Welcome to episode 250 - a nice milestone to celebrate, so we even altered our usual running order to make this round number an occasion for Pilar and Maya to record together, and discuss what's going on in the world of remote work right now in October 2020, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd in London.

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For now, let's take a look at 'What's Going On'...

Hybrid workspaces and practices

Beware the office politics of hybrid workplaces, we'll have to see how this emerges and unfolds - and see who really has a chance to make a choice.

This New York Times article picked up on tensions in some big tech companies in this article: Parents Got More Time Off. Then the Backlash Started.

The evolution of remote work

Eva Rimbau shared this OECD study: Productivity gains from teleworking in the post COVID-19 era: How can public policies make it happen?, demonstrating large organisation understanding of remote working's risks and rewards.

According to Fast Company, Gitlab are quite exemplary when it comes to this stuff - Extremely transparent and incredibly remote Gitlab's radical vision for the future of work is a good read.

Looking to the remote future...

Maya found this article which might be the salvation of Spain's struggling tourist industry - Log on, chill out: holiday resorts lure remote workers to fill gap left by tourists.

Whereas back in the UK, Bosses are doing weird things to get people back in the office, according to Wired.

Leadership thoughts

Thanks for this 'comfort reading' share Chris Coladonato, Seven Ways to Rally Your Remote Team in Confusing Times - some gems here in this nice fluffy listicle, also surprisingly touchy-feely for Inc.

The traits of good remote leaders · Intense Minimalism shared by Valentina Thorner on Linkedin is also a great read, including very up-to-date research.

Random tech changes which make remote better

Pilar is very impressed with Word online (in Office 365) now transcribes dictation. Amazing how this tech is evolving - do take a look!

Also, did you know you can record the pronunciation of your name, in your LinkedIn profile? So now if you want to hear the difference between Pilar's name in English and Spanish, go and have a listen.

Virtual Not Distant announcements:

Speaking of LinkedIn, a great conversation emerged here about asynchronous communication - do take a look this thread full of some amazing ideas from our fabulous remote community.

Pilar was featured in this recent Washington Post article How to work remotely through time-zone changes, also focusing on asynchronous communication - this time from the perspective of US nationals who had ended up remote working from afar - once again great to see this stuff reaching the mainstream conversation.

Maya's new book "Out of the Office", first in the Healthy Happy Homeworking series, is about to publish! So please sign up for presale discount notification, and news of forthcoming releases. Please do share it with any friends particularly if they are struggling with any aspects of working from home.

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