.com. Thanks for being with us.

Laurel: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Wayne: There you have it. I hope you enjoyed the interview with Laurel Farrer. I hope that you have gotten a lot out of it and you're asking the right questions, which at this stage is all we can do. Show notes and links to some of the things that we've talked about are at longdistanceworklife.com.

If you have questions for me and Marisa, we will be taking those. We love audience questions. And of course, if you are a podcast listener of any time span, you know that we'd really love you to like and subscribe and of course tell other people about this.

My name is Wayne Turmel from The Kevin Eikenberry Group and The Remote Leadership Institute. If you have not read The Long-Distance Leader and The Long-Distance Teammate, we recommend that you do. And, you know, we really hope that we're helping you keep the weasels at bay.

Have a good week. We will talk to you next week on The Long-Distance Worklife.

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Ask Wayne Anything, Technology

When Should You Turn Off Your Webcam? – Ask Wayne Anything

In this month's Ask Wayne Anything episode, Marisa asks questions about the use of Zoom and how it has almost replaced a phone call. They also discuss when webcams should be used on a Zoom call (the answer may surprise you), Zoom fatigue and etiquette around the use of virtual backgrounds.

Question of the Week:

When should you be turning off your webcam during a Zoom Meeting?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Marisa Eikenberry: Hi. Welcome to the Long-Distance Worklife. I'm Marisa Eikenberry. And joining me is Wayne Turmel. Each week we're talking to you about technology, how to work remotely, develop your leadership skills, and also just survive this new remote thing that we've got going on right now. This week, we're doing a Q&A episode where I'm going to ask Wayne questions and he's going to answer them.

If you would like to have your questions answered, make sure to go to longdistanceworklife.com and fill out the form and we'll get your questions answered on a future episode. Okay, Wayne, you ready for some questions?

Wayne Turmel: Yeah, bring it. I kind of know where we're going, but not really. So.

Marisa: Yeah, so I thought today that we could talk about Zoom and, you know, Microsoft Teams, I mean, whatever you want to call it. But these video chat softwares that we've been using a lot, the last couple of years, and I know we've been using them longer than that to Skype and all that kind of thing. So one of the first things that I kind of wanted to talk about was it occurred to me recently that some of the times that we would normally pick up a phone and have a conversation that way about a project or whatever, Zoom has almost kind of replaced that.

And I'm kind of wondering what you think about that. Have you thought about it and what are the implications of that?

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Wayne: Have I thought about it? Let's see...

Marisa:
That may have been a stupid question.

Wayne: What book number is this? Yeah. I spend a lot of time worrying and it's funny because I started thinking about this stuff back you know, in the early 2000s. So this has been obsessing me for a while. Webcams are a beautiful thing. And it's funny because the first umpteen years of my career in this space, I was like, "Use your webcam, use your webcam" because on the surface, it makes perfect sense.

It adds richness to communication. I can see you nodding your head. Right now. Right?

Marisa: Adds body language.

Wayne: Body language. You can tell as you're talking. You can tell that I have something I want to say and that makes it easy to direct traffic and all of that makes perfect sense. It doesn't mean, though, human beings have never invented the technology, they can't suck all the fun and usefulness out of it.

Marisa: Yes.

Wayne: And this is a perfect example we get. It used to be "I didn't want to use webcams because..." and the list was pretty long. "I don't have the bandwidth."

Marisa: That's fair.

Wayne:
So that, you know, I look like I'm in a Japanese monster movie because my mouth and my words are not matching.

00:02:46:10 - 00:02:47:10
Marisa
Right.

00:02:47:10 - 00:02:48:20
Wayne
It made the meeting crash.

00:02:48:21 - 00:02:52:14
Wayne
All of this is true back in the before times.

00:02:52:14 - 00:02:54:11
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:02:54:11 - 00:03:20:21
Wayne
They crashed a lot and it was a pain in the neck and it slowed up bandwidth. So that was a legitimate excuse. As we've talked about and former shows. It wasn't like, Oh, Magic Box will steal my soul. But there were people suspicious of using them because, oh, the manager just really wants to know we're paying attention on meetings, and it's not about the positive results.

00:03:21:00 - 00:03:21:09
Marisa
Right.

00:03:23:15 - 00:03:37:01
Wayne
Generally speaking, the richer the communication, the better. So you would think that I would be saying use your webcams all the time, and that is not the case. There are plenty of reasons not to.

00:03:37:01 - 00:03:38:01
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:03:38:01 - 00:03:44:02
Wayne
One is, if you have to be on Zoom for every thing, you lose mobility.

00:03:45:02 - 00:03:45:10
Marisa
Right.

00:03:45:16 - 00:03:55:01
Wayne
Sometimes you're in the car, sometimes you're going to your next meeting. Sometimes you're in the kitchen making sure the kids are eating. I mean.

00:03:55:12 - 00:03:57:23
Marisa
Are you just walking around your office when you're on a phone call?

00:03:58:08 - 00:04:18:13
Wayne
Exactly. The fact that you can get up and wander around and not worry about the camera is really important. So sometimes the speed of the communication, the fact that it's going to be a two minute call I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. You and I haven't dealt with this because I deal with you at civilized hours most of the time.

00:04:18:17 - 00:04:42:06
Wayne
But because I'm on the West Coast and you're on the East Coast, I had a call with a coworker this morning. It's 6:30 in the morning my time. Yes, I can talk to you. Yes. This is an important conversation. No, I'm not turning on my camera. Nobody needs to see my bedhead and my AC/DC t-shirt. That does nobody any good.

00:04:42:17 - 00:04:44:04
Marisa
To be fair. Sounds like a cool shirt.

00:04:45:11 - 00:04:49:00
Wayne
The fact that I rock it is not the point of the exercise.

00:04:49:01 - 00:04:50:01
Marisa
No pun intended. Right?

