21st Century Work Life

Welcome to our new series of 7 episodes on the theme of "connection and disconnection in remote teams", in association with Virtual Not Distant partners Shield GEO. Shield GEO help businesses employ people globally by taking care of all the associated administration, legal and financial - supporting truly global remote work, in a way that's a great alignment with everything we value at Virtual Not Distant. So we're very excited to be expanding our podcasting repertoire with this new collaboration. Our host for this series is Bree Caggiati, and for this inaugural episode she is joined by Shield GEO Tim Burgess, as well as Pilar and Maya of course. The chosen theme began as a conversation initially about loneliness in remote teams - a natural part of the maturing of the remote work conversation, as more and more people open up to the possibilities it offers. But this evolved into an exploration of both sides of the coin: connection and disconnection. Tim reflected on a research they had conducted with Sydney University students about the remote work community and what their needs were - what questions were being asked online, and not being well answered. The idea of disconnection due to distance emerged strongly there, as part of the context of greater awareness of emotional well-being more generally in the social and business discourse (and let's remember as well that people in traditional colocated workplaces can also feel isolated and disconnected). The extent to which hirers and employers are responsible for the mental health of their team is also under the microscope, but perhaps not all managers are comfortable talking about it at any stage (and this too is not an issue limited to remote work). Where do the boundaries emerge, between duty of care, self-sufficiency, privacy, and productivity, in these sensitive conversations, as people emerge from the 'honeymoon period' of a new role? Bree herself is physically isolated from the rest of the ShieldGEO team, being based in Canada while the others are in Australia - making this a truly global, 4-country collaboration, incidentally. Bree has found using a co-working space more regularly has helped overcome isolation. But the issue is very polarising, and early adopters of remote work (especially advocates, and dare we say, podcasters in this space…) are highly self-selecting. Many of us have never experienced loneliness, working in the way we chose - but as more organisations 'go remote', it inevitably becomes less about individual choice for every remote worker. Disconnection can come from many sources in addition to loneliness. It can be related to trust and autonomy, and the visible teamwork activities we consult on in Virtual Not Distant are all about connecting through the work itself by making that manifest. And this is important because sometimes we feel more connected to our colleagues at work, than those in our local communities and social networks. In the mainstream conversation, often technology gets blamed for alienation and disconnection, but actually it can play a really positive role, if we use it in the right way, and remote work can lead by example on this. Perhaps it's easy to blame the factor of remote work, particularly working from home, if we feel disengaged from other people generally, but there could be many causes. Work can provide structure and tangibility in our day which might be absent in our personal lives, and maybe we need to better tune in to our own emotional and physical needs, when there's no manager or colleague to reflect off in our immediate environment. We talk about great remote workers having personal attributes of resilience and flexibility, and emotional self-awareness is a part of this - the ability to understand our own needs for self-care or rest or exercise or space, and ensure they are addressed before a crisis happens. This includes knowing how and where you work best, and constructing that environment around you. Recruiting for these personal qualities, instilling a culture during onboarding that these issues are for real, these are challenges for any onboarding process. Tim and the Shield GEO team have recognised that in training new hires generally, that there's a difficulty in taking on board large amounts of complex information, so finding the right time to bring up these issues of how they're really feeling emotionally needs a lot of thought. But by planting the seeds with new people that the organisation cares how these concerns might at least make it easier for new colleagues to explore more openly when the time is right. And with so much to explore during this series, we're really looking forward to hearing from listeners about how these issues are impacting you, what your concerns are with connection and disconnection our remote teams. Please do join the conversation in any way you choose, including anonymously/confidentially if you prefer, via email or our contact form.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant ltd - please see full shownotes and much more, at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/unexpected-risks. What's going on? What are the trends for Human Resources in 2020? Here are 20 of them, covered in breadth rather than depth - we could group them under themes of transparency, collaboration ("Slack" is a trend now apparently!), and making work visible. Interestingly this is not a list aimed at remote teams, but that's not immediately obvious. Good news for collaboration tool deployment: How Zoom Better Enables Patient Care, Employee Development at Moffitt Cancer Center and London Ambulance trials phone video stream platform It's fantastic to see online meeting tools making a difference, even saving lives, in diverse settings which are so far removed from our knowledge-worker bubble, and here are two great examples from the world of medicine. Templates in MS Teams - now for medical and all sorts of other organisations and teams there are prebuilt templates, again reflecting the differentiation in use of these platforms, and the need for rapid onboarding and integration of increasingly complex tools for niche uses. Top 100 Companies with Remote Jobs in 2020 - some surprising 'stealth remote' employers in this list, and a variety of industries are also reflected. Do you work remotely for one of them? We'd love to hear from you! Study: 64% Of Comms Leaders Would Use A Virtual PR Agency - A reminder perhaps of how early in adoption we are, with the corollary that apparently 36% of clients think this option is still inferior, and the distinction of a 'virtual agency' being a qualitatively different thing is evident. Professional Development & Networking for Remote - Maya was happily back in the 'remote work bubble' at this online networking event with Workplaceless, discussing the challenges of hybrid teams and transitioning - it's well worth exploring their upcoming events, and certification programme.

