E064: Remote Working

Hello. This is James and this is Jane, and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. We've got a bit of a special one today. It's the 13th of March 2020, and we're going to be doing something a little bit different. Jane, what are we speaking about this time? Well,

I think it would be hard to be working in the UK, US or Western Europe, and not be aware and Asia, and not be aware of what's going on with the pandemic around Coronavirus. And we were planning on doing an episode around remote working in the autumn, but we thought we might do it today. We thought that might be helpful, because I personally know quite a lot of people who are remote working, possibly for the first time in their lives. And we thought it might be useful to round up some of the practical thinking and advice that we have come across in our careers and share that with people

cool. That sounds good. And obviously we both work remotely a fair amount ourselves, so I think we can share some of that personal experience as well before we get into that and do the core of this episode. Usual, shout out. You can get in touch with us at Twitter, at the WoW podcast. You can email us Hello at World of work.io you can check out our website, www dot World of work.io you can see the various things that we've got on there. So our coaching services, some of the org development work we do, all that kind of stuff's on there. So just need to shut that out. And we do love to hear from you. So if you've got anything you want to say, if you want to engage on anything, please do get in touch. It's always a pleasure. And I guess it's just worth saying, because, you know, this is just Jane and I doing this one. We're going to do our usual structure. So we're going to do some definitions, some research list for the week, some stories and reflections, and we're going to aim to be about how long, how long you think we're going to be this time? Jane, all right, we're going to be about 30 minutes. About 30 minutes. All right, well, the chips are down. Let's see what we can do. Jane, do Jane, do you want to run through a couple of definitions? I know it's a bit funny with such a sort of simple topic, but have you got anything you want to share?

Well, we just thought we'd go through four of the most common terms really simply. So start off with remote, and it's far away in distance from

the Cambridge dictionary, and just I, yeah, just hold with listeners, hold far away in your head, because even if you're around the corner, when you're working remotely, it can feel far away. Second is flexible, so able to bend or be bent easily without breaking. So a lot of people refer to remote workers as flexible workers, because they have options potentially. So we thought that was useful. But I think that definition, I don't know, there's something really interesting about the idea that somehow, if you're working flexibly, you should be more malleable than other people in the team. The third one is agile, so able to move quickly and easily. Agile working, not to be confused with the methodology quite often, is how it is described as an alternative, flexible when people work remotely or have the option of working remotely. And then we've got a Cambridge dictionary for remote working, which is a situation in which an employee works mainly from home and communicates with a company by email and telephone, which is seriously dated.

It's well, dated, isn't it?

I couldn't believe it when I read it. I was like, Guys, that probably needs to be updated. I know you got to catch up. It's like telecommuting or something like that. Well, do

you know, interestingly, so Teleworking is still the phrase that is often used in the public sector. Oh, is that right? Wow, that's where they did teleworking. Yeah, working by telephone.

How interesting? Well, good stuff. Well, that's our that's our definitions. Cool. So let's get into some of that research. Then we've talked about some definitions. Research has got four bits, but we're going to focus on today. We're going to we're going to touch briefly on why remote working matters. We're going to touch briefly on what people who are already working kind of full time as remote workers think about remote working and some research around that. Then we're going to go on and share some tips for managing yourself as an individual, as a remote worker, to make sure that you look after yourself and you get the best out of that experience. And then we're going to share some tips focused on how teams can be more effective as remote working teams. And in that comes in some, I guess, information for leaders who are trying to lead remote teams as well. So those are four things we're going to cover. I'm going to kick us off with, why does it matter? You know? Why? Why is remote working an important issue? And I guess, for a couple things, you know, we were spurred, as Jen said, to do this episode now because of the external shock of a Coronavirus and what it means to work so it feels topical, but also more broadly, remote working has been increasing over the past decades, as technology has gotten better. As for cost of footprints in offices have gotten more expensive, as for demands that people have. Of of their relationship with work change, and as more people want flexibility and remoteness and so for all these reasons, remote working has become more prominent in the workplace over the past a few decades, and we expect it'll probably continue to be so in terms of growth over coming years as well. And just two more bits on this to bear in mind. One is that actually, quite often remote working, or remote meetings and things like that can actually support, from an environmental perspective, some of the changes we're trying to make. So it releases travel, it releases commuting, all those types of things. So there can be environmental benefits due to remote working. And you know, for some people, more importantly, there are also associated cost benefits with shifting to more remote working models as well. So that's just a little bit of a framework around why remote working matters, why it's something that's worth speaking about. Jane, would you like to say a little bit about the current state of remote working? Sure,

I will do my very best. So this is taken from mostly from a 20 this report this year by a company called Buffer, who support software services. And therefore, I would imagine remote workers are a large part of their audience. And they did a state of remote working report, and it was, I believe, a big survey like over 3000 respondents, and they wanted to get their views and opinions. So I think some of these are really interesting and some are really unsurprising. Right To me, the first one, and the biggest number they've got, is 98% would like to work remotely, at least part of the time for the rest of their career. And I don't think that's massively surprising. I think we would all like to work remotely, at least part in the sense that it would give us the flexibility to manage our lives more effectively.

