Transforming Work with Sophie Wade Heidi Melin — Managing Remote Teams and Workflow
Heidi Melin is the Chief Marketing Officer at Workfront which provides a work management application platform for the enterprise. She has been a remote leader for years and shares her first-hand experiences and recommendations. Heidi has seen how companies that understand their workflow have been able to pivot quickly and be less impacted by current conditions as well as be prepared to adapt as situations improve.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
[1:00] The COVID-19 virus has taken us out of our working norms.
[3:45] Is remote working easy?!
[4:35] How Heidi views the Future of Work and the accelerating effect of work-from-home restrictions.
[5:35] Heidi has had a front-row seat in seeing which companies pivot successfully to remote work and adjust processes to keep their businesses going.
[7:00] Organizations can distribute work successfully to an entire remote workforce leveraging a combination of tools, including Workfront’s work management software.
[7:20] What kind of behaviors do employees need to adapt to?
[9:50] You CAN establish a strong personal connection with someone you only met via video!
[11:44] Being empathetic about mandated work-from-home situations.
[14:55] Heidi has been working mostly remotely at Workfront, successfully leading and managing her office-based team, for over two years.
[16:20] Heidi shares her remote working best practice tips!
[20:55] How to help people who get distracted when working from home?
[22:42] The importance of flexibility and focusing on outcomes.
[23:54] Why it matters to have visibility into the work being done at any organization.
[26:15] How does Workfront’s work management platform help remote employees?
[27:25] It’s difficult for a leader to make strategic decisions without a holistic view of the work being done.
[28:38] What ability will enable companies to emerge from this crisis most successfully?
[31:20] How can teams get productive work done right now?
[31:38] How do you own your own resilience?
[36:00] It’s critical to understand how work moves through the organization. Then you can adapt the ‘in-person’ aspects of previous work processes quickly.
[38:18] How Signet Health has accelerated the clinic trials for a COVID-19 vaccine.
RESOURCES
Done Right: How Tomorrow's Top Leaders Get Stuff Done by Alex Shootman
QUOTES
“We’re having to adapt, today, to managing a remote workforce and the companies who have been able to pivot most successfully had a vision for the future of work.”
“We have the tools and infrastructure to do remote work, but it’s the behavior piece that requires some adapting to.”
“As companies look at which work they need to prioritize and which work they do not need to prioritize. That gets hard. If you don’t have a holistic view of the work being done in the organization, how can you make those trade offs?”