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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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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.

View Full Transcript

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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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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