21st Century Work Life

Catherine Nicholson is the Director of The Virtual Training Team She last appeared on the show in episode 274, almost a year ago. Now she is back to let us know how the work with their clients has evolved, and how they have changed how they work as a team. The novelty of having to move online because of the pandemic has faded. Trainers, as well as other knowledge workers, are now looking at how to make the most out of the online space, once everyone has embraced the mindset that things can be done through technology. Trainers can move onto the next level by taking "learning loops'' as a first design point, by looking for a routine that learners are used to so that they feel familiar in the environment. Before this familiarity turns into predictability and people "stop trying", it might be necessary to "shake things up a bit" – but how? We need to enhance the learning experience, but maintain purpose. One of their approaches is to "be a kid in the sweetie shop", the sweetie shop being the huge amount of tools, stories, research, technologies out there that they can use. (Although always coming back to the purpose of the training.)Once they explore one of these "gigs", they focus on what is going to be essential to deliver the experience they're looking for. But they don't let everything go, in case it's useful as supporting materials. Another approach, driven by clients whose main challenge is the need for participants to consume and understand long chunks of materials. Here the problem leads to the process, rather than the output. For example, the material can be turned into an audio that summarises the key points, to be listened to before they go to the full material. Catherine covers a few more approaches that can prime people before they interact with the content. (In some ways, we're going back to "blended learning", in the widest sense of the world.) 13.30mins Learning pathways can be designed for learners: required and desired pathways, to help us curate the content and design the learning experience. This is a great way of fuelling the autonomy aspect of intrinsic motivation. Internal trainers have another challenge which is delivering sessions where there's a lot of content to be covered, through material designed by others in the organisations, sometimes even by another department, like communications. Catherine mentions a few ways to tackle this, like creating more slides. (More slides, you say? Yes!) Or if you can't change the deck, you can use "hide and reveal", or even using the pointer to direct people's attention through the information. Look out for Catherine's upcoming video on "Hide and Reveal"!(Their videos can be found here.)21.30Let's leave the tech to one side and focus on the quality of the conversations that participants have in the session. When you first start to train, it's easy to be scared by the "tumbleweed moments", but these aren't always bad, sometimes they mean that people are thinking, and sometimes they're necessary. (Plus, they feel longer in the online space!)There's a lot to think through when you're delivering online, screen, chat box, reactions, slides, camera pointing at you… While still being in "delivery mode". Having your questions planned in advance is key. Which will provoke deeper thinking in participants? Which can lead to more fruitful conversations? Thinking through these in advance will make delivery easier. 27.15There's a parallel here with the challenges managers have when they're leading meetings.Plus, we're now having conversations we didn't have before, more personal, more sensitive. Psychological safety is key. It's also important to know who is present at the meeting, in what way, and what they're supposed to be doing. For example, graduates might be attending to observe, can make this explicit during the meeting, and if they have their camera off, explain why. As a trainer (or manager), you can also keep a "contribution log" – being respectful that people want to contribute at different levels. Catherine covers some of the reasons people contribute less, and the fact that our introversion/extroversion preferences become more radical if we are uncomfortable. We can manage our presence in our meetings, and part of this is discussing/communicating how we use our cameras. For example, video is useful, but doesn't always have to be on. There are times when it's important for it to be on, and there are advantages, but it's not an absolute. It's important to understand our own preferences and not always design for them. Balance – that's the word. 37.00 The conversation turns to how Catherine's team is experimenting with new ways of working. They've come across the challenge of balancing schedule autonomy, with the need to be available to each other when needed. One challenge some team members have is seeing a message and, even if it doesn't need immediate replies, the message presence lingers, so they're using the Schedule message function in MSTeams."Flexible work" is great, but it needs structure. Catherine and her colleagues are experimenting with core hours, with flexibility within them. Through experimentation, we get clarity, and have to have conversations about working together. You can find out more about Catherine here: The Virtual Training Team

In the last What's Going On episode, which was actually a hybrid of WGOn and ReThinking Thinking Remote, Maya and Pilar discuss Maya's chapter from our book Thinking Remote, "Sick and Tired, Working and Not Working in a Remote Team". This add-on episode is the audio version of that chapter. You can read the blog version of the chapter here: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/sickness-remote-teams