Yeah, and this is people who are already working remotely, right? So a lot of them are kind of used to it already, and it's just, you know, people are doing it. Want to carry on well. And I think, I think

it's really important that it's really important that it's only part of their time. It could be a tiny part of their time that they still want to continue to 98% sorry, 97% would recommend remote working to others, which I am fascinated by. I'm really surprised it's that high, but yeah, so nearly all of them would recommend it to others, but only 32% say the biggest benefit is the flexible schedule, whilst 26% say it's working from anywhere, and whopping 21% say it's not having a commute. And the reason I say whopping, even though it's the smallest number, is because that is one in like, one in five people who are not commuting are saying the benefit is not commuting. So imagine how we'd all feel about commuting for those of us who do have to do it. So I just think it's really interesting that even though they're not commuting, they still see that as a massive benefit that they don't have do that. And I'm guessing that would be people who used to commute rather than and therefore it was a burden to them. In terms of biggest struggles, 20% say the biggest struggle is communication. And again, I'm really surprised that's low. But then 20% say loneliness, and 18% say not being able to switch off. And I think that's an interesting one, because I think that's a problem for people who work both remote working and who don't work remotely. And I'd be interested to know what the difference is, and I suspect there's, there's some elements about physical distance and about having commute as a buffer of time between work and home, but actually it's quite hard to tell from the data how it's different for remote workers, whereas the loneliness and the communication sort of make more sense. And then what's really interesting is the people who wouldn't recommend working remotely are usually a mixed teams, not fully remote ones, ie they are the outliers, or they are the others, or at least they are different from some people. So there are non homogeneous teams. And what's really interesting is, from their survey, and I'm as it's a global survey, most organizations don't pay for expenses associated with remote work. Now, here in the UK, there are legalities on what you do and don't have to offer, so I guess it depends what you mean by expenses. But certainly that's interesting, I think, because they're already saving money by not having you at work. So you would think there would be a little bit in the budget to help in live and enrage and engage within the remote work environment, I would guess. So anyway, that just gives you that report, just gives you a sort of whistle stop of kind of views and feelings of remote workers globally? Yeah,

