Telecommuting

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, has stirred the debate over how work gets accomplished with her announcement to have all employees return to the office. She states that staff being together increases collaboration, innovation and results.

There are lots of articles proving and disproving her perspective. In my experience, working from home, flexible hours, and working at a remote site arrangements are successful when there is clear communication, respect, trust and understanding of goals between manager and employee.

While at RIM I directly led teams in Waterloo, Ottawa, Mississauga, Halifax, Fort Lauderdale, and Germany. These teams were very successful at delivering effective, innovative solutions, that solved the needs of our customer.

In any type of relationship, trust is critical. As a manager I trust that a task given to any of my team members will be carried out the best of the members’ abilities, that if they are stumped, they will ask questions, that they will give me honest status of progress, and that it will be completed at the deadline we agreed upon. They trust that I will communicate changes promptly, will set an attainable deadline, manage external expectations, and be available to answer questions as best I can. This is true if the team member is sitting next to me, or is two thousand miles away.

How is trust built? I start off with the belief that everyone is always trying to do their best. I encourage them to reach their potential by increasing their responsibilities as they gain knowledge, understanding and confidence. I make sure that I am always available to answer questions, to provide feedback on their performance, and to ensure that they know I want them to succeed. I never “hold myself” above them, I like to be a part of the team. I had the privilege of leading a team of developers who came to work for RIM after being previously employed by a competitor. The team was working on a particularly tricky piece of code. Every evening during the testing phase, they held a call, I joined in. I listened, and asked questions to help them work out their problems. Some nights these calls went until 7 or 8pm. No matter, I stayed on the line, and helped. It is my belief that showing this kind of dedication to the team helped me earn their trust.

A relationship that is built on mutual trust is one of great value that both parties hate to lose. As a result, the team invested more to demonstration their appreciation. I assigned their work, negotiated deadlines, instilled the culture of trust, and acknowledged their effort towards our mutual benefit. The attitude I displayed was very different from their former employer, this team responded and became one of the most productive in the department. I was prodded numerous times to “fly there and check up on them”. I knew there was no need; they repaid my trust with their results.

Trust is built upon honest communication between manager and employee. This communication is the most crucial to success. It is difficult enough face-to-face and the opportunity for misunderstanding grows quickly as one uses phone, email, and text. Whether an employee works from home occasionally, or in a remote office, it is incumbent on the manager to ensure that they are as available as if the employee was down the hall. The manager also must work harder to be clear in goal setting, how goals are achieved, what success looks like, how the work is to be accomplished, and how the employee can get help from the manager or peers. Consistent communication using all methods should be used to connect with the employee and to establish common terminology and standards. It is not “set and forget”. Both the employee and manager have to be willing to communicate frequently and freely, otherwise neither one is going to benefit. Working from home is a mutual arrangement that has to benefit the business and the employee. The establishment of trust and solid communication between the manager and employee is paramount to making this arrangement work.

The ability to collaborate is critical for any remote work situation. No one is an island; all work ends up being part of a group effort, regardless of the individual contribution. For a software developer working independently on a feature, there is still collaboration with testers, requirement specialists, project management, marketing, sales, other members of the team working on the same project, and eventually customers. There are many tools to enhance collaboration; yet it is not the tools themselves that create collaboration, it is the manner in which they are utilised that is important. Conference calls can be hugely successful or not depending upon how they are run. Over the years, I have been involved with some excellent and some very poor conference calls. The key to good collaboration on conference calls is that the moderator is keenly aware of people on the line, and made sure to include them in the meeting, by soliciting their input directly, and by ensuring that they had time to speak, describing any visual aids (or better yet sending them prior to the meeting), and reminding people to speak into the phone. This very conscious inclusion of people on the phone engages them immediately. Since you do not have the benefit of body language, extra care has to be taken to convey the information so that any emotion is understood.

There are many more methods to make telecommuting successful. All of them require the manager and employee to communicate openly, freely, frequently and with trust. If expectations are not being met, the manager will have to discuss this with the employee and set up constructive remediation methods. Collaboration is more than a set of tools. It is a culture, a way of working that is inclusive of everyone, whether in next cube, down the hall, or on the phone.

A collaborative, co-operative culture, with open communication is what makes work successful. Working in the same office, remote offices, or from home, trust and communication is required so the job gets done.

After all, we are all adults. Treat each other like adults, behave like adults, take accountability and responsibility, and above all “do your job”, and there will continue to be ample reason to allow employees options to work in ways which benefit their lives as well as the company.