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However, the Covid-19 crisis has seen this style of working go from niche to normal. Many have said that even when social distancing ends, people won’t go back to the old ways of working. Roughly 62% of employees between 22 and 65 have said they work remotely at least occasionally in the US and the Financial Times Henry Mance recently wrote the traditional office’s obituary.

Among the reasons Mance cited were the ever-increasing extension of the office into the home from the 1990s onwards facilitated by the internet, and Twitter’s announcement earlier this month that its employees can now work from home “forever”.

Even if the final death of the office-based workplace may be premature, being an organisation that can effectively navigate working remotely can bring massive benefits. It has definitely done so for Outlandish.

THE OUTLANDISH APPROACH

Our founding team is international and so are our clients. Remote working gives us the ability of a large agency to work around the clock for a client without the much bigger price tag their overheads require. By not being tied to one physical location we can also source people to work with from all over the world.

Our business model and leadership style allow for a results-oriented working environment for our team, as popularised by the pioneering businessman Riccardo Semler. This is where we agree goals and deadlines for our teammates and then give them as much latitude as possible for how they deliver.

Rather than trying to force people to work the hours of the factory age, our team can work when it best suits them. Whether it’s in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, as long as the work gets done on time and to the standard our clients expect, we’re happy, and so are our team and clients. Everybody wins.

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SIX WAYS TO MAKE REMOTE WORKING WORK

If you’re interested in getting the most out of remote working, you might want to consider these tips that we’ve found useful for our team.

DON’T BE A TOOL – USE THEM

When you’re working apart from each other physically, it’s even more important to stay on the same page. Searching through convoluted email chains or editing the wrong draft of a text can lead to a lot of frustration and wasted energy. Tools like Google Docs and, in particular, the Shared Drive help make sure everyone has access to all of the documents and assets they need, while others like Monday.com help you stay on top of who’s doing what. Slack can make conversations that could be difficult to untangle on an email chain more manageable, searchable and themed for easy reference.

STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE

Though we’ve just praised the merits of tools like Slack, remote work can exacerbate the problem of answering messages distracting from actual work. Limiting and batching responses to messages make up four of Tim Ferriss’s nine top tips on how to stay productive and effective. Encouraging and supporting your team to block out dedicated work time without taking messages can hugely boost their productivity.

FROG-EATING TIME

Creating the above dedicated time helps your team do the most mentally demanding tasks earlier in the day. Research has shown that this is because you begin each day with a fresh store of mental energy which gets run down with each decision you take. This is why it pays to ‘eat the frog’ or do the most difficult thing early in the day, rather than what seems more urgent.

LET’S FACE IT

While text-based communication can be hugely convenient and effective when working apart, research shows that face-to-face is still best for building empathy and rapport.

In-person meetings allow you to pick up non-verbal physical cues from the other speaker that add a whole extra layer of understanding. We think it’s especially advisable when recruiting or onboarding new members to make introductions via these face-to-face meetings. While this is obviously difficult when you are physically distant, video calls are still better at conveying meaning than text or voice only. We like using Google Hangouts for one-on-one meetings and Zoom for larger, collaborative meetings.

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Whether in-person or via Zoom, we find it good to have monthly or quarterly meet-ups for our team. This can go miles to boosting the team’s morale and their effectiveness communicating with each other when they go back to working remotely. In the past, this could be in a bar and is currently an after-work drinks party via Zoom.

One tip for Zoom drinks for larger teams is to facilitate smaller groups of four or five people to help them talk with each other. In a real pub or bar, 20 colleagues would split into smaller groups to talk with each other. Help the conversation and not just the drink flow by facilitating smaller groups in Zoom too.

DIFFERENT HORSES FOR DIFFERENT COURSES

Not everyone likes being involved in brainstorms, but others might if the context is right for them. Deeply understanding each of your teammates’ individual strengths and personalities can hugely help to co-ordinate them as a team.

Tools such as Gallup’s Strengths finder and awareness of where people might sit on the Quiet to Loud spectrum are just some of those that can help you decide what working styles are best for each individual.

REMOTE WORK WORKS FOR ME

Individual preference also plays its part in the capacity for people to remote work effectively. Some people and organisations are more inclined and disposed to do it than others. It’s not the right fit for everyone.

Some people excel by working entirely or partly at home, while others may be better off in the office all the time. Many others will be happy somewhere in between these two positions, with a few days in the office and some out.

Whatever happens after Covid-19 restrictions stop, the mixed model of remote working in line with each individual’s capacity and desire to do it stands to offer great value to teams that can make it work. While this can pose challenges in terms of managing space and people, the rewards in terms of productivity for your organisation could be huge.

IN THE END

In the end, one of the biggest barriers that managers and companies need to overcome regarding working from home is trust. Many fear that if their colleagues are not constantly supervised and micromanaged their team will not perform. However, in his book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’ Daniel Pink provides a plethora of examples about how one of the things that can most boost productivity and effectiveness for companies is giving their employees more autonomy over how they do what they do.

Leaders still need to set boundaries and goals as well as provide the right resources to get the job done, but if you can give your colleagues who work from home greater autonomy in what they do, it can be one of the biggest benefits of this approach. At Outlandish, we’ve definitely found that it works for us.

Alex Holland is an entrepreneur and writer for Outlandish.

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