21st Century Work Life

Lech Guzowski, a workplace culture facilitator, emphasizes understanding individual needs and responses to conflict for effective workplace communication. He uses the Thomas Kilmann conflict model to explain different ways people respond to conflict based on their levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness. Working remotely can allow for more thoughtful responses to conflict, but it can also hide simmering issues. It's therefore crucial to integrate conflict management into work processes and provide spaces for open discussion, especially in a remote setup. This practice helps to prevent artificial harmony and fosters authentic communication. Conflicts are an integral part of collaboration, and when managed well, can fuel a team's growth. However, remote teams can become conflict-avoidant, overwhelmed by conflict, or disconnected from issues. Leaders need to facilitate conflict management within teams, and tools like Lech's culture micro practices can be used to initiate these conversations. The hybrid work model, combining office and remote work, can also breed conflict, particularly regarding personal work preferences and decision-making about workspaces. Lech suggests running separate rules for each setup rather than merging them. He values in-person workshops but believes that office work needs to evolve from its traditional form. Lech hosts the "We Got This" podcast to inspire listeners with insights from Heads of People and CEOs about implementing people initiatives in their organizations. For the full summary, go to www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/navigating-conflict

This episode covers recent research on three different aspects of new and established ways of working: the effect of asynchronous work on folk music creation, the trends in use of online tools and productivity global productivity in the "work from anywhere" economy. (Oh, and we've thrown in some numbers from 2017, for you to compare whether anything has changed…) We refer to this content: Asynchronous work can fuel creativity. This episode from the Work from Home Forever podcast, Work Trend Index Report by Microsoft "Stop the Meeting Madness" published in HBR July-Aug 2017 New Research Reveals We're on the Precipice of the Next Global Productivity Boom. And for the full show notes, check out: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/new-trends

In this bonus episode, Pilar introduces the Five Principles of Asynchronous Communication: Team interactions work best when they have one focus: co-ordination, collaboration or connection. Teamwork happens in stages, and these can happen asynchronously or synchronously. Designing together our teamwork supports inclusivity. Asynchronous communication needs calendar time. Approach new asynchronous practices as experiments: agree, test, and review. If you are a new manager, or new to managing remote teams, you might be interesting in our new audio-first course on asynchronous communication. Sign up here to register your interest.

Our guest this month is Wayne Turmel, also co-host of Long Distance Work Life. Wayne has been studying remote work for almost 20 years. He now works within the Kevin Eikenbery group helping leaders in organisations. The word "remote" is becoming redundant as working with remote workers is now part of most knowledge workers. Wayne and Kevin have co-written three books: Long-Distance Leader and Long-Distance Team Mate (how to stay engaged and effective when we don't share the space with our team) which are focused on the individual, and the new book, Long-Distance Team - probably the last book in the series, written to help create the environment where long-distance leaders and team mates can thrive. In this podcast episode, Wayne Turmel discusses the evolution of remote work culture, and how organizations are adapting to new work setups, like hybrid models, and the need to intentionally shape their cultures. He delves into the meaning of 'culture,' the difference between macro- and team-cultures, and the challenges of maintaining organizational culture in hybrid setups. He emphasizes the need for discussions around the formation of new work cultures, especially in light of significant lifestyle changes during the pandemic. As organizations gravitate towards a 'hybrid' model, defining it remains a challenge due to factors like time management and synchronous/asynchronous work. Wayne underlines how the diverse geographical cultures contribute to varying perspectives on returning to the office. For more detailed show notes, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/hybrid-culture-is-messy

Coming out of the forced-remote period is getting messy: mandates to return to the office, forced working from home, diversity at a global level in how remote work is regulated, plus the ever-evolving technology! Recorded on 19 April 2023, this episode also includes guests Guy Van Leemput and Patrick Van Renterghem, organisers of the Brussels Digital Workplace conference.

Today we are joined by Sergey Fedorov (co-founder and CTO) and Tatiana Ivanova (Business Manager) from A1 SolarStore. This is an unusual kind of organisation for us to feature on the podcast because they deal with physical products, and real-world customer installations - but new ways of working are increasingly pervading every kind of industry, as this case study demonstrates. You can find the show notes here: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/startup-spirit You can learn more about A1 SolarStore and check out their blog on their website: https://a1solarstore.com/. You can connect with Tatiana and Sergey on LinkedIn.

A special episode, as it was inspired by a message from one of her listeners, who wanted to find out about more about the role of Head of Remote. Pilar reached out to Tyler Sellhorn, a teacher-oriented technologist who maintains the website headofremote.xyz. For the full show notes, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts /head-of-remote-position

In this What's Going On episode, Maya and Pilar talk about the range of features in collaboration technology that could affect the way in which we work together, without us even noticing. Recorded on 23 March 2023, you can find the show notes over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/control-the-tech 00.30mins Beware of the technology! 23.30mins Integration of AI 33.00mins Phones, phones, phones 35.50mins We love the tech, really! 40.40mins Other News 47.20mins Listener input Do let us know your opinion on all of this! We'd love to hear from you.

Pilar welcomes returning guest Robert Glazer to talk about helping people develop and thrive in an organisation, the subject of Robert's latest book "Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team To Reach Their Full Potential and Build A Business That Builds Leaders." You can check out the full show notes over at: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/elevate-your-team

In this What's Going On episode, Maya and Pilar discuss recent research into what people do with the time they save not having to commute to work, why people use third spaces of work and other tech updates. Recorded on 22 February 2023. Below are some time codes to guide you through the episode, but for the full show notes, please visit https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/third-places-of-work 00.30 Stats on working from home time savings and the 4-day week 21.25mins Research into third places of work 29.20mins Technology updates Do let us know your opinion on all of this! We'd love to hear from you.