00:04:52:12 - 00:05:22:20
Wayne
And I think we overdo webcams or use them inappropriately for a couple of reasons. One is that we are lonely and we don't see other human beings. And remember, in the glorious before times, we received regardless of where you work over 60% of your social interaction for the week will take place through work.

00:05:23:04 - 00:05:23:10
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:05:23:21 - 00:05:43:19
Wayne
Working with coworkers is dealing with people in the office, customers, whatever We are largely cut off a lot of us. We may not actually speak to other human beings when we do. There is a need to make it as rich as possible.

00:05:44:07 - 00:05:44:14
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:05:46:09 - 00:05:55:01
Wayne
Some of that makes perfect sense. You want higher quality communication. Some of it is just, "Oh, dear God. Let me see another human."

00:05:55:17 - 00:06:05:14
Marisa
Especially when we were all in lockdown. I mean, I was like that. The only person I saw every day was my husband. So if somebody was like, "Okay, we're going to get on a Zoom call." Oh, thank God.

00:06:06:07 - 00:06:11:07
Wayne
Well, and even an introvert like me who isn't that fond of other human beings.

00:06:11:07 - 00:06:11:17
Marisa
Amen.

00:06:11:22 - 00:06:14:22
Wayne
Had a need for that.

00:06:14:22 - 00:06:16:10
Marisa
Just to see somebody else.

00:06:16:15 - 00:06:30:22
Wayne
Exactly. And and some of that stems from and we will have this conversation someday. There was a book called A World Without Email. Okay. And the author escapes me. Very smart guy.

00:06:31:09 - 00:06:32:13
Marisa
Wasn't Cal Newport was it?

00:06:32:21 - 00:06:33:22
Wayne
Yeah, it was Cal Newport.

00:06:33:23 - 00:06:34:03
Marisa
Yep.

00:06:34:19 - 00:06:35:18
Wayne
Nice job.

00:06:36:05 - 00:06:37:12
Marisa
I have read some of his stuff just not that one.

00:06:37:13 - 00:07:06:19
Wayne
A bigger book nerd than me. That is hard to find, but I love you. But his thing, I don't agree with everything Cal says. But his point is that there is this hivemind mentality where even when we are not working together, we're desperately trying to recreate that office environment, in that office environment where you can just pop in and talk to people.

00:07:07:00 - 00:07:22:22
Wayne
That office environment where you actually see and engage with human beings in engaging in human ways We have stream of consciousness conversations. We work together, which is why email threads get miles long.

00:07:23:03 - 00:07:23:12
Marisa
Right.

00:07:24:17 - 00:07:31:13
Wayne
If somebody walked up to us in the office and started talking to us, we wouldn't say, Wait a minute, I'm on Do Not Disturb.

00:07:32:10 - 00:07:32:21
Marisa
Fair.

00:07:33:04 - 00:07:45:10
Wayne
Right. We would respond. That's why we feel the need to respond to every email that comes in, because it's the equivalent of somebody stopping by our desk to tell us something and it would be rude to ignore it.

00:07:45:10 - 00:07:47:01
Wayne
Mm hmm.

00:07:47:01 - 00:07:57:07
Wayne
And the same is true of webcams. I think we have two things have happened number one is we have this need to connect things like, oh, thank God, another person.

00:07:57:23 - 00:07:58:09
Marisa
Right.

00:07:58:14 - 00:08:20:17
Wayne
Right. I think that's part of it. But there's also we are trying to recreate the meeting. And of course, in the meeting, we sat around the room and we all saw each other. And we could do that. And that's great. And we're trying to recreate that, forgetting, of course, that in the before times, our biggest complaint was meetings.

00:08:21:02 - 00:08:38:06
Wayne
Right. They sucked they wasted time. Now they get to suck and waste time. And oh, by the way, I'm on them nonstop from morning till night. We used to go home to work because we could get away from all that stuff. And it has followed us well.

00:08:38:06 - 00:08:58:12
Marisa
And that's where the Zoom fatigue that, you know, you've talked about many times before, And something else that just occurred to me while you were talking a difference between meetings in the before times and now is I don't know about you, Wayne, but sometimes when I'm on a webcam in a meeting, I almost feel like I'm on the spot a little bit more because all of us are right there.

00:08:58:23 - 00:08:59:05
Wayne
This leads-

00:08:59:13 - 00:08:59:22
Marisa
We're all up there.

00:09:00:03 - 00:09:18:06
Wayne
This leads to the fatigue part and this is where there are a couple of things. And this is neurological and biological. And it sounds like it's not a big deal. And it actually is. There's a few things. Number one is we are staring at screens.

00:09:18:06 - 00:09:18:11
Marisa
Yes.

00:09:18:11 - 00:09:22:07
Wayne
Blue infrared, blue spectrum light.

00:09:23:17 - 00:09:24:21
Marisa
Yeah. Which we all know is not-

00:09:24:21 - 00:09:50:11
Wayne
It's not good for us. Is not good for us. Right. We should not be staring at screens all that often. And yet here we are. So there's one thing that is physically exhausting. The second thing is, if I'm on camera I'm on camera. I have to watch what I'm doing. Yes. I'm less likely to answer my email or answer a text message or something.

00:09:50:11 - 00:10:08:03
Wayne
And I suppose that's a good thing that we are at least offering the illusion of paying attention. But it's stressful. We have to be constantly on guard, you know, what we're doing is constantly being monitored, whether that is the intention or not.

00:10:08:12 - 00:10:08:22
Marisa
Right.

00:10:10:01 - 00:10:25:12
Wayne
So that's part of it. When you have the gallery view and you see everybody in the meeting, your eyes get strained because you are actually bouncing all over the screen. You aren't just looking at one thing.

00:10:26:16 - 00:10:28:06
Marisa
That was something that I hadn't really thought of.

00:10:28:07 - 00:10:41:17
Wayne
You are constantly monitoring and every time somebody on screen moves, I mean, one of the things that I have said for a long time and has frequently gotten me in trouble is that people are a lot like raccoons.