Hello and welcome to the first episode of 2020! This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd. Please see full shownotes at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/onboarding-integration 02.40 Marcus Wermuth Engineering Manager for the Mobile Team at Buffer. You can with Marcus on LinkedIn, Twitter, and via his website. 7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success," by Michael D. Watkins. 27.43 Mandy Garner, managing editor of Working Mums and Working Wise 33.30 The Role of Bots in Onboarding How to Improve New Hire Engagement and Onboarding for Technical Employees Using AI and Chatbots. 38:05 Mark Kilby, Agile Coach You can hear more from Mark in Episodes 95, 175, 197, on twitter, and his website. We want to answer YOUR big questions about work/remote work in 2020, so please contact us. Or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with any of your thoughts and ideas

Welcome to episode 218 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, which is actually a bonus episode, made up of my conversation with Laila von Alvensleben from Mural. mural.co https://twitter.com/lailavona LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lailavon/ https://lailavon.com/ If you're a regular listener, you will know that the last batch of guest episodes have focused on a topic, with contributions from different guests. And the way in which I have been working on this has been by recording full interviews with them, and then finding the bits that went together best. What this has meant is that I've got some longer pieces with some guests that I'd quite like to share with you. And what better way to do this than at the beginning of the year, while we wait for the first episode on our schedule to be released on 16th January 2020. So remember that this show is brought to you by Virtual not Distant, a London-based company helping managers and their teams transition to an office-optional approach, and my name is Pilar Orti, and I'm the Director. You can find everything we do over at virtualnodistant.com and you're welcome to get in touch with me on Twitter too @PilarOrti

Welcome to episode 217 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, which is actually a bonus episode, made up of my conversation with Marcus Wermuth from Buffer. Find out more about him over at www.marcuswermuth.com and follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/mwermuth If you're a regular listener, you will know that the last batch of guest episodes have focused on a topic, with contributions from different guests. And the way in which I have been working on this has been by recording full interviews with them, and then finding the bits that went together best. What this has meant is that I've got some longer pieces with some guests that I'd quite like to share with you. And what better way to do this than at the beginning of the year, while we wait for the first episode on our schedule to be released on 16th January 2020. So remember that this show is brought to you by Virtual not Distant, a London-based company helping managers and their teams transition to an office-optional approach, and my name is Pilar Orti, and I'm the Director. You can find everything we do over at virtualnodistant.com and you're welcome to get in touch with me on Twitter too @PilarOrti Let's go into the conversation, I hope you enjoy it.

In the final episode of the year, Pilar shares a wide range of listener's thoughts, yet again widening the conversation around remote work. We announce our new podcast collaboration with ShieldGEO and talk a little bit about some new Virtual not Distant services. Find out more about us over at virtualnotdistant.com