WLP294 What's Going On: Wellbeing and Emojis This episode is a hybrid of What's Going On and Thinking Remote. Maya and Pilar revisit the chapter from Thinking Remote: Sick and Tired, Working and Not-Working on a Remote Team. They also discuss asynchronous communication and how it's being adopted in the workspace, they talk about the role of emojis and finally, they share a couple of social media discussions. 4.05 mins In the past (before the pandemic), taking time off work meant you had one of two choices – both were difficult processes. The first option was to go into work, even though you were ill - unless you were very ill, it was almost expected you would go into work, plus, we did not want to let our teammates down. The second option was to stay at home, but even then you were not fully away from work, as you could still do some work online and lessen the workload for your colleagues to feel less guilty. In both cases there is a sense of fear of work piling up that is still prominent even in current times. This has continued even in the pandemic. It takes a lot of self-discipline to step away and focus on resting and recovering. When visible teamwork is implemented, it should make taking time off to recover an easier process. As we are able to communicate our progress and give access to our work. This can help people rest and recover. Another part that is changing is our approach to mental health, as it is becoming acknowledged and more accepted to take a mental health leave in the workplace. 20.12 mins Pilar and Maya talk about the new space created by Salesforce called Trailblazer Ranch. It is a holistic and nature driven space with the purpose of getting people to connect with their team. They also discuss the article Diving Deeper Five workforce trends to watch in 2021, which states that wellbeing is a part of how we are doing work, it is not a separate aspect of it. (Yes, it's a year old but it all still feels relevant.) We can give people autonomy to make meaningful decisions about their contributions to the organisation to help prevent disconnection. This means we don't need expensive programmes to look after our employees' wellbeing. 25.47 mins The Royal Society for Arts (RSA) has recently released Social security: The risks from automation and economic insecurity for England's social renters covering the state of the UK's social housing, used by those who cannot afford market rates. Part of this article states: "When employed, people in social housing are less likely to benefit from good work practices that support their economic and personal security: only 38 percent of social renters are in work which offers them an annual incremental pay increase, and three quarters (74 percent) never worked from home, even in the height of the pandemic." When we are considering why we are doing hybrid or remote work, the main aim is to achieve autonomy and flexibility , but we still need to prevent a two-tiered workforce being created. You therefore need to find ways to provide flexibility for those who cannot do their work remotely. 31.49 mins Maya and Pilar shift to the topic of asynchronous communication, in the context of emojis. They discuss an article titled Do emojis represent the whole gamut of human emotion? The short answer is, yes they do. For this experiment they took 74 different facial emojis and observed how much valence and arousal they had communicated amongst a demographic of 1000 Japanese participants aged 20 to 39. To quote the article: "They see our emotional experiences as falling along continuous scales of both valence - how positive or negative an emotion is - and arousal. So, for instance, "sadness" has a negative valence but is fairly low in arousal; "anger" is also negatively-valenced but high in arousal; and "excitement" is positively-valenced but is still high in arousal." They have given us a cool graph with all of the emojis plotted of these different levels to show how different emojis have different effects. For instance, emojis that have accessories, such as the starry eyed or blue icicle, have higher arousal ratings. When communicating with people from different countries and cultures we need to take these aspects into consideration. The article, Caution! These emojis mean different things in different countries, discusses this. For instance it mentions that the prayer emoji can have different meanings depending on the culture. 50.52mins News from the social media community and our connections: Follow the conversation on Twitter about helping people adopt asynchronous communication. https://twitter.com/marjolijndg/status/1491476316453052420?s=21 Pilar will be speaking at Social Now in Lisbon, in May. Check out the programme, centred around a case study. (And look out for organiser Ana Neves talking about it on this podcast.) Penny Pullan has released the second edition of her book Virtual Leadership. You can get a 20% discount with the code FBM20 from the publisher's website. Lucid Meetings have released a new course "Free Your Team From Unproductive Meetings", If you would like to sign up to their March/April programme, this link will take you there. (Please note it's an affiliate link, so if you sign up, you'll also be supporting this podcast.) Have you got any news you'd like to share with our audience? Let us know through our contact form or Twitter. We also have a page on LinkedIn you can follow. If you have any other questions about asynchronous communication or have any thoughts or ideas you want to discuss you can tweet at Virtual not Distant or at Maya or Pilar directly.