00:10:42:14 - 00:10:44:13
Marisa
Okay. I'm not sure I've heard you say this yet.

00:10:44:13 - 00:10:49:16
Wayne
Okay. Perhaps I need to explain. We are attracted by color, light and motion.

00:10:50:04 - 00:10:50:13
Marisa
Okay.

00:10:51:11 - 00:11:02:03
Wayne
So when we're supposed to be doing something and something is colorful or moving or changes on the screen, we reconnect with it.

00:11:02:17 - 00:11:03:09
Marisa
That makes sense.

00:11:05:12 - 00:11:08:12
Wayne
The more stuff that is moving on the screen.

00:11:10:01 - 00:11:12:15
Marisa
Yes, the more eyes go. That makes sense.

00:11:13:01 - 00:11:31:16
Wayne
So it is physically draining and people who have taught visual or lead virtual meetings will tell you, I used to be able to stand at the front of the room all day and actually get energized by it. Yeah, this is just exhausting. There's a reason our classes are 2 hours long and not a minute longer.

00:11:32:06 - 00:11:45:19
Marisa
Yeah. It would be a way to not only you've got you know, people can only pay attention for so long before, you know, yada, yada, yada. But yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, if you've got an eight hour day, that's a quarter of your day.

00:11:45:19 - 00:11:46:06
Wayne
It's draining.

00:11:46:06 - 00:11:50:12
Wayne
So so the question then becomes when do we use the webcams or when do we not?

00:11:50:13 - 00:11:51:10
Marisa
Right, right.

00:11:52:02 - 00:12:05:07
Wayne
And look at me anticipate where we're going. I think there are a few things. Number one is when does it add value and when does it not? Right. If this is a quick question.

00:12:05:19 - 00:12:06:05
Marisa
Mm hmm.

00:12:06:23 - 00:12:35:05
Wayne
Hey, I just need a quick answer to this question. You can send a Slack message. You can put something on Teams. Hey, I need an answer right now, and you're not at your desk. That would be a good time to call. Right. Pick up the phone. This is where the grumpy old man in me goes on about how these darn kids... My daughter is 28 years old and perfectly intelligent and I have to keep reminding her that these transmit voice.

00:12:36:17 - 00:12:39:15
Marisa
Yeah. Okay. I will admit there are times I am guilty of that as well.

00:12:40:00 - 00:12:45:18
Wayne
So. Right choosing the right message, right tool for the right message.

00:12:45:20 - 00:12:46:15
Marisa
Absolutely is.

00:12:46:15 - 00:12:57:22
Wayne
Important. Secondly is when does adding a webcam to the conversation add value. I would warrant that the bigger the meeting, the less need there is to have everybody on camera.

00:12:58:16 - 00:13:02:07
Marisa
Really? That's not something I've heard yet.

00:13:02:07 - 00:13:24:15
Wayne
Having a bunch of little pictures at the top of your screen. And by the way, if you've got a big enough meeting, you don't have everybody there anyway. So you don't know what is going on. There is a distraction that frankly you don't need as a presenter. I always switch to speaker view, so that the person who is speaking shows up on mic

00:13:26:02 - 00:13:27:09
Marisa
And not everybody else.

00:13:27:15 - 00:13:42:14
Wayne
So if you if I'm teaching a class and you have a question, your face pops up. Oh, okay, Marisa. And I can interact with you and talk. Having everybody on camera paranoid about where they're looking and can I eat a sandwich and.

00:13:43:05 - 00:13:44:09
Marisa
Can I take notes?

00:13:44:09 - 00:14:12:04
Wayne
And can I take notes without somebody thinking I'm doing something else doesn't really add value. And it's just a distraction. So what I would say is at the beginning of a meeting when everybody is joining and saying hello, you can semi replicate that feeling of walking into the conference room before the meeting starts. And you see people all "Oh Marisa, I forgot to give you this" and "Oh, Bob, I got to talk to you about this after the meeting" and.

00:14:12:07 - 00:14:13:07
Marisa
How was the game last night?

00:14:13:07 - 00:14:41:12
Wayne
How was the game last night? Right. Those things can happen. But once the meeting starts there's no need for everybody to be if it's a town hall meeting. And I'm just going to be listening and oh, by the way, it's 3:00 in the afternoon in Indiana, so it is noon in L.A. and my tummy is grumbling. Nobody needs to watch me eat.

00:14:41:21 - 00:14:42:06
Marisa
Right.

00:14:42:06 - 00:14:43:06
Wayne
But I gotta eat.

00:14:43:15 - 00:15:04:05
Marisa
Right. Absolutely. So real quick, I have a question based on that. So if you're in a quote unquote town hall, kind of meeting and maybe there are multiple presenters, you know, two or three whatever, do you recommend that just that person who is speaking have their webcam on and everybody else shuts off and then basically turn it on when it's your time to speak?

00:15:04:19 - 00:15:10:13
Wayne
I think the goal is to tell everybody to put it to speaker view.

00:15:10:13 - 00:15:13:18
Marisa
Okay. I will have to try that because I am somebody.

00:15:13:18 - 00:15:22:21
Wayne
We forget that there are multiple views and are almost always our default is to gallery because we want to see everybody We don't need to see everybody.

00:15:23:19 - 00:15:24:17
Marisa
Absolutely.

00:15:25:08 - 00:15:44:02
Wayne
Once when we're joining saying hello. Absolutely. It's a social event. Say hi to everybody. You know, do all that. But when the meeting starts or the presentation starts, I switch to speaker view so that I'm not distracted by all that stuff.

00:15:45:11 - 00:15:48:10
Marisa
I will definitely have to try that at our next all team meeting.

00:15:49:08 - 00:15:52:15
Wayne
Yeah. It's a very, very simple thing.