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Looking back at 2019, it's been a busy year - we've a lot to look forward to in 2020, but first it's time to reflect on a transformational time for remote working. We discuss research, infrastructure, technology and wellbeing issues and how they have shifted through the year - while we also look ahead at what's to come. For full shownotes please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/remote-now-what, where highlights include: 22.46 interview with Rowena Hennigan, remote work advocate. https://www.rowenahennigan.com/ 22.45 tech round-up - what a lot of changes we have seen, in the tools available for remote working and 59.15 loneliness and mental health in remote - an issue we'll surely hear more about in future. We have lots more to bring you in 2020, including a new podcast mini-series with a brand-new collaborator to share with you. We also want to answer YOUR big questions about work/remote work in 2020, so please contact us. Or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with any of your thoughts and ideas And meanwhile, we wish you a very happy end of year break however you are celebrating, and every good wish for 2020 - from Pilar, Maya and Ross at the 21st Century Work Life podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd, and full shownotes can be found at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/south-europe. We bring you 3 guests today, talking about remote work in Portugal, Italy and Spain, as well as further afield - for a different perspective on changing trends and attitudes, in this global societal shift. Is there a North/South divide (or even an East/West one)? 07.57 Felippe Silveira Felippe the co-founder and Executive Creative Director at Mowe Studio. He is originally from Brazil, and travels regularly in Costa Rica and Italy, while presently living in Lisbon, Portugal. You can keep up with Mowe Studio on Instagram here. 26.20 Giovanni Batista Pozza Giovanni has lived all over Europe and South/central Americas, and as well as running Be Happy Remotely, You can connect with Giovanni on Linkedin and follow Be Happy Remotely's community on Facebook. 40.20 Eva Rimbau-Gilabert Spain remains a late adopter of remote, and the research Eva refers to looks at homeworking, indicating 8% uptake (compared to Northern Europe/Nordics, approaching 30%), and the trend is still around self-employment not employees. You can connect with Eva to further conversation on LinkedIn and Twitter.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant, where we help teams transition to office-optional work lifestyles - find us at https://virtualnotdistant.com For full shownotes to this episode please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/artificial-intelligence, For now here's our list of 'what's going on' (recorded 30/10/19) Zoom is incorporating chat - and reflecting the trend of platform convergence, whereby everything wants to do everything. Do we need this? Or is there room for more differentiation - which has to be good for consumer choice. You can now email from within Teams client and Teams mobile… Why..? Slack also tells admins they can welcome people by email - but surely the whole point of these platforms is to move us away from email? IT managers thoughts on workplace messaging - new research indicates Slack is still most preferred, and most workplaces use more than one. Different functionality, shadow IT, or an experimental mindset… what do you think? Banning 'out of hours' email - surely this is treating the symptom not the cause? Reducing autonomy can surely only increase stress. But reminds us how important email still is...(Thanks for this link Teresa) Judy Rees (episode 60) has curated a great set of articles about online meetings, now published at InfoQ. Bad meetings get in the way of the work being done, but not for the reasons first thought of: 'technology is no longer the problem, the problem is the people' InfoQ recognised their own needs in this area and were glad to support this extended publication, to really help teams of any size and composition manage their online meetings better. From the tech to the culture to relationship buildings, this guide covers a great deal, so do check it out, and as well as Pilar you'll recognise contributions from many of our podcast guests. Judy has training coming up too which will interest listeners judyrees.co.uk @judyrees Listener question, from Brigitte: Should she pre-screen job applicants by email, for an online role? Well, if writing email is going to be a key part of their job then you need to know if they can write a good email… Otherwise, or additionally, it makes more sense to use selection tools which will reflect the demands of the job they're seeking. Please send us your questions! Maya is multitasking… and listening to more and more audiobooks, as a way to learn and do research while getting away from the screen. You can exercise your body while resting your eyes, and still enjoy books!

