Remoting 360: Ensuring That Working Remotely Really Works

COVID-19 has stalled the global economy and the major corporations that are its engine. In their effort to get their businesses moving, while keeping their employees and contractors safe, large employers have understandably made working remotely, or Remoting, an urgent priority. This race to safety and business continuity is largely focused on the technologies required to allow a workforce to work from home (WFH), i.e. providing access to desktops, files, data, and each other. Today’s major employers just want to make sure that their employees can still do their functional jobs remotely. And because of technology they can.

I believe that there is much more to come with the global race to Remoting. After and perhaps even before the COVID-19 crisis is over, many employers and many of their employees will have realized that the Remoting approach can be a longer-term win-win. For larger companies Remoting represents potential savings in officing and even labor costs. Some percentage of employees may be willing to accept lesser pay in exchange for more work from home flexibility and zero to nominal commute time and the associated expense. The worker will experience greater autonomy and less quality of life burden and their employer will be freed from the burden of providing expensive office space and now able to recruit globally with no concern for candidate proximity or relocation. The result: a win, win, and the very likely outcome that Remoting becomes a preferred work modality for many large employers and thousands of their employees around the world.

The glitch (and opportunity) in all this is that once a workforce is WFH-enabled the employer’s question will inevitably shift from “Are they able to work?” to “Are they working productively?” and even “Are they happy?” The singular focus on worker safety and business continuity will be quickly followed by a need to assess remote labor productivity, employee satisfaction, and overall return on investment. It is at this point that the task will broaden from being solely about the requisite Remoting technologies to one that considers the human variable and specifically how to best motivate and measure performance when the employee is physically disconnected. In this phase of Remoting development, management, and communication protocols that enable a sense of connection, clarity of responsibility and documented accountabilities become an essential complement to the technologies in place. 

While management and communications protocols that are alongside WFH technologies will likely improve overall remote worker productivity, they will not result in labor optimization or long-lasting strategic advantage. To extract the full value of Remoting, corporations must embrace the importance of it being a “Protocol-first” endeavor, where standards of team management, development and communications are enabled by technologies and tools and vice versa. In this phase of Remoting there is seamless integration between the Who, Why, What and When as captured in the Protocols (and Policies) and the How, as enabled by a host of different technologies.

As an example, clear performance expectations, aka job descriptions, are an essential protocol of any work environment but particularly a remote one. The performance expectation protocol should be designed in a way that technology tools make adhering to it easier for both the manager and the remote employee and consistent, universal use of the performance management tools is an explicit part of the protocol.

The underlying intent of a Protocol-first approach is to match or even best the level of human connection that an on-premise work situation achieves and from that motivate the highest levels of individual and team performance while reaping the cost and flexibility rewards that a Remoting model provides. Without this focus on human connection, employers run the risk of having their remote workers become functional drones, effectively commodity players who have little employer loyalty and are willing to sell their capacity to the highest bidder. The hoped-for productivity gains from Remoting become short-lived and the overall system will suffer from constant high-value employee churn.

The Protocol-first approach, call it Remoting 360° results in a comprehensive engagement model that optimizes for three constituents: the employer, the manager, and the remote employee. It is based on a diagnostic that correlates each constituent’s professional or business goals with the associated tasks, enabling technologies (existing or to be developed) and the synchronized essential protocols. Given the vast array of technologies available to enable any specific task, the likely solution is a selection of best-in-class providers that are integration-ready. To increase the chances of system efficacy and organization-wide adoption the model’s design bias must reflect each organization’s current protocols, cultural norms, and management behaviors. In this regard, Remoting becomes a customized development initiative built on top of both proven technologies and universally accepted management practices.

To this last point, the achievement of a successful Remoting 360° model and the performance optimization it yields requires a holistic view supported by a wide array of competencies and expertise. On the technology front, it demands Protocol-first design sensibilities and the ability to modify off the shelf technologies to meet all three constituent’s needs.  On the protocol front, there must be a willingness to modify standards and practices to fit the available technologies and tools. And perhaps most importantly there must be a constant dialogue between the technologists and the protocol-bearers to ensure that each component of the Remoting model is integrative and mutually supportive. 

The last phase of Remoting 360°may be one of hybridization. How does an organization use enabling technologies and protocols in support of both Remote and non-Remote workers and how does the definition and delivery of those components need to change to meet both managers and employees exactly where they are?  It’s clear that regardless of the physical location question, the deeper integration of the right technologies with the right management and communications protocols will yield a higher performing and strategically advantaged organization; one that is better able to respond to new competitors and unforeseen macroeconomic challenges.  

As shared, the Remoting 360° framework seeks to bridge the goals of the constituents involved with the associated tasks, enabling technologies and essential protocols and policies. Simple in concept it carries complexity in execution, particularly in light of the need to align necessary protocols and policies with existing or legacy ones. It is likely that the full value of Remoting 360° cannot be realized with full commitment from an organization’s leadership to some new protocols and policies.

The Protocol-first Remoting 360° design task must focus on answering the following nine fundamental questions and then comparing those answers to the current protocols and policies in place in order to identify the gaps and gap fillers.

Foundation: How do we ensure that every employee, from top to bottom, shares the same set of values, truths, and beliefs about the why, what and how of the organization? And an understanding of the organization’s behavioral norms and unwritten rules?

Map: How do we ensure that every employee understands where the organization is headed and how it fits with where they are headed and vice versa? And how well resourced the organization and they are to realize their desired destinations?

Measure: How do we measure the performance of the individual against expectations and ensure that the results are celebrated and/or correctively managed? How do we capture the data to ensure everyone is clear where he or she stands? How do we capture and share the data that shows where the company stands?

Feedback: How do we ensure that every employee knows where they stand against expectations (functional and behavioral and what they need to do to improve? How do we course correct employees most effectively? How do employees course correct the corporation without risk to their jobs?

Connection: How do we ensure that every remote employee feels connected to the organization, their team and their manager on a 24/7 basis and that there are people who care about them and their success?  How can we ensure that human connection persists virtually?

Trust/Respect: How do we ensure that the remote employee feels respected and trusted? How can we develop mutual respect for both the employees’ time and the production for the company?

Tools: How do we ensure that every remote employee has the technologies, tools and operating standards to eliminate friction and frustration in getting their job done?  

Hiring: How do we ensure that we hire people who have the capacity to thrive within a remote working environment? 

Growth: How do we ensure that remote workers have the same opportunities for career growth as non-remote workers? 

Each of these questions carries multiple questions and answers that should both point to refined or new protocols, associated tasks, and existing or potential enabling technologies. Implicit in this is the reality that every organization will have different answers and different approaches to the Remoting 360° opportunity. It is by design a “made to measure” undertaking that simply puts people and protocol ahead of technology in order to ensure that the productivity gains realized are long-lasting and the organization as a whole is stronger.