Remote work is all fun and games until your manager casually pings you about that report you totes forgot about.
Everyone’s intrigued by remote work and many who haven’t tried it believe it’s the answer to their work/life balance issues. When managed well, remote work indeed empowers employees to have better control over how and where they choose to work. However, the reality is that remote work can turn out to be a royal mistake when your motivation and productivity wanes.
After working remotely for almost 4 years and having hired and managed remote workers during this time, I’ve learnt that being location-independent isn’t for everyone. There are some people who cope better than others and absolutely thrive as a remote worker. Working alongside these people, I’ve managed to pick up some tips to up my game and be a better worker. Here’s hoping they help you on your remote journey as well.
1. Increase your visibility
For the career-minded, one of the biggest fears when transitioning to remote work is that their contributions will be overlooked.
It’s easy to be seen and heard by your team when you’re working in the same space. But remote work can feel ‘out of sight, out of mind’ at times when everyone’s got their heads down powering through their own tasks. Not working in a shared physical space often means your achievements aren’t noticed unless you bring them up. When organisational visibility can lead to career progression, this can a real problem for many remote workers who seek developmental opportunities.
Some of the most successful remote workers I’ve worked with understand that it’s their responsibility to maintain visibility.
Remote workers who do well know that self-promotion and self-disclosure goes a long way in raising their personal branding.
They’re exceptionally good at spotting and even engineering subtle opportunities to raise their presence. Examples of this is offering thoughtful suggestions in team meetings and expanding their network by volunteering for special projects. Many are continuously learning and refining their skills so that they can become subject matter experts their managers can rely on.
These individuals also proactively manage their relationships with their colleagues by setting aside social time to build rapport. They’re reliable and make themselves available for both work and life events, and are willing to spotlight a colleague’s achievements as if they were their own. This helps establish them as team players and someone within the business who others can trust.
Tips for how you can increase your visibility:
– set up regular virtual lunch dates with your colleagues and get to know them on a personal level
– share your biggest weekly achievement on a video call and highlight a colleague’s win as well
– put your hand up for a special task or project to grow your network and skill set
– schedule regular one-on-one conversations with your manager to reinforce your career goals and discuss ways they can help you achieve them
2. Over-communicate everything
You don’t appreciate the importance of verbal tone and facial expressions until you work remotely and almost all your interactions happens via text.
In a perfect world, remote communication would mirror what happens in a face-to-face setting with frequent video calls on Skype or Zoom. In practice, it’s likely you’ll be collaborating with colleagues spread across different time zones and frequent video calls just aren’t feasible. With the instantaneous nature of text-based communication like Slack, it may be that there is a preference for communication to be done through short messages with a good dose of emojis and gifs.
In this type of environment, where there’s room for misinterpretation and other misunderstandings, it’s paramount that communication is clear and concise.
One of the best tips I got when I first started remote working was to over-communciate to ensure that nothing gets lost in translation. This isn’t encouragement to go crazy and write a 3 page essay on Slack. What it does mean is being more intentional in the way you communicate and ensuring that any colleague who comes across your message has enough context to understand what you mean.
Tips for how to communicate effectively:
– summarise and reinforce important information on various communication channels to ensure everyone is on the same page
– when sharing detailed information, email or Slack a 3-dot-point summary with a hyperlink to a slide deck with more information
– always look out for breakdowns in communication and immediately schedule a voice or video call to clarify information
– actively listen to your colleagues and be aware how they prefer to receive information
3. Nothing beats being highly organised
If you’re working from home, there’s a real temptation to leave everything to the last minute and “hope” that motivation will find you soon enough. For some colleagues I’ve worked with, this has ultimately meant missed deadlines which has increased the workload of other team members.
Despite your best intentions, productivity can suffer when you’re not on top of your work.
Tips on how to get organised:
– set up a work routine that best suits their energy levels throughout the day. No one is motivated 24/7 and so being aware of when you’re the most focused and most distracted is helpful when figuring out when you should do certain tasks
– block off time for intensive work during periods you’re most alert and pencil in breaks for admin and socialising when you might starts to wander
– master your organisation’s chosen productivity and project management tools (eg. Trello, Asana or Monday) as they will help you map out your tasks, keep track of progress and share files with the team
– stay on top of these tools as they’ll keep you accountable and visually show your team how your tasks are moving along
– more importantly, status updates on these tools serve as documentation for contributions you’re making to the business
Remote work is actually hard work
Being highly visible, a good communication and organised at work are not new concepts. Regardless of how or where you work, these three tips are transferrable to any role you find yourself in. However, the realities of remote work requires you to be hyper vigilant about doing all three. If you’re able to master these tips and be highly intentional in the way you manage your remote career, being a location-independent employee just might be one of the most rewarding life experiences you’ll have.