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd. There's more to remote work than improving life and work for those exploring its potential. Remote work can be a tool for social change - and today's episode explores different ways that remote work can have broader impact, with a diverse range of stories and approaches. One quick update before we meet our expert interviewees: Pilar has a new podcast with the International Association of Facilitators - so if you're interested in stories from the frontline of facilitation and learning and meetings, then do check that out and enjoy. Now, onwards with the social impact of remote: 04.13 Chris Slemp Chris Slemp is a Customer Success Manager for Modern Workplace, at Microsoft UK, and long-term friend of this show (joining us in episodes 123, 144 and 202) I asked Chris how remote work can help us build and be part of our community (wherever we want to build that, rather than necessarily at work)? He reminded us that commuting culture put responsibility on the workplace to provide 'community', and hubs like WeWork strive to provide everything the worker needs apart from sleep. But we have options now, and employers can dial it down a bit - Chris after all introduced us to the term 'office optional', and participating in office cultural activities (as opposed to work activities) should be optional too, freeing people to engage in their local communities as appropriate. Chris takes a fluid view of location-dependency and work, reminding us how flexible things can be, and that we all have a right to extend that optionality at other times. We can advocate for that flexibility for all workers, to take advantage of the technology now available to us. Chris also talked about the way remote work is affecting how and where people choose to live, and the social impact of this, a moving target for the future. Connect with Chris on LinkedIn (and tell him we said hi!). Remember that remote does not always mean flexible, and vice versa… check out episode 21 of My Pocket Psych for more on this point, while we meet: 17.06 Mandy Gardner Mandy is the managing editor of Working Mums and Working Wise (specialising in employment for over 50s), and joined us way back in episode 74. So she's been working with the idea of flexible working for years, since Working Mums started in 2006 (now joined by Working Dads as well as Working Wise, to advocate for and promote best practice around working flexibly for all). They work with employers to help them improve their recruitment and hiring, and has seen many changes in the flexible working agenda over that time. Employers are more open to the concept now, as the evidence is in to support flexibility. But there are still misconceptions (eg flexible = part time) among bigger less nimble organisations. Career progression remains an issue, as does being explicit about remote in recruitment advertising. Mandy sees flexibility becoming increasingly normalised into the future, as life grows ever more complex for parents, carers and all of us. 34.01 Nacho Rodriguez Nacho is the founder of the Nomad City conference run from Gran Canaria - a region working hard to attract remote workers, initially as digital nomads and now increasingly as employees. We talked about the conference with Nacho in episode 210, and we'll have an update soon from Nomad City 2019 (in progress as this episode drops!). Revitalising traditional tourist areas with remote opportunities brings new blood and fresh ideas, as well as creating opportunities for local people to get involved, and the conference has evolved over its 4 year history to embrace ideas ranging from economic development to onboarding remote colleagues to collaboration tech, as well as an invitation-only summit for experienced advocates and consultants. On the social impact front, the event includes a job fayre to connect local people with remote employers - opening up new opportunities for all. Lorraine Charles Remote means no borders - and Lorraine Charles is working with refugees in Jordan and Turkey to facilitate employment opportunities in the refugee population there. Protectionist labour market laws often restrict employment locally, so technology and the right training can enable broader opportunities for all the population. Location-independent livelihoods provides refugees with resilient futures, and helps stimulate the local economy, in countries which are themselves developing and struggling to deal with an influx of new residents. Remote work can do so much to change the narrative for employment and make everyone's lives better - not just for refugees, but parents, disabled people, those who don't want to migrate to a mega-city somewhere... But as well as hard and soft skills training, there are needs for better infrastructure, technology and support. Lorraine is actively seeking partners, to help them train refugees, and commit to hiring - can you help, or make a connection? Contact Lorraine via LinkedIn or email, and check out her research paper, or contact us and we'll put you in touch. Impact investment is also needed, to create sustainable pathways to growth in emergent markets, while also leveraging the initiatives and expertise of those who have been courageous enough to uproot their lives and start over. 1.02.30 Laurel Farrel Laurel consults and advocates for remote working through Distribute Consulting, and joined us in episode 189 when we discussed loneliness and remote. She sees the real power and value of our lives in the ripple effects of social change, impacting on equality, the environment and economic development amongst so many other things. Reversing the cycle of traditionally having to bring businesses in to attract employees, remote work can do so much to support declining areas from the US midwest to rural Africa - this article of Lauren's, Could remote work be economic development's new secret weapon? may be two years old, but every point remains relevant somewhere! Local advocates are needed to build trust on the ground, and solve specific local challenges - every community is unique, and solutions must be tailored and bespoke. People need and want different things from where they choose to live, and once that is decoupled from a job place the possibilities can be overwhelming. Locations need to learn to promote themselves differently, to attract remote workers seeking particular lifestyles, rather than attracting businesses - and this is a win-win for all, as new residents pay tax and spend their income earned remotely. Initiatives encouraging people to relocate include financial incentives in places like Tulsa and Vermont, and ever more creative solutions are continuing to emerge. As remote work creates more diverse and rich populations, as people are able to choose where to live, completely separately from choosing the work they do. This is changing communities, as well as changing lives. Don't forget to keep in touch and let us know what you think, at Virtual Not Distant, or tweet us at @Virtualteamw0rk. Hope this episode inspired you as much our guests inspired us! Please do share your thoughts and ideas.