I think that's an interesting bit of information, and I think it's worth pointing out that people can look it up if they want to. It's the it's for buffer state of remote working report, and I've done it for a few years, so they've got some trends in there as well, which is good to know about what we're going to talk. Next, then is a few tips around remote working as an individual. So a lot of people might not have worked remotely before, and obviously that often means working at home. So we're just going to touch on what some of those tips are and what it can be like working at home. I guess, leading into that, what I wanted to do was to expand on that buffer report. So when Jane talked through it, she talked about the three things that people called out as the biggest challenges. So they called out difficulties in collaboration and communication. They called out loneliness, they called out not being able to unplug. And those are the three that we talked about. Now there are actually some more on here as well. So as well as those, some less prominent things that were called out were distractions at home, being in different time zones from teammates, staying motivated working on your own and making sure that you take vacation time, finding reliable Wi Fi and others. So not all of those are going to be relevant for everyone, but it's just worth noting that there are some challenges from an individual perspective to working at home. So I want to spend a bit of time talking about things that you can do as an individual to help you have better experiences working at home. And one of the things that came out as one of the top challenges was around loneliness and and we know that things like mental health and connection are, or can be, challenges for remote workers. So so that'll form a bit of a flavor around what we speak about in relation to things you can do to help have a better working, remote experience. And we're going to split this into two different sections, or I'm going to split it into two sections, but that I'll talk through. But first is things that you can do in your working day, so in whatever time that you're working, what are some things you can do, some habits, some ways of working that'll help you have the best of that time. And then there are a couple points as well around the out script about so either side of that, your general process for working at home, what are some things you can do in that space? So if we think about in your working day itself, we've got some things you can you can bear in mind, and they're not in any particular order. And I guess it's worth noting that these tips and the other tips we've got are based in large part on our own experiences. We both work at home a lot, and in in relation to our experiences of working with remote teams, but also in relation to some research that we've done in the run up to this episode. So what are some things you can do in your working day to help you have a better experience of working remotely. One try and work in a dedicated physical space. If you can compartmentalize things, if you can get an actual space that feels like an office, then that can provide you with a good environment in which to work, but it can also help build in some physical boundaries around when you're working and when you're not working, which is helpful so that dedicated space, and that consistent use of the same dedicated space can be pretty helpful. Next thing you can do to help you in your working days, to communicate regularly with others, including not just email, not just messenger, none of those things exclusively. But also making time for phone calls, for video calls, making time to build those human connections and communicate on a work level, but also on a personal level with other people. So those things become increasingly important when you are as an individual working remotely. It's also important to be clear on what you're going to do each day. So knowing what a good day looks like in terms of work, in terms of outcomes, your outputs for every day is helpful. So if at the start of the day you know what your priorities are, you share those with others, and you work your way through those and make progress, and that helps you maintain your motivation and get a sense of achievement next. We think it's really important to have some pre agreement around your working hours and to make sure that you're able to shut off at the end of the day, so whatever that working time is, commit to yourself that that's what you're going to do, and be clear with others that that's what you're going to do as well, and get the permission and get the boundaries set around that, because otherwise you run the risk of bleeding into the day and bleeding out of a day, which is unhelpful to help solidify that it's probably worth doing things like blocking your diary so you can't take meetings outside or before your day starts, and some discipline around that can be important to help the segregation of work and life next. We think it's really important to remember to celebrate the successes and achievements that you have during the day. So you should celebrate these for yourself. You should make sure that you recognize the things that you're doing, but where possible, you should give yourself permission to speak to others about them, and maybe within your team, permission to share some of those. So all these things help with your motivation, help with your sense of progress, and that's increasingly important when you're working remotely. Next one that I think is particularly important is that you should, during the course of your day, schedule some time to look after yourself. So this should include scheduling breaks, making sure that you can get up from your desk and walk around, making sure that you have meals, making sure that you've got time for self care or exercise or whatever else it is that you want to build into your day. But understand that these are important aspects of your working day that help you be better at what you do, and potentially ritualize them. But certainly give yourself time to have more of these. And in relation to that, some people find that things like planning meals in advance can be helpful and less distracting, and you can build structure around this from a timing perspective, that can help with remote working as well. A couple other little things to talk about for in your working day. One is around committing to actions. So at the start of a day when you know what your outcomes are that you want to work on, and things like that, it's sometimes worth telling others about your action. So committing to what you're going to do in advance, telling people that I'm going to do X, Y and Z, helps you, I think, pre commit to doing those actions, publicizes your intent, and that helps with your motivation as well as your communication. And with that comes benefit from sharing this with others, maybe through things like huddles and things like that that we'll speak about later. And it's just worth noting that some of the stuff is a bit hard from a team leader perspective to see all this stuff going on. So if you're a team leader, then you might want to reflect on some of the stuff that Jane is going to touch on later on about working as a team remotely. But I'm just going to run onto the next little bit about things you can do to help. And this is stuff around your working day, so not specifically in your working day, but kind of either side. It's sort of your overall approach to remote working. And again, we've got a handful of points here. One, we think that routines can be hugely important, you know, disproportionately important when you're working remotely. Routines help you make sure that you do what you need to do. So having routines is important, and particularly, having a morning routine that helps you launch yourself into your working day can be really important. And with that, it's important to do things like make sure that you get up, that you shower, that you get dressed in your work clothes, that you eat your breakfast and you treat it as if you're working, because, again, those activities and that sort of semi ritualization helps you really feel like you're working and transition into work and also to transition out of work. It's also worth noting that there may be impact on others. So if you live with somebody else, or if you live with your family, your children. Maybe you're a carer for your parents, or anything like that, knowing that the fact that you work at home or work remotely may have an impact on them. So building in an appreciation of those other relationships around your working day is important. That might mean that you need to check in with people more. It might mean that you need to explain the way that you're working your time. Set time aside in the day for them, all that kind of stuff. Next up, I think, particularly when people are moving to remote working and getting out of a habit of maybe walking to work or commuting to work in other ways, it's important to try and find time for exercise within what you're doing and to build some physical movement into your day, because you'll feel better for it. It can become part of your routine. It'll freshen your mind. It gives you reasons for breaks. So trying to find ways to exercise personally I find hugely important.

James, can I just chuck something in for someone who, someone who doesn't? I play a bit sport, but I don't exercise as much as I should. But I looked at my step count, right? So my phone has a step counter. I don't really look at it, but someone told me, after I started remote working, to have a look at it, to look at the averages over the months that I had been working in office versus remote working. And if anything is going to shock you into doing something about realizing how little it's really possible that you can do, like less than 200 steps. If you're working from home, if you got really into a piece of work, you haven't gone out, you don't have other responsibilities, you haven't needed to do the shopping that day, and it's been raining Absolutely. It's really easy. And if you do that for a few weeks, you will get bad posture. There's so many things. And it's I just, I recommend it to anyone who doesn't think it's that big a deal. It's not a big deal. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And

it was, it was an absolute. It was really funny. It was about the time I got a dog, and I was like, why am I so tired walking the dog? And then I looked at my skeptics, because for two months I did nothing, yeah.