00:15:56:00 - 00:16:21:19
Wayne
And we can get control of this. I mean, I jokingly said earlier that, you know, human beings have invented anything that we haven't completely ruined. And this is true. But also almost everything that we've invented, we have more control over it than we think we do. And I think webcams are a perfect example of something that got invented, got thrust upon us.

00:16:21:23 - 00:16:31:22
Wayne
We were told to use them, and we were never given the criteria to make intelligent, critical decisions about when do we use them, when do we not.

00:16:34:03 - 00:16:57:18
Marisa
Moving on from that. So speaking of times that we don't know the right thing to do and what the etiquette really is, I do want to talk a little bit about virtual background etiquette, so I know that those have become really popular. I believe Zoom launched them right around the time that we all went on lockdown. And so you see a lot of people using them sometimes not successfully.

00:16:58:04 - 00:17:08:19
Marisa
So I guess my question is like, what's okay? What's not okay other than the obvious make your picture appropriate. And when should you avoid using them?

00:17:08:19 - 00:17:13:10
Wayne
There are no hard and fast rules, but it's not so much rules as it is guidelines.

00:17:13:10 - 00:17:13:21
Marisa
Right.

00:17:13:23 - 00:17:43:05
Wayne
And this will be the last. This will be the last thing for this session because Tempus Fugit. But I think the goal is to communicate if what is going on around you diminishes that communication or distracts from that communication. It doesn't work. Now, when we all got sent home, not everybody had a place with a door and a neutral background that they present in front of.

00:17:44:14 - 00:17:49:11
Wayne
You don't want the world to know you're working from the north end of the dining room table,

00:17:49:11 - 00:17:50:07
Marisa
Right.

00:17:50:07 - 00:17:58:02
Wayne
You don't need to see the kids running around behind you and the dog doing whatever the heck the dog is doing. And right.

00:17:58:02 - 00:17:59:19
Wayne
We have all kinds of horror stories.

00:17:59:20 - 00:18:05:05
Wayne
So the notion and you know, we've all got our favorite that showed up on the news, right?

00:18:05:05 - 00:18:06:05
Marisa
Yes.

00:18:06:05 - 00:18:24:22
Wayne
So having a background, I mean, in this case, for those of you who are listening to this, you can't see this. We both have perfectly boring, neutral blank walls behind us that work fine for this. We have the option of choosing something.

00:18:24:23 - 00:18:40:15
Wayne
Now, sometimes if it's a casual kind of thing, I will do it to be silly. There is a background in Microsoft Teams that looks like a like you're inside a cartoon spaceship with robots. I have used that.

00:18:41:05 - 00:18:52:20
Wayne
I have used that in Zoom. There is a photo of the Las Vegas sign that I use as my background fairly frequently. It's a topic of conversation.

00:18:53:04 - 00:18:53:12
Marisa
Right.

00:18:53:22 - 00:19:05:21
Wayne
It is casual. It takes it doesn't look boring. It- a lot of people are amused by the fact I live in Las Vegas and it starts conversations, always starts, "How's the weather," that kind of thing.

00:19:07:01 - 00:19:30:15
Wayne
What I would tell you is your background needs to be appropriate to the communication that's taking place. Yes. And it needs to not be a distraction. So some people put up, you know, they'll put photographs up and you can use any photograph. All forms allow you to just upload photographs, which is where I get some of these things from.

00:19:31:22 - 00:19:55:14
Wayne
But be aware that it works like a green screen. And so if you move your hands or you're holding something or you're trying to demonstrate something, it blurs out and looks weird. So when you are using a background do not use a new background for the first time when the vice president is on the line.

00:19:56:17 - 00:19:57:13
Marisa
Yes.

00:19:58:05 - 00:20:27:08
Wayne
Test your background. Make sure it's appropriate. Make sure that it is not distracting. And make sure that you can do whatever you need to do. Right. If you're holding things up and they disappear because of the way the green screen works. That's going to be a problem. So my attitude about this is exactly about technology, which is you use the least amount to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.

00:20:27:18 - 00:20:30:01
Marisa
Right. It's part of your 80/20 rule. Right?

00:20:30:12 - 00:20:53:16
Wayne
Well, it's just part of me not being all that crazy about technology. And so at the same time, I'm lazy and want to be effective. So I will use the technology to the point where it becomes more work than it's worth. So I think where we're going to leave this around the backgrounds today is it's got to be appropriate.

00:20:55:03 - 00:21:01:01
Wayne
It can't be distracting and it can't diminish your credibility.

00:21:01:11 - 00:21:01:20
Marisa
Yes.

00:21:03:02 - 00:21:05:10
Wayne
And test it before you use it.

00:21:07:04 - 00:21:43:10
Marisa
Sounds great. So that's all for today. I want to thank you everybody who is listening for joining us today. Thank you, Wayne, for answering our questions. If you have any questions you would like us to answer in a future episode, make sure to go to longdistanceworklife.com. That's where you can also see show notes for all of our episodes. Watch videos. If you're listening to this on your podcast app. And you can ask us questions and we will answer them on a future episode. Thank you so much for joining us. Please make sure to like and subscribe. Tell your friends about us, rate and review. You've heard podcasts before. You know how this works. So thank you for being here and we'll see you next time.

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Guests, Leadership, Technology

How to Be Virtual Not Distant with Pilar Orti

Pilar Orti, founder and director of Virtual Not Distant, meets with Wayne to discuss tips for new managers on a remote team, having conversations around how to use tools effectively, thinking about "remote-first", and how silence doesn't necessarily mean things are okay.

Virtual Not Distant works with leaders, managers, and HR professionals to create a "remote-first" environment whether you're planning to stay remote or becoming a hybrid organization.

Question of the Week:

What is one pitfall that managers need to be aware of?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Long-Distance Worklife, the podcast where we talk about remote work, technology, leadership, and generally just navigating and surviving this crazy world of virtual and hybrid work. My name is Wayne Turmel. Marisa will not be joining us today because I have an interview with a very smart person named Pilar Orti. Pilar is the founder and director of Virtual Not Distant.