In this episode, Pilar speaks to Chase Warrington, Head of Remote at Doist. Chase shares how he is challenging how remote work is approached at his organisation, and what he has learnt in his new position that can be used to improve the business and its people. You can find the show notes below, and there's a transcript over at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/head-of-remote-doist Chase discusses his new position as Head of Remote and talks about how as a community we can help each other learn and grow, and figure out what is the best way to overcome the challenges remote teams face. 24.36 mins Chase discusses the importance of bringing a team of people from different departments together to socialise and work on a new project, to help overcome feelings of isolation, loneliness, disconnection and disengagement. Working remotely does have its own set of challenges to overcome, not in the way of changing the entire system, more so that we have systems in place to implement when facing these challenges. Having a social calendar can benefit remote work as there can be a time set at the end of each month for people to come together and connect. However there are ways to make these gatherings more impactful. (You can read Chase's article "How to Build Human Connections in an Async Workplace" from Doist's website.) Chase has created a "social crew" to have these gatherings be more structured,create innovative ideas and have a sense of leadership. Having a place where individuals can come together to connect can be beneficial to not only the members involved but to the business as a whole. With these social crews there has to be intention behind the crews and the intention has to come from being connected at work, but not in the sense of being in the same departments. There are other factors that can connect people in the workplace, even when it is remotely. Connecting members from different departments to work on a project each month can help prevent feelings of isolation and disconnection. The most important aspect of the crews is to create this feeling of connection and get members of the business outside of their "bubbles'', to make them get to know each other under a common goal. 45.45 mins Chase hosts the About Abroad podcast separately from his work at Doist, and it's the result of him being an American expat in Spain. During his travels he's met many other expats and digital nomads facing similar challenges to him. So he's created the About Abroad podcast to discuss these various challenges, help other expats, or people travelling outside of their country for the first time. The podcast was originally set up to discuss living, travelling, and working abroad, but as his travels and discussions with people grew, the topic of remote work came into the discussion as well, as many expats do work remotely. There are a multitude of people from around the world who come on to the podcast and tell their own amazing stories, from building a community of nomads, to what it is like living in the South Pole. 42.57 mins As for Twist: Future of Work, this is a video series that promotes the use of various products and services that can help with the future of work. Twist is one of the products that Chase encourages listeners to use (it's part of Doist, of course!)but there are numerous products and services out there that seek to benefit the future of businesses. They have creators behind those products and services as well, and Chase is keen to feature them. Another aspect of this podcast series is to bring in founders of companies and discuss the ethics of the company, why they chose to start their own companies and any personal stories they want to share about the company and product. 51.55 mins Finally, Chase coversthe Estonia E-residency, which gives entrepreneurs and freelancers an opportunity to set up their own business in Estonia, and do business with other EU companies as well. Estonia E -residency does allow individuals to work remotely as an individual can live in another part of the world, for instance in Hungary, but they are seeking to do business in Estonia, they now have the means to accomplish this. Working remotely does have its own set of challenges, however there are advantages to it as well and ways to overcome these challenges. If there are any questions that remote workers, entrepreneurs, and freelancers have regarding remote work there are ways to find the answers to them.You can connect with Chase on LinkedIn, and listen to About Abroad on all podcast apps, or from the show's website.

Following episode 292's conversation on working out loud, here are the two chapters from Thinking Remote we covered.

In this episode, we revisit the chapters from Thinking Remote which addressed the concept of "working out loud".Adopting the concept helps to keep the team spirit, how to stay aligned and creative. Working out loud allows those who thrive on interactive energy - we can think of "working out loud for productivity, creativity and collaboration".The concept of working out loud has been around for a while, since the online world started thriving. (For more on this, check out episode 170, with guest Jochen Lillich https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/wlp170-working-out-loud )8.50mins How have things changed since we wrote those blog posts?18.01minsAn example of the power of "working out loud" and "thinking outloud".We quote from this article: Can Matt Mullenweg save the internet? 25.40 We revisit the chapter from Thinking Remote The Dangers of Working Out Loud , First published as a blog post in 2016. 30.40Next up, we turn our attention to the team member, and revisit the chapter by Maya: Now that I'm remote can anyone see how hard I'm working? 39.36 Community news, we share what others are tweeting and saying from our connections For more links and transcript, head over to www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/revisiting-working-out-loud

In today's episode Pilar catches up with long-time friend of this podcast, Marcus Wermuth to talk about his mid-pandemic transition into new role as the full-time senior engineering manager at Remote.com. This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. For detailed show notes, visit our podcast page.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. In today's episode Pilar and Maya reflected on the changes which have taken place in remote work throughout 2021 - differentiation of terminology, the rise of asynchronous communication, new apps, and the endless talk about hybrid! We also thank our community, and share news about upcoming workshops and themes for the new year. 36.08 Virtual Not Distant news 40.52 Thank you to our community

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. In today's episode Pilar interviewed Carlos Jonay Suarez and Elsa Rodriguez from Pueblos Remotos: https://www.pueblosremotos.com/ about their exciting initiative to bring remote workers and rural communities together in Spain's Canary Islands. Connecting local entrepreneurs with international nomadic workers synergises creativity and idea sharing, while creating lasting friendships in a sustainable ecotourism environment, to benefit all participants. Carlos would rather network with you in person than online, but meanwhile can be found on LinkedIn and also (in Spanish) SinOficina, and LinkedIn is also the best place to find Elsa - as well as keeping up with all the news and information on the main Pueblos Remotos site. You can find out more information and get in touch with us over at www.virtualnotdistant.com

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. In today's episode, Pilar and Maya kick off a series reflecting on Thinking Remote: Inspiration for Leaders of Distributed Teams, which was published in 2018 - a geological epoch ago, in remote work terms. What has changed, what has stayed the same, and how have Pilar and Maya changed and evolved their own thinking on these themes? The first chapter of the book dealt with designing the digital workplace, and you can read the original blog post from which the chapter derived here: Designing the Digital Workspace: What We Can Learn from the Physical Space — Virtual not Distant.