So last few points around things around your working day, I think that actually trying to commute is really helpful, even if you just get up and walk around the block and come back into your house and go to your desk all those sort of ritual things and getting some fresh air can be really helpful. So, so finding something that helps you commute, commute to work is helpful if you get the chance invest in the tools and materials and space that you'll use when remote working. And that could be, you know, it tool. So it could be file sharing platforms and remote working video sharing platforms and things like that. Or it could be a nice monitor, a nice chair, you know, do try and actually treat this stuff as important, because it is an investment. And

I think if people, if people are only doing it temporarily, I would strongly recommend getting a month subscription to like, a conference call with added tools or something like that, because we've done, you know, we do work online workshops, right? And some of those tools that have chat and presentation modes and all of that be really cheap to do that for a month, but it might be the difference for you being able to talk to people when you talk to clients and stuff absolutely

hugely recommended. Yeah? A couple other things. Consider doing things like maybe scheduling time of a day to do some meditation, or even schedule time to have a nap. I mean, why not try and do that? It's been on my list to do more daily nap. I never managed to do it, but it's on the list. Have you not? I've done it like twice this year. Okay,

I have to go and I occasionally have a nap in the afternoon. It's great for about 45 minutes, and

it's so and it's so helpful from your productivity as well. And these are things that you can do when you work remotely. And there are upsides to it. Next, two things are slightly different, but both important. The first one is to, I think it's important to give yourself permission every day to do something that you enjoy. So if you like reading, if you like going for a walk, if you like, you know, playing computer games, whatever it is, make sure that you know it's okay to do that, and that you treat those things as an investment and as a way to recharge and to help you in your own life, and give yourself time and space to do that every day. And then, like, one of our biggest tips ever, for me, is look up tools like something called self control on on Macs, there are similar tools for all kinds of other computers, and for me, these are tools that create shout out lists for websites. So I use self control to lock myself out of social media for big chunks of time. So anything that I find distracting, I put on the shout out list on self control. I log into self control. I say, for the next five hours, don't let me go to any of these websites or any of these places, and it'll lock me out. And that that helps me, and sometimes I'll lock myself out for 24 hours, but having some tools like that that helped me is really important. So those are, those are my tips for things that you can do as an individual to get the best out of your experience of remote working from a productivity and, I guess, some personal health and well being thoughts as well. What do you think about those?

Jane, I think there's lots of good stuff in there. I think a lot of this stuff crosses over with other people. So some of this stuff is about working from home. Some of this stuff is about generally not being able to concentrate when you don't have a very structured day, or when you're given the opportunity to flex your hours, and how do you still make sure things work? And some of this is just general good good, what I would call good hygiene, for having a productive day. But all of them come together when you're remote working to act like this kind of I was saying to you earlier. I think it's really interesting, when you remote work, you effectively have to all the work that your organization, if they're not remote, does, to create a engaging environment, to create an organized reception desk, to create toilets that are always stocked, to create photocopying that works. All of the things around you that make you think, Okay, I'm now in work. I'm not, I'm not in someone's house. I'm

in I'm in work, right? All of that work is done by the organization when you're in your house or in your coffee shop. No, that's not the purpose of that space, yeah? So you have to construct all of these routines, rituals, or at least enough, that help you productive.

Yeah, yeah. It's a kind of a multiplier, in some ways, for your own predispositions as a person. It provides neat challenges. It's, it's just a very different experience for particularly for a protracted amount of time. You know, for one day or for two days. It's something that people are used to, but working at home for 10 days is very different to working at home for two I also

think often when you're working at home for one days or two days, or two days, you've got a plan in your head of what you want to get done. You're like, I've got this big report. I'm going to use my two days at home this

week to do that. Yeah, and when you know what you're doing, it's fine. It's when maybe you need to generate stuff yourself, or find motivation or or, you know, sustain yourself through periods of loneliness. So it gets more challenging. Okay, well, let's, let's wrap up things you can do for yourself there.

So I think it's now probably a really good time to start talking about how remote working affects the team, and the things that maybe kind of help people work in a team environment remotely, and also how managers can interact with their teams positively in a remote environment. So I'm going to run through a few things, but there's a couple of things that I want to just talk about on the off to understand. So there's been a fair amount of research that one of the differences, one of the things that can make a big difference for workers that are remote versus workers that interact face to face and on site is if they have high levels of if they experience high levels of trust and interpersonal trust with their manager, so if they feel trusted and if they trust their manager, and that can mitigate against some of the Challenges of remote working, and that makes total sense, right? So if you feel you are trusted, you don't feel like you've got to every second minute let people know what you're doing. You don't worry that you know people maybe don't know that you're working. You don't trust that your manager is not like double checking what you're doing, and you don't you feel more free and more comfortable and. More relaxed, yeah,

and of course, like dress is important in a normal job, but it's particularly important where people can't see you correct