Most of her work is done in England and the European Union and I think she brings a really interesting perspective to remote work. And so I wanted you to experience that. Of course, you know the drill. Listen up, take good notes. We will, of course, capture and transcribe that in our show notes. And for right now, I want you to enjoy the conversation with Pilar Orti.

I am really excited today to be with Pilar Orti. Our trails have crossed a couple of times over the last couple of years. She does really good work. Her company is VirtualNotDistant.com, of which she is the founder and director. Really quick, Pilar. What do you guys do?

Pilar Orti: Well, mainly we help managers of remote teams through either training or by providing a listening ear sometimes. And we have the 21st Century Work Life Podcast, which aims to support anyone who is interested in leading teams and working online.

Wayne: So obviously she's a direct competitor and must be destroyed, but she does really good work is the point. And I wanted to introduce all of you to her because you cannot have enough smart people in your orbit. Pilar, you've been in this space a long time. Let me ask you this. When a manager is taking on a new position, especially if there's a remote component and they have never done that before.

What kind of is Job One? What is the first thing that they need to do?

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Pilar: I've actually got two answers to that. So I think that there's always two elements for me in leading a team. One is what we do as individuals and how we connect to the team members individually. And the other one is how we look after the team and how we support the team to continue all the time building that team and and supporting them.

So I think that the first thing when we are new, either we might even be in our team and become the team leader or we might come in for a new team is to communicate our availability and how we communicate, how available we are to people because especially we are remote, we sometimes we assume that if we say, "Oh, I'm available all the time," that people are going to look for us when they need us.

And actually there's when you can't see whether someone is busy, working, etc. you more reluctant normally to interrupt them.

Wayne: I think that's a really, really important point, which is one of the things that the people on the team struggle with is I don't want to bug the boss I don't want to bother them. And what that means is the manager is saying, "Hey, I've got an open door policy, come talk to me" and nobody's coming to talk to me.

So I think that's a really interesting point.

Pilar: And the equivalent of having an open door policy as well could be if setting hours, setting open door hours during which you sit behind your computer. If you're if you're at that time and you open a meeting and everyone has the link to that meeting, are you just there? And people can literally drop in? That's one, one thing that you could do.

So communicating availability. And the other thing I think is to be aware of and this takes a bit more time, is to be aware of the team's rhythm of communication and how that fits with the tasks we're doing and the need to connect. So, for example, our experience working remotely might be of being in a team where everyone pretty much gets on with their work because that's the best way of doing it.

And suddenly we might land in a team who are used to being available a lot, sending lots of messages backwards and forwards during the day. So it's this awareness and then making sure that that rhythm fits the task and also the need for connection. So one is something very immediate, and I think looking at the team takes a little bit more time.

Wayne: There's two things that you said there. One is the idea of creating office hours, for lack of a better term.

Pilar: Yeah.

Wayne: Where regardless of where you are in the world, you know that at this time it's okay to bug your manager.

Pilar: Yes.

Wayne: And I think that's a really simple and yet effective tool. The second thing is this idea of the rhythm that the team works. Generally speaking, we are not starting from a blank sheet of paper, right? That the team already exists, the boat is in the water and we need to adjust to it.

What is what are some of the things that managers bump their nose against when they take over an existing team like that?

Pilar: I think it's sometimes it's an assumption that we are using technology in the same way. So it could be that. And if we are a remote team, we're using technology to communicate. So it could be that we use a platform that we've used before, but we're used to using it in a certain way and the team is using it in another one.

And not having that conversation at the beginning of how we're going to use the technology. I think this can be one of the biggest things and one of the biggest differences assuming back to that.

Wayne: We'll come back to that question for those of you listening. The reason Pilar stopped talking is because I got this look on my face and she realized my head was about to explode. Um, I want to talk about that notion of using tools differently because you work with teams and primarily you're on the eastern side of the Atlantic with your clients, with tools like Microsoft Teams, like Slack, with these kinds of tools.

What are you seeing in terms of how well people use them and actually do what the darn things can do.

Pilar: Yeah.

So there's there's lots of things. And I think that we cannot ignore the pandemic, which meant that everyone started using the the tools.

Wayne: Well, and also, yeah, Microsoft threw Teams out in the world two years too early.

Pilar: Yeah.

Wayne: Isn't this a-

Pilar: Good.

Wayne: Win?

Pilar: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That it is also true that when you go for it and very interestingly. So I started using Teams with a client before the pandemic and we rarely met on it on Teams. We used it mainly for asynchronous communication. We used all the other tools. So I think that one of the things that we're seeing is that tools that can be used for asynchronous communication, like Teams are only being used in the video function and they're being used mainly to communicate in real time.

So I think that that is the main thing I'm seeing is that there's not the tools haven't been embraced as a space to give us a bit more breathing space and to be able to communicate in a slower pace. And so that being used to communicate quite rapidly as though we were in the office next to each other.

Wayne: I'm glad you went there because this is actually a question that I've been struggling with and why I'm looking to very smart people who can look at this. A lot of what we're dealing with it seems to me too many meetings, too much email, all of that is because we're trying to recreate the office environment.

Pilar: Yeah.

Wayne: And as especially as we start to think about return to the office, and most of that is going to be some hybrid mix.

Pilar: Hmm.

Wayne: Right. People in the office and people not. And some people in on Tuesdays and not on Wednesdays. What what do we need to think about differently instead of just trying to recreate the office or worse going back to defaulting to the office?

Pilar: Yeah.

Wayne: Right? Where everything, you know, the sun revolves around the Statue of Liberty. And so everything has to be done on New York time regardless.

Pilar: Yeah. Yeah.

Wayne: What does this new as we're thinking about creating something new, what needs to be new and different?

