Essential

Adapt to remote working

Telecommuting, working at home, mobile working, desksharing, distributed

teams...there are more and more forms of remote working, and it is becoming
a trend in today’s workplace. It brings more flexibility and efficiency to
employees and businesses when approached with the best state of mind
and scrupulous and suitable organization.

Developing a state of mind

Trust: A key factor
Trust between remote workers, their co-workers and
their managers is absolutely fundamental in remote
working situations. Because of the distance and lack
of daily contact, it is crucial to set up an environment
where no one is wary and where everyone gets
along well. Trust must play a role on both sides.
Remote workers must also demonstrate that they
merit their co-workers’ and supervisors’ trust, and
also find a way to trust them as well.
To win the trust of others, remote workers must
show that they are reliable and respect their
commitments. They must show their honesty under
every circumstance, especially if they are sick or
if family obligations prevent them from working.
It is also important to establish a good level of
communication to reassure their colleagues that
they are seriously undertaking their work.
They will need to trust others, from the beginning,
with a certain form of letting go and without relying
on the personal connections that are created when
working in the same office.
Being accountable for deliverables
Remote working is an excellent opportunity to
become autonomous. Still, you need to show that
you are capable of this. This often means changing
your approach and to focus on delivering to
your objectives as these are clearly tangible and
observable.
Paying attention to communication
Distance has an impact on the number of contacts
with co-workers and the type of contact. You’ll
need to pay attention to the quality you invest in
your professional relationships. Being proactive in
maintaining this contact and identifying the best
level of communication can help out.
Any circumstance, even one which seems trivial in
a classic working situation, can easily be blown out
of proportion in a remote working situation because
of the potential for misunderstandings. Paying
particular attention to any correspondence sent is
absolutely necessary. If you have doubts about how
the message was received, do not hesitate to ask the
other person to tell you what they have understood
to make sure you’re on the same wavelength.
It is important to be able to listen to others, paying
specific attention to ambiguous or inconsistent
signals they can send. The tone of their voice, certain
speech mannerisms, or even body language during
video conferences can be signs to pay attention to.
Also keep in mind that informal contact should not

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Adapt to remote working
be neglected. Just because you’re working remotely,
doesn’t mean that interactions must be limited to a
professional level. It’s always good to be respectful
and to humanize relationships, and don’t let too
much time pass without paying a visit to your
colleagues, whenever possible.
Paying attention to basic security
procedures
Often without even knowing it, employees handle
key information about their company where they
could potentially cause problems if this information
gets into the hands of a third party (competition,
customers, suppliers, partners, etc.). That’s why
businesses set up a certain number of security rules
to prevent possible leaks from having negative
Setting up organization
Here are some guidelines which, in addition to taking on the right mind-set, will increase the success of
remote working:
Planning your work
You can’t expect success without excellent planning
and good organization of the following factors:
• Appointments and meetings (telephone calls,
video conferences, face-to-face);
• Tasks to be done;
• Writing and reports;
• Reflection;
• Breaks;
These factors are to be balanced and scheduled
according to the importance they have in order
to reach your goals and to maintain your personal
equilibrium.
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Essential
consequences. With remote working, these rules
become more complicated to put in place, but still
remain just as important.
It is each individual’s responsibility to respect them.
When travelling, employees must pay particular
attention not to handle confidential information in
public places or on mass transportation, for instance.
And you even need to be careful within companies
because of new methods of work or distributed
work environments — like desk sharing, where you
don’t necessarily know the people you come in
contact with every day.
If your equipment or material is lost or stolen
(computer, telephone, important files), you’ll need
to tell your supervisors as soon as possible.
Computers need to be locked and company
software and databases must be accessed through
hard-to-guess passwords.
Planning consists of selecting tasks according to the
environment you are in. When sharing your work
time between different places (office, home, travel,
etc.), give priority to the tasks that lend themselves
to the environment you are in. For instance, certain
meetings are more efficient when done face-to face,
and therefore in the office. Certain work requires
concentration, and that is more practical at home.
Organizing visits
No matter what the type of remote work (working
at home, mobile working, or working at a different
site than the rest of the team), office visits take on
particular importance.
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Adapt to remote working
Nothing can replace in-person contact with your
co-workers and managers. It’s important to find
the right rhythm so not to lose contact and to
strengthen ties with your team. The number of visits
might be limited though, whether because of cost
reasons or just the time lost in getting there. That’s
why it’s extremely important to optimize by:
• Clearly identifying the objectives to be reached
for each visit;
• Carefully preparing all the elements you’ll need
(equipment, documents, list of subjects to
discuss);
• Scheduling your meetings ahead of time to ensure
that colleagues are available;
• Distributing your schedule and expectations so
that they can prepare on their side as well.
Identifying useful tools
Several tools can make remote working easier.
Despite what we might think, e-mail isn’t always
the best solution. Here are some others:
• Communication tools: their purpose is getting
information to or from your colleagues (e-mails,
instant messages, telephone calls, video
conferences, Intranet, etc.);
• Collaborative tools: they allow teams to work
together despite the distance by sharing certain
data (shared schedules, shared documents, Wikis,
shared screens, etc.);
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Essential
• Networking tools: they help connect and create
relationships between colleagues (business social
networks).
Each person must identify the tools they have and
which ones are useful, make the effort to know
how to use these new tools and, lastly and most
importantly, actually use them. Although the thought
of learning to use these tools may scare some people
at first, they often realize that they are not that
difficult to use. The benefits of using these tools far
outweigh the effort of learning how to use them.
Keeping colleagues updated on
your progress
Distance requires more communication in order to
give information about what you’re working on and
the status of your projects. You’ll need to inform
your colleagues about your progress so that they
don’t forget about you because you’re not there,
and to meet your manager’s expectations. For this,
particular care should be given to the different
review and reporting work that needs to be done.
Remote workers should be proactive in sharing
working documents, making sure to distinguish
between what is still in progress and what has been
finalized to avoid any confusion. Lastly, before each
meeting, it’s a good idea to list the key information
you need to relay so there is a clear communication
about your deliverables.
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