if in the absence of all of the signals that you can exhibit physically, like being at your desk, like having the conversations with the people that your boss would expect you to and then seeing you do that across the room, like saying hello to them and let them know you're going out the office. It can feel very performative and very forced if you're remote and remote working, like, why do you need to tell your boss you're taking, like, 20 minutes away from your desk? But if you were going out for lunch, you might right? So, so trust is hugely important, and the good news is that managers can do loads of stuff to improve that, and we talk about that in different episodes, about trust generally, but spending a bit of extra time on that as a manager will make massive inroads to some of the challenges around managing remotely and keeping your team working remotely. But there's also stuff that everybody can do, right? So we're going to talk about both those things. We're going to talk about what you can do as a team member and do as a team member and what you can do to enable that team. So some really practical things that managers or organizations can do get people the right technology. Okay? So if you've if you've got conferencing systems that keep dropping out or dropping calls, change your system, invest. Don't make money the factor because the damage you're doing to communication. When we all know we've already heard from the research, communication is one of the biggest challenges. It's worth investing. And also think about investing in work that can make your work visible. So there's collaboration tools that are great, like Trello or Asana, or any of those task management systems. One of the great things about them is, if you've got a shared open system, you can see what other people are doing without having to ask them, and that takes away some of that interrogative approach when you're talking to colleagues or to your boss or to your team, oh, what are you up to this week? Because people aren't seeing and aren't talking about it as much, and it feels very forced, but if you can make some transparency around it, then you can actually feel up to date with people's work. And when you have one to ones with them, you're already informed, which is great. There's a really great tip that I've seen in a couple of places now, that I first saw on a Trello conference day, and they said, if one person is not in the room. No one's in the room. So if there is one person, remotely, everyone goes on their video call, even if they're sitting at desks next to each other. And the reason for that is to create an autonomous, equal, not autonomous, sorry, an equal, egalitarian experience. So if the text drops out, it drops out for everyone, right? But also you, you remove that space where there can be private conversations in a meeting. So you, we all know it happens you're sitting in a meeting, one person's on dial in, and someone rolls their eyes in the room and doesn't get called out on it, but half the room saw and the person on the call didn't, right? And you just need to remove that opportunity so everybody equal. When

you have situations like that, and you're of a one or minority of people dialed in, you can't hear. People forget to dial into the speakerphone, or somebody puts their hand over of a microphone. It's just a sub, you know, a sub experience that you don't want to be part of. And it's really not fair,

yeah, and we have to acknowledge that not everyone is equally brilliant to empathy when talking about important stuff. And also, you shouldn't have to think in meetings about everyone's else's experience if you're meant to be participating in that meeting, right? And there's a real thing there, right? If managers are too busy thinking about is that remote person having the same experience as everyone else, they're not doing their job. So just give everyone the same experience, and then it'll take it'll make it will take you make it a much more equal experience. So the creating regular one to ones and team meetings. Okay, so one of the things that sometimes you see management management do is they end up creating more meetings as a group online when they're remote, because they're trying to increase the amount of communication, but they sub, they sacrifice it for regular one to one phone conversations, one to one video chats, you know, stuff that you can build individual relationships with, because it feels more efficient. But actually what you're doing is you're forcing your team or your colleagues always to share with the group stuff that they might want to raise around concerns and stuff like that, and that's a really big thing, right? So make sure that you're getting one to one time with your boss or with people that you employ, but also that they are getting one to ones with each other. So we had a classic Situ scenario where you're working on a project, the project team always met as a group, and you couldn't pull someone aside afterwards, right? And that's a that's the thing we do all the time in meetings. I'm just going to grab her, and I'm just going to say five minutes, I'm going to say to her, Listen, it's not an issue now, but I think this might crop up next time, just to warn you, right? Yeah, totally. And if you that just does not happen if you're having group meetings all the time, so people sit on. It, and actually that informal communication matters so much more when they're not in an office, because you're not going to bump into them at the cafe. You're not going to bump into them as you're assigning a guest into reception. You know what? I mean? Yeah, absolutely. So that's really big one. I think the real practicals of working as a team and creating a team culture and a team feeling are even more important because they're so much harder to do because there'll be no formality. So the things like always celebrating successes with the people that are in your remote team, and always having a place and freedom to send messages, either on your messaging system or somewhere else, to celebrate stuff, or having a culture where it is always okay to phone someone up and say, Listen, I just want to phone you for 20 minutes, 20 seconds to let you know clients, exes over the line could have emailed you want to tell you in person. So it was ace, yeah, and, and, you know, learning as a remote worker to have a conversation that only lasts a minute like you would somewhere else is a great and celebrating success is the best way of doing that, because it's such an easy thing to do. Easy thing to do. I think one