Pilar: I think I'll start with two things. One, which leads from the use of tools that we were just talking about. So we need to have some kind of conversation. And this is very difficult because we need to have some conversation about how are we going to communicate. And this means maybe setting some agreements and we might not be used to this because communication, why do we need to, to, to set so many parameters?

But for example, if you look at how email has been used, some people use it as almost instant message. Some people think it's okay to wait three days to reply to an email. Some people are like, "Why didn't you reply to my email that I sent 2 hours ago?" Because email was introduced without having a conversation around it in most organizations.

And so now everyone uses it differently and sometimes it causes some chaos. So some stress, rather. So I think that first of all, is we need to talk about how we are using these tools and have some agreement, some parameters. Even if it sounds easy and even if it sounds like we are removing all spontaneity from human contact, we need that.

And then the other thing specifically to hybrid work, which involves maybe some people being in the office, others not or people using the office at different times, is that if we think of hybrid as a subset of remote, it means that essentially the office becomes one more tool, one more space where we do the work it becomes one more place where we communicate because we also have the video tools.

We also have asynchronous platforms and if we think about it like that, then we have a chance of creating some kind of cohesive way of working rather than ending up where, well, if you're in the office, you work like this. If you're online, you work like this. Lots of us are in the office all the time, so we work in this way.

A lot of us are remote all the time, so we work in that way. So I think that mindset of hybrid is a subset of remote, because in the end, the space that is common to every knowledge worker is not the office, it's the online space regardless of where you are. So initially that mindset shift and then the practicalities, of course, that are harder.

Also, you know, nothing is easy, but you need that mindset initially rather than thinking, well, we are office based and some people work from home some time.

Wayne: And wow, I'm really glad that you stated that so succinctly that the default is no longer in the office. Right. It used to be in the before time's the blessed before times when most people were in the office and we let some people work from home. And so basically the office is how this works. And now the default is the kind of cyber space as opposed to the office.

And that changes how we meet when we meet and yeah, who works on things and. Yeah. And like that. The second thing you said, by the way, and I don't think there are enough icky conversations, icky being the highly technical term for slightly uncomfortable and weird and I don't know why they're uncomfortable. Over 70% of our workplace communication happens in writing.

People that have been listening to this podcast are already tired of me saying that my business career ties perfectly to the intro from the introduction of email to wherever we are now. So I've watched this thing occur. Well, if there is something that we spend 70% of our time doing and it's already existed when most people are in the workplace, why do we not talk about it?

Like, how can we not give people better training how do we not have the conversations about when do we use what? And no, you know, when you're on your eighth thing in an email thread, pick up the phone.

Pilar: Yes.

And I think it's because it's assumed that, of course, everyone knows how to do it. This is one of the resistances I used to get and maybe but everyone has preferences and everyone has a legacy from another time and everyone and everyone thinks that something is the common sense to do. I think maybe that said is that it is common sense, but our way of saying common sense is different.

So we need to agree, agree on that. And especially as you were mentioning earlier, especially if there are different cultures than our points of reference, we're working across the globe. Our points of reference are going to be different as well because we've grown up in different contexts we've worked in different contexts. So we can't really assume that we all think that common sense means the same thing.

Wayne: Wow. That is absolutely true. So, okay, we are almost at the end of our time because I knew that this would happen and- One pitfall that managers should be wary of. Just what if you could give one warning if you could yell out, stop to the managers out there, what is one thing that you think they need to be aware of today's warning.

Pilar: I would say that don't assume that silence means everything's okay.

So I'll leave it at that and everyone can. Can I leave it at that?

Wayne: No, it's absolutely true. I mean, there are a couple of things associated with that. One is we tend to, as managers, default to spending most of our time on our problem children. And so we assume that if we don't hear anything, no news is good news. And that creates some interesting dynamics changes. But the other thing and it goes back to setting those office hours or making yourself available as people are not as willing to be proactive about reaching out as they could or should be.

Pilar: Yeah. And in the end, all you all some people need is how is everything going? That's all they need. And then they'll open up. But actually, they might not think that the time is ever right to bring anything up if they don't ask. So I think that's especially when you're working at a distance with different kinds of people.

I think that the interpretation of silence you've got to be very careful with.

Wayne: And the way you ask that question, how's everything going is very different question than is everything okay?

Pilar: Oh, yeah. Yes. Because is everywhere. Is everything okay? It's really easy to answer regardless. It's very difficult well, it's very difficult sometimes to say no. You know, it is there with you. No, it isn't. Yeah. Yeah.

Wayne: Excellent. Thank you so much, Pilar Orti who is the founder and director of Virtual Not Distant. So good to talk to you again. Lovely to talk to you. And thank you for being on the Long-Distance Worklife.

Pilar: Thank you very much.

Wayne: Thank you so much for joining us on the Long-Distance Worklife today. I trust that you enjoyed that conversation. You will find links to Virtual Not Distant and Pilar's work on our show notes. Those, of course, are on longdistanceworklife.com. Join us next week when I will be joined by Marisa. We will be doing one of our Q&A issues.

We really, really want your questions and your comments to guide where our conversations go. So please visit longdistanceworklife.com. Drop us a comment. You know, if you listen to podcasts that it's really important that you like and subscribe so other people can find us. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope that we are helping keep the weasels at bay and we will see you next episode.

Thanks so much. 

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Ask Wayne Anything, Surviving Remote Work, Technology

Monitoring Software for Remote Employees

This week, Wayne and Marisa continue their previous conversation about micromanaging by discussing employee monitoring software. What it is, why some companies may be using it, how it can impede trust, and how many are getting around it. 

Question of the Week:

Should we be using monitoring software on the devices of remote team members?

Additional Resources:

Transcript

Wayne Turmel: Hello, everybody. Greetings. Welcome to the Long-Distance Worklife Podcast. My name is Wayne Turmel from The Kevin Eikenberry Group and the Remote Leadership Institute. With me is Marisa Eikenberry.

