THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF REMOTE WORKING
It is the fifth anniversary of Covid lockdown. 10,000 hours of remote office time, Malcolm Gladwell take note. Managing a team during that period has been a painful learning curve for this author manager.
During the first week of lockdown I put one employee on furlough. After a day getting to grips with his workload, I discovered, revelation like, that I could do the job of someone who was effectively sharing my desk in less than one hour per day. That saved the business £25k per annum. So much for him toiling hard, I thought. What is the point of an office if you don’t really know what the fella next to you is doing anyway?
Then I closed the office location, and another £25k pa went onto the bottom line. Things improving fast.
I then set about hiring again. A new remote worker came on board. This one was, and still is, a class act employee – at the height of his profession. But over time it was clear that he was not getting remote satisfaction. He repeatedly denied it. “Depends how you define happiness,” he replied once. Now there was the warning sign of someone in auto-pilot mode. We followed the ups and downs of his life – remotely, of course. His marriage broke up, he started a new relationship, he bought a house in Spain, he became a digital nomad. Nothing worked. As a firm we tried this and that to bring a smile to his face, but finally he went back to a group office in another business. Some like the social side of an office location.
Another one spent a year with us, but we found we were unable to train him. We tried to persuade him through the screen, and he liked the remote work, and loved the pay, but I was unable to get the message across remotely. The same questions repeated like a cheap paste. With screen-play we are robbed of our eyebrows, and the eye roll goes nowhere – it is like talking to a mirror. Comedians without punchlines. 121s are ridiculous when you speak day after day like that, one after the other. It is a drag on business.
Offices are great for silent tells. Desks of scale. Empty space. Chairs placed in the middle of a room without arms. Keep staff standing. Body language to build staff up, or put them down. If you are in the office, you are on stage. Remember it.
Remote working does not suit everyone. I celebrate the fifth anniversary of Covid lockdowns, but it does not suit everyone. So when you are hiring, remember put some questions about remote working into your interview. As in much of business a Scots-motto gets the last say on it, “Gang warily”.