of the things we've got here is around focusing on outcomes over actions, and I think that's true in any organization that's effective, right? Don't focus on what people are doing and how they're doing it. Focus on where they're getting you to but I think it's particularly important in remote working, because you're trying to give people more autonomy over how they do their work, and you don't need to get caught up in exactly what they're doing. But there is a temptation to, particularly if you're a manager, there is a temptation if you cannot see them and have not like seen with how much time they spend at the desk versus meetings and stuff like that, there is a temptation to interrogate their methods, and that can very quickly become micromanaging. And I think the there are probably two more things I'd mentioned. One is just because you're remote working doesn't mean that there isn't law, regulation, best practice around all aspects of working. You know, people should feel free to get up and leave their screens if they're in a two hour meeting, right? Because they might need the bathroom, just like they would in a meeting. And yet, sometimes they don't, because it seems rude people, you know, if their kids are not at home, but their phone goes and they're working from home, they will still take it just like they would at work there. You know, there are lots of things around that, and also making sure that people have the right physical working environment. And I think we're going to do an episode, going to do an episode on that as well, but the last one I want to make is really, really important, and working as a team, this is where everyone has to look out for each other, and as an extra shout out to managers out of sight can really easily be out of mind. And one of the biggest challenges around remote working, and there's loads of evidence, is around isolation. So it is really important you get to know your team and their personal circumstances when you are remote working, because some of those people will live alone, and if or they may have disruptive lifestyles, or they may have partners that work away from home a lot, or they may have children who've moved out. You know, there might be lots of things going on. And if you don't go to work physically, and you do your work on time, and no one checks in with you, it is unbelievably quick to possibly unbelievably quick that you can possibly split into mental health issues and feelings of isolation and loneliness. Yeah, right. And I have, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, because I have seen it. I have seen remote working organizations that have been brilliant, except they haven't realized that the person who is diligently meeting every deadline is deeply, deeply unhappy. And they are shutting their work off at 5:30pm and they are moving over to their sofa, and they are watching TV for five hours and going to bed, and then they are going back to their desk and then not leaving the house. So, you know, please, please. I mean, I watched Jerry Springer when I was a little kid, and he used to, what do you say? Take care of each other, yeah, something like that. I can't remember something like that. Look after yourselves and each other, yeah? But, and I know it sounds cheesy, right, but we have to do that so much more, because all the signs that you pick up from someone who's maybe struggling that you would see if they're in the office either late, they look a little bit like they're not, you know, as engaged with the world, they all the really important stuff, like the basics that start to give you hints about people who are having some challenges mentally, with their mental health, then those things you don't see, right? Yeah, so, so that's my plea to people who are remote working as a team, look

after and that's like the big theme throughout all of us, is that remote working can be really good and really helpful, but there is that risk of loneliness and mental health issues around it for people, and I think about that's one of the key messages that everyone should take of what we're speaking about. Okay, so those are my tips for making working remotely when you're part of a team useful. I

think they're great. I think I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in. I think the points around trust are essential. I think, you know, one of the key takeaways for me from what you've what you've spoken about, there is a need to be mindful of the need to look after your team when you're a remote team, and to build those connections and to invest in those relationships, to help people have a voice, to tell you how they feel, to help everyone build the bridges of communication they need to work fluidly as a team. So So I think that's great. Um, one thing did pop into my mind as you were speaking that that I maybe would suggest for teams as well, which is, particularly if you're moving to become a remote working team. I my, my belief is that there is in that transition the opportunity for a whole lot of assumptions to be made about what's acceptable, what isn't, what the rules are, and everyone knows what assumptions lead to. So one thing that I'd probably suggest if a team is looking to move to a remote working team, or is forced into it, is to potentially look at co creating some sort of ways of working around that remote team and being a remote team. So what are your you know? How will you communicate? What will you do? And really, just by that, I mean just spending the time to talk about how you want to work together, to put things on the table, to say, what's good, what isn't good, what works for all of you, and to really give focus to discussing how you're going to work together. I think that's that's probably an important thing to do if you're moving into this for the first time as a team.

Okay, great. Shall we move on to list of the week?

Yeah, do you want me to run us through a list of a week? Oh, I'm gonna let you run you through because I like this list.