Marisa Eikenberry: Welcome back, everybody.

Wayne: And we are going today to do what we promised. I mean, the thing about this show is we are talking about remote work, technology, leadership and generally surviving the whole long-distance virtual hybrid workplace. And Marisa, we started talking about something in our last you and me episode.

Marisa: Yes.

Wayne: That I think we're going to continue. So you want to tell them kind of where we are and what we're going to do?

Marisa: Sure. So on our last episode, our last Q&A episode, we talked about micromanaging and especially on remote teams and how we can try to avoid that. And you gave us some tips to kind of help, but we did determine that there was still a lot more to that conversation. Things about like monitoring software, for example, and how that's used and what we think about it that I thought would really be helpful in this episode.

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Wayne: Yeah, it's interesting about this topic because if you've read The Long-Distance Leader and if you haven't, what the heck is wrong with you? But if you've read The Long-Distance Leader, you know that the leadership model basically presumes that leading a remote or a hybrid team is primarily like leading any team, right? Micromanaging is probably not great regardless of whether you're in the same location or not.

But this is where leadership and technology and the realities of remote work and everything. This is where the rubber meets the road is this kind of thing. And this is what freaked people out the most, I think, about the sudden transition to remote work is if you were a micromanager, it is impossible to micromanage by distance. You cannot do it.

Marisa: But they're going to try.

Wayne: Well, you can make yourself and everybody else crazy in the process.

So where does that come from? Right. Is that a leadership problem? Is that a technology problem? Is it? Yes. The answer is yes. To all of those. So where where should we pick up in our last discussion? Where do you want to start?

Marisa: I think one of the questions that we really wanted to get to in this conversation we didn't have time for was about monitoring software on people's computers. You know, I know that I've heard about people all the time. Saying that, "Oh, yeah, I've got this monitoring software. It makes sure that I'm still online." And and with that, I actually saw a TikTok a few weeks ago where somebody had this software installed on their computer.

They had to get up and go do something, whatever it was. So they put peanut butter on their mouse, set it on the floor, and their dog licked the mouse so that way they would still look like they were there. Like, people are finding really creative ways around this monitoring software. But I think the bigger question is, should it be installed at all?

Wayne: Yeah, I think that's a reasonable question. And while the idea first of all, there are three things in what you said there that you know, make my head want to explode. Number one is "I saw a TikTok."

Marisa: I mean...

Wayne: Which is usually a source, a media source that I wouldn't think of. And I don't in my old head, I do not apply great credibility to. But apparently there's stuff going on that I-

Marisa: Believe it or not there's a lot of stuff to learn on there. And more than people think, it's not just dance videos, but that's a different conversation.

Wayne: And number two, I think, is this notion that you can put in all of the stopgaps, monitoring spyware or whatever that you want, and it's going to encourage people to find workarounds.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: Like, if you start with the premise that we must monitor this, people are going to find ways to get around it.

Marisa: Right.

Wayne: And what does it say as an employer or a manager, that that's important enough that you feel like you need to do it now. In defense of organizations there are legitimate reasons if you are being paid by the hour, if you are a contractor, a lot of places with collective bargaining agreements, unions, situations where both sides need to trust but verify that people are that people are working, that you are, in fact, taking X number of calls a day if you're in a call center.

And that's the expectation. Unless we're tracking how many calls you make, how do we know how many calls you make? Right.

Marisa: Right.

Wayne: So there is some legitimate reason for monitoring activity but I'm always intrigued by how that gets position. I remember I was talking to a pretty well-known organization, pre-COVID, and I was like, Use your webcams, why won't you?

And they were like, no, no, no. They only want us to use webcams to make sure that we're working.

Marisa: I've heard that, too. It blows my mind.

Wayne: If that is your default. Oh, the we don't want to use webcams because it makes work more fun to actually see the people we're talking to. And and it's richer communication, and we know we don't want to use them for that reason. We want to use them to make sure those weasely hourly people are doing what they're supposed to do.

Your organization has way bigger problems.

Marisa: Right? Well, and I'm sure from an employee's perspective, to the trust issue, yeah, you already don't trust me. So what can I do now to fulfill that thought process, I guess.

Wayne: Yeah. And that lack of trust is the default position.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: Like, it's not. We want to help you work. We want to have you. We want to make sure you're working the assumption being that you won't if we don't.

Marisa: Right. Which is so silly, because we know I mean, yes, there are exceptions to the rule for sure. There are people that if you don't monitor at all, they are going to be watching Netflix or something and not doing anything at their job. That is true. But I feel like for the majority of people, they know that they have to get their stuff done so that they can get paid.

So they would do it without monitoring software anyway.

Wayne: Yeah, I think a lot of it boils down to how things are positioned.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: Right. If you are in a collective bargaining situation, if you are in a place where the job expectation is that you are engaging in this level of activity and let's be fair, there are jobs that do that. If you are an I.T. support person. Right. Right. You need to be there. You need to solve tickets. You need to do what you need to do, because that's literally the job if I'm a coder.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: As long as code is getting written and getting to QA in time, whether I do that at 10:00 at night or two in the morning or I do it from Starbucks is kind of irrelevant, right?

Marisa: As long as a job is getting done.

Wayne: As long as the job is getting done. So in one situation, having an activity documenting type of system, we'll call it that rather than monitoring. Okay. Makes logical sense.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: But I think the way that it's position when you start from a position of we are going to monitor you.

Marisa: Right. Or even just we're installing this software even if they're not. Because this is this is something that I think about too and I feel like I've heard people say this before. Yes. There's monitoring software on your computer. Well, we're not actively looking at it, but does that really matter? The fact is it's still there. And we're talking like for your basic normal office worker that, you know, some of those metrics that you're talking about, they don't matter as much. They're just monitoring are you on your computer at all?

Wayne: Yeah, and it's the equivalent of you get a good performance review because at 8:59, you're at your desk and you don't leave until 5:01. And therefore, you're a good employee.