Well, I like it. I like it because it's a bit silly, really, and in no way am I being flipping it all in relation to remote working and all that kind of stuff. But I guess we've been spurred to bring this episode forward on remote working because of Coronavirus, and with that comes in an understandable set of anxieties about the state of world and all of that. So so that can place some of a remote working side of things in a bit of a dark light, and rightly so. But there's a whole lot of remote working that's been going on for a long time, that's a really positive thing, that's a life choice for people, and there's lots of great stuff that comes with remote working. So the list of a week is this week. It's the list of a top 10 cities to work in as a digital nomad based on a blend of cost, internet, fun and safety. And it comes from a website called Nomad list. And I just thought it was kind of fun to reflect on the fact that people are able to remote work around the world, and that there are benefits to it. So I'm just going to run through a list of 10 cities that are apparently the best places to be a digital nomad working remotely. And we can all reflect on the fact that these cities are probably full of people working away on their laptops, having fun and doing good jobs as well. So weighing in at number one from Europe on the southwest coast, we have Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, with a cost of $2,043 per month and 32 megabytes per second of internet speed. Pretty exciting. So that's number one. It's pretty good, isn't it? I guess that's good. Lovely city as well. It's good, isn't it? It's a good place. I can I can imagine being a remote worker mayor. Next up, we've got kangu in Bali, so in Indonesia. Now that is only $1,345 for monthly living costs, but the internet is 18 megabytes per second. But you do get to be in Bali, presumably on a beach. So that's number two. Number three, we've got Taipei and Taiwan, a bit more expensive, $1,800.19 megabytes, sounds pretty good. It's meant to be a great place. Next up back to Europe, we've got Budapest so Hungary, $1,500 a month, 41 megabytes per second internet speed. They are knocking the socks off a competition number five, we're jumping down to South America. We're going to Buenos Aires, Argentina now, cheaper than I expected, $1,001.20 megabytes per second, cheapest on the list, surprising, right? But there we go. Next. We're in Central Europe. We're heading to Serbia. We're off to Belgrade, $1,600 a month, 23 megabytes. Next, we're back to Indonesia, another trip to Bali. This time we're at Ubud, and that's 14 112 megabytes. Then we're off to Bulgaria. And here we are at bandsco, which I've never heard of. But there we go. It's my loss, $1,400.22 megabytes per second. Then off to Berlin, capital of Germany. $3,000 so pretty expensive. 32 megabytes, but a whole lot of fun. And then we're off to Africa, to Cape Town. So South Africa rounds up our list. Number 10, that's 18, $1,800.09 megabytes per second, so slow internet. So the top 10 list goes Lisbon can go in Bali, Taipei, Budapest, buenos, Aires, Belgrade, Uber in Bali, Bansko, Berlin and Cape Town. And just for anyone who, like me was wondering why Edinburgh wasn't in the top 10, they say it's number 124, and I'm pretty. Sure that they've just like, slipped a digit somewhere or got it wrong, because really, it's a great place to be. So there we go. So anyway, that was my top 10 list. What do you think? Which? Where are you going

to okay, I'm fascinated by this list for a couple of reasons. One, I'm trying to work out how Cape Town, although I absolutely, I'm assuming it's got that on fun, because Cape Town has the slowest Internet of that top 10, and is not, by any stretch of imagination, the cheapest. So a little bit surprised about that, but I would totally wholeheartedly say go for it. What I think is really dodgy is Bali having two Bali? Yeah, I have to say I have never seen as many people working in cafes anywhere in the world. And I used to live in London than Bali. I could not believe it. We were like, we were on holiday there, and we'd be like, sitting having, like, a little breakfast before we're going to go to the beach. And every table was taken by what appeared to be Australian and New Zealanders, running businesses, running small businesses from there. Well, maybe it merits two places on that, yeah, but honestly, I've never seen anything like it. James, yeah, I've never been everywhere.

Yeah, interesting. Well, it sounds like a nice way to do it, right? It's very nice, all right. Well, that's our list of the week. Hopefully it was a little bit of a light Look at the nice side of remote working. Next up, we've got time for some stories from a keyboard. Maybe I'll lead into one of these just quickly, and it's just kind of a reiteration of point that was raised earlier around the need to treat everybody equally when it comes to remote working. So if not everyone is remote working, then I really think that people are second class citizens, and that's something that I've seen quite a bit when I've worked and I've had teams in different cities and things like that. And what we used to do is we'd use something called telepresence, which was like a corporate, large scale virtual meeting platform, where you actually go into a room and it's a bit Star Trek, and, you know, you sit there, and they're big screens opposite you. And what we what we do is we'd have, you know, a core team in one city, and they'd all go in and do that. Then maybe a core team in another city that would do that. And then when people were remote, working, working from home, what we do is we'd like set up a little computer and have a zoom or a WebEx, and one poor person had their little or, you know, three people, or however, and they were dialing in that way, would have their little look in at the room while we're all doing this stuff. And it was just a dreadful experience for the people who weren't in the room. And it really brought home to me how how unequal it is and how demotivating it is, and the times when I'd dial in myself, either just on my phone or with a video conference platform from home, I felt excluded and uninvited, and I felt like I was missing out on the jokes in the room and all that stuff. So So I would hardly recommend going fully remote for everything that you're doing if you're going to have people remote, because otherwise it's unequal and unfair. So I guess that's that's my story from a keyboard is seeing that in practice. What about you? So my,

my story from the keyboard is, unsurprisingly, James, from my personal history of disasters in my life, like I've had lots of good things, but also bad things. And it's about,

took a job remote working about five years ago. This is before I was working for myself, and I had massively misunderstood how much it would affect me. And I have a friend, Christina, and I hope she won't mind me saying this. She said to me, when I told her I'd gone to work remotely, she just looked at me and she went, are you completely mad? Because she knows me quite well. And she was like, That is not going to suit you. And I was like, No, it'll be fine. I'm determined to make it work. It will be fine. And I'd seen it as kind of a challenge, like, I was like, okay, I can do this,

you know. And I was living in I was living a little bit outside of town at the time, and I didn't know a lot of people around me. And, yeah, I guess