Marisa: Which is ridiculous.

Wayne: Which is ridiculous. But if you're always 5 minutes late and you sometimes skip out early to catch the train or pick up your kid from daycare, you're obviously not as good an employee as that person that sits there. And it goes back to something Kevin has been writing about in Remarkable Leadership for a billion and a half years, which is are we measuring activity or are we managing productivity?

Marisa: Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I actually think I have a Post-it on my desk at work that somebody else in the company wrote before I even got there. But it says something along the lines of activity does not determine productivity. You know, I can be super active on something, but my project may not move 1% forward.

Wayne: Yeah. Now, this is a bigger problem when you have hourly employees. This is an absolute fact.

Marisa: Absolutely.

Wayne: Where there are unions involved in collective bargaining agreements and things where it the whole mood is about compliance and verification rather than just getting on with the work.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: And all of these things boil down to something that you said, which is around trust.

Marisa: Right.

Wayne: So you want to you want to kind of go there?

Marisa: Yeah. I mean, we can so I mean, I guess if from my perspective, so I've never been a manager. I mean, I've led projects and stuff, but I've never been a manager. And so to me, the idea of being told, hey, we're going to add we're going to have the software on your computer to be able to monitor you. I mean, like I said earlier, it instantly tells me you don't trust me.

They may not really be saying that they you know, it's something that's being pushed across the board. Everybody's got it. It's not something directly isolating to me or picking me out of a lineup or whatever. But that's that's how I'm going to feel about it. And so how does that now change how productive I am? How does that change my attitude about the work that I'm doing?

Because, again, in my head, I'm always going to be thinking, well, they don't trust me to do this, or am I now going to try to burn myself out on stuff because I want to make sure that they know I'm doing my job. And that's not healthy either.

Wayne: And all those things are true. I think, again, maybe it's the writer in me. I keep coming back to the words that we use.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: And I think this really matters keep track of sounds different than monitor in my mind. Right.

And it's the same thing when you become involved in a work situation where it's all about compliance and meeting minimum standards. And that is the definition of success.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: What you get is compliance and meeting minimum standards, and you get a lot of grudging compliance. Right. You get a lot of I will do exactly what you have asked me to do and no more.

Marisa: Yeah. There's no rock star teams over here.

Wayne: No, absolutely. And so, you know, when we're setting expectations. Yes. You have to set minimums, right? There's a floor. If you are not achieving this level, you ain't getting the job done.

Marisa: Yeah. Goals are still important.

Wayne: Goals are very important.

And what makes people what drives people to me, goals and this is an entirely different conversation because I know we were getting to trust but this is part of it, right? If I am putting in discretionary effort, do I believe that that will be recognized? Do I believe that I will be rewarded for that work, whether that's financially or just with recognition or opportunities.

Marisa: Yeah, kudos or whatever.

Wayne: Promotion, whatever that is you know, what too often leaders do is when there are those minimum standards in place and there are metrics that absolutely tell you where those are. What very often happens in this happens regardless of where people are working, is managers spend all their time on their problem children getting people to meet that minimum standard.

Marisa: Yes. Yes, I, I actually think I just read you talking about that in a blog post recently. I have to find it and put in the show notes. But yeah, it's just you're focusing so much on your problem children do you even notice you're quote unquote rock stars?

Wayne: And it's funny because for a lot of managers, we think, oh, they're doing a great job. They don't need us in their face. They don't need the attention. Just keep doing you know, you keep doing you, and it's all good. But those people want coaching. They want recognition. They want some of the managers mindshare.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: Yeah.

Marisa: Yeah. They want to know what they can do better to increase their productivity, increase whatever.

Wayne: Or just that their work is appreciated and it doesn't go unnoticed.

Marisa: Absolutely.

Wayne: And so when you are in a remote situation, you have to be mindful about how much time are you spending with each member of your team because you're not going to have those walking through the cube farm and your star performer is beating their head on their monitor.

Marisa: Right.

Wayne: Right. Because if you just look at the they know they're making the right number of calls. They're handling the right number of tickets. They're doing just fine.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: But they're not doing just fine.

Marisa: Yeah. You have no idea.

Wayne: If you manage by the- and this is unfortunately where I think we have to wrap up today. If you manage through these metrics and that is your only thing is what the machine tells you is happening you are not picking up on the human things that may be going on. You don't know that Marisa is experiencing problems until her numbers fall.

Marisa: Mm hmm.

Wayne: And then it's too late.

Marisa: Right? Yeah. There was an opportunity to check in way ahead of time, and you missed it.

Wayne: And by the time things get bad enough that they show up in the monitoring software, it may be a reparable.

Marisa: Right? Absolutely. And as we talked about earlier, too, sometimes what that monitoring software is, is tracking what you think you see may not be accurate. People are, you know, having their dog lick their mouse to show that they're active. They're opening up an email and having a book sit on their spacebar. So that way it looks like they're writing an email for 15 minutes.

People are doing this.

Wayne: I am a little concerned that you have a master list of all the things you can do to beat these things, because none of this would have occurred to this old man. But we are not going to go there because our time is up. Perhaps another discussion for another day.

Marisa: Yes, indeed.

Wayne: Marisa, thank you so much. This is a great topic and I'm really glad and thank you for your insight. We will be back in a couple of episodes with more of our Q&A sessions. So please, if you enjoy the podcast, first of all, you can find the show notes at longdistanceworklife.com. Along with that, you will find a place on the home page to submit your questions.

We want your questions. What do you want to know? What do you want to hear us talk about? Of course, this being a podcast and you being experienced podcast listeners, you know that we also would love you to like subscribe. These are early days for the Long-Distance Worklife Podcast. And once again, the whole purpose here is remote work, technology, leadership, and just surviving this world of work.

So, Marisa, thank you so much as always.

Marisa: Thank you so much, Wayne, for answering our questions today.

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