I was completely shell shocked by how much it affected my productivity and my mood, and how much I had to adjust the rest of my life. So, you know, when you were talking at the beginning about all those things that you need to do outside of your work to benefit, to balance out remote working, I didn't do any of that,

apart from I borrowed a dog. It was before I had my dog and I borrowed a dog. That was the only thing I used to borrow a dog once a while. And a while. But and I was miserable. I was miserable. My partner was miserable. It flowed out onto my work. My work wasn't as good, and I it took me, I would say, six months to get to grips with it. I mean, that is a long time. I was still getting my targets and doing what I needed to do, right, but it was in spite of the challenge, rather than because of it. And I think if I had known what I know now, I might still have done the job, but I would have approached it so differently. I would have, for as practical as I would have rented a different house. I would have made us move because the house was so inappropriate. The Wi Fi was so bad. There were no coffee shops anywhere near us that I could go out to. There was nothing and and, yeah, so I would, I think success for some people, remote working is really easy because it suits them naturally. If it's not it doesn't mean it's not doable for you, but you really need to plan and think about how you're going to approach it. Yeah,

you need to be mindful about it, don't you? You need to be considered and put some effort into making it work. It won't work for everyone, and you absolutely need to understand it

is different from working at home two to three days a week, absolutely. And I guess that's the bit, because I regularly worked from home, and I was like, this is easy. But of course, I read I worked from home when I absolutely knew what I needed to get done and it was focused. And

it's a nice bit of respite sometimes to be able to be at home and focus on something and get that done, and then you can go back into the fray. Yeah,

exactly. And you feel really smug because you're like, I've gone away and done 10 hours solid work yesterday. Um, as opposed to, I just felt lonely. I felt terribly lonely. Yeah, yeah. It can. It can really do that.

If you got like, final thoughts, I kind of crossed over to final thoughts. Have you got any other final thoughts? You want to share

final thoughts and top tips?

So my genuine top tip is the complete opposite of what James said earlier, about sort of switching off at the end of the day, but it's kind of the same in the sense that pick your hours, if you're allowed to, and stick to them, but don't be afraid to do something crazy. So I work now seven till 10, and then I'll quite often take an hour off, and I have a nap in the afternoon sometimes, but I quite often work, and then the naps are amazing. Naps are revolutionary. People, 20 to 35 minutes nap absolutely sets you up for another afternoon's

work. Yeah?

And, I guess, yeah, my final thought is just kind of a reflection back on some other stuff, which is, look after your mental health and look after your team, right? Speak to people about how they're feeling, because, as we've said throughout this, people might not be open. It might be hard to tell how people are doing, so check in with yourself, check in with others, and a lot of people will be fine. But there, there may be some people who find it difficult. So make space for people to speak about mental health and be open about it yourself. If you're feeling lonely, reach out and tell people you're feeling a bit lonely, because chances are, if everybody's working remotely, one or two other people might be feeling the same as well. So I guess that's that's my final thought as well. So we've got kind of like different sides of final thoughts there. I think you've got the phone have a nap time and do something kooky, and I've got the look after your mental health. So

slightly different, although ironically, if you do do the nap, you'll probably do a lot better. Although there's a really fine line right between a power nap and a slightly bordering on feeling a bit depressed, absolutely, right? And you need to know the difference. Yeah,

cool. Well, I guess that's probably kind of the end of this episode. As ever. You can get in touch with us about podcast, on Twitter, World of work.io, we do our weekly newsletter of a while mail. You can sign up for that. It's got some great content in there, a mixture of infographics and interesting stuff we've been reading. And in fact, last week's,

we'll put a link up to last week's on social. You can find it because it had an article on digital nomads and some of the issues

around isolation. Yeah, of course, I remember about going out, yeah, yeah. So some great stuff in there. And don't forget, we've got some great coaches working with us now. So if anyone's looking for coaching, you can check out our coaches around the UK and in Canada. So some people with some really excellent experience who can really add value to individuals and organizations. And I guess that's probably about it. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up, Jen, just to have a lovely week for me and stay well, yeah, and

enjoy remote working, right? I mean, make the most of it and focus on the positives as well as overcome on the negatives. Great. Okay, thanks everyone. Bye. You.