TELEWORK PREPAREDNESS: 12 KEYS TO BUI LD AND MAI NTAI N SUCCESSFUL REMOTE TEAMS About Lauren LeMunyan PCC Founder, SpitFire Institute Lauren LeMunyan PCC, “The SpitFire Coach,” is a professional certified coach with over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience and over 1700 certified coaching hours. After working with over 300 clients in associations, tech, design, startups, real estate, oil and gas, and entertainment, Lauren identified patterns and themes in leadership frustrations, stress and burnout. The SpitFire Institute was created to give professionals, teams and organizations the support and training needed to address issues at the root and shift approaches and skills to get the best outcome for employees and organizations. Prior to SpitFire Institute, Lauren served as the executive director of the Environmental Markets Association, National Institute of Oilseed Products and The Weather Risk Management Association. Lauren also started her first business at the age of 12 and leverage the profits to pay her way through college. Lauren is the author of Spitting Fire: Your Guide to Reignite Your Passion at Home, Work and Beyond and Prioritization Hacks: 5 Key Tools to Maximize Your Day, host of The SpitFire Podcast and SpitFire rapper JRSY FRSH in a Bluegrass-Americana band. Lauren graduated from Rutgers University and is a Myers-Briggs Certified Practitioner, Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner, and a Release Resentment Certified Practitioner. 2 Whether you find yourself in a remote situation by choice or necessity, necessity or chance, this eBook is here to help you navigate the unknowns, pitfalls and challenges of managing a team outside of an office. This eBook was created on March 12, 2020 as the world began self-quarantining and working from home. Even the most prepared organizations and telework professionals faced new challenges in adapting to a new remote environment. With change all around and frustration leading to exhaustion and burnout, this eBook provides helpful principles, tips and processes to guide you and your team from uncertainty and confusion to trust and communication. All of the opinions in this eBook are mine. That's the great thing about opinions - anyone can have them or disagree with them. 3 As an executive coach for one of the 13 coolest fully remote companies to work for (according to Glassdoor), I have created and supported remote leaders around the world as they navigate the same issues traditional companies face with an additional twist on limited visual cues like body language, tone, and even real time communication. This eBook includes 12 keys to running a successful remote team. What isn’t mentioned, and what I am biased in thinking, is the most important - third party support i.e. coaching. Coaching provides a space to freely flush out ideas, troubleshoot and learn.When we are in our heads and behind our screens, it can be easy to slip into a stress reaction without realizing it. Before we know it, we are overloaded in judgment and assumptions and we feel the weight of the world. Then nothing gets done – you know the drill. If you'd like to explore what coaching can do for you and your team, visit www.spitfireinstitute.com/contact and schedule a complimentary 15-minute discovery call. 4 Before we get to the keys, let’s talk about the numbers of remote work. Telecommuting has grown 115% in the past decade (State of Telecommuting) 4.3 million people in the USA work from home at least half the time. (Global Workplace Analytics) Before COVID-19, 16% of companies are 100% remote (Owl Labs) By 2028, 73% of all departments will have remote workers. (Upwork) Companies that allow remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t. (Owl Labs) The 2019 State of Remote Work report found remote workers say they're likely to stay in their current job for the next 5 years 13% more than onsite workers Here are some of the perks of teleworking: Better work-life balance Increased productivity/better focus Less stress Avoiding a commute Sweatpants! 5 We could paint a rosy picture that teleworking is the panacea for workplace malaise, but that’s not the whole story. We need to have some real talk about the pitfalls and challenges to better prepare your awareness for points of friction and conflict. When I became a remote leader in 2010, it was out of necessity. My partner was out of work in Washington, DC for 13 months during The Recession and was only able to find a contract position in Houston, TX. This meant that I would either need to find a new job or convince my employer that I could be trusted as a teleworker. I traveled a fair amount with my position and had good relationship with my supervisor. My clients were happy, so I thought it was worth a try. The company was extremely traditional and had only allowed less than ten out of 400 employees work from home. Thankfully they agreed to the new arrangement. What I didn’t anticipate was spending the next six years feeling the pressure, judgment and career growth limitations of working from home. 6 Here is a list of concerns and stumbling blocks from my own experience and from my remote coaching clients: “If I’m not on my computer or responsive, my team will think I’m not working.” “I check Slack before I go to bed and right when I wake up and every time it dings.” “You don’t really manage people if you don’t see them.” “We can’t promote you unless you have a presence in the office.” “If I don’t respond to an email as soon as I get it, people will think I’m lazy.” “Team meetings are usually dominated by one or two people and I’m left more confused and less inspired that before we started.” “I feel guilty if I do laundry.” “Most days I don’t shower until after 5:00pm.” “There have been days I’ve forgotten to brush my teeth.” “I fear that my customers don’t think I’m professional if I work from home.” “I get easily distracted by the dishes and reality tv binge watching.” “I am never disconnected and know I’m not getting enough sleep.” “I feel like I’m not included in decision making.” 7 T H E 1 2 K E Y S T O S U C C E S S F U L A N D E F F E C T I V E T E L E W O R K I N G T E A M S The following twelve keys are the basic building blocks of building and maintaining a telework team. These items are suggestions to get you started. It is up to you to add your personal touch and make it work for you and your team. Know Your Company’s Policies How do your in office policies translate into the virtual space? If you’re unclear ask HR. If HR doesn’t know, reach out to an HR expert or look into resources through SHRM. Set the Tone Whether you are new to a team or have transitioned to a remote format, it is imperative to establish a tone. What does that mean? The tone relates to the shared values, expectations, goals, and operating principles of your team and how you say it. If you can establish how you’re going to handle decision making, projects, conflict management at the front end of the engagement, it will save you hours/day/weeks/months of stress and confusion. 8 Action: Schedule a virtual meeting with your team with a clear agenda to set mutual and shared expectations and vision for the remote experience. Allocate 90-120 minutes for this. Feel free to send these questions a week ahead of time to give people time to think and process. Sample Agenda I. Leader Kick Off - What are you excited about, looking forward to? II. Set Intention for Call - What does everyone hope to accomplish on the call? III. What is most important to you? (Recognition, autonomy, freedom, challenges, leadership) IV. Where do you see yourself needing support/what do you need? (Time management, organization, saying no, prioritization, collaborating) V. How do you define success for yourself and for the team? VI. How does this align or work into the company's mission and vision? VII. Establishing a Team Name 9 T H E 1 2 K E Y S T O S U C C E S S F U L A N D E F F E C T I V E T E L E W O R K I N G T E A M S Get to Know Your Team on a Virtual Level Your team members have more going on than what they share. It is your job as a leader to learn about what makes them tick, what motivates them and how to best communicate with them. You can start with the basics - their communication preferences. Do they prefer to talk on the phone, meet on a video chat, respond by email, get urgent texts, or respond off hours on an asynchronous platform? One of the most common missteps I’ve seen remote leaders make is assuming that everyone on their team communicates the same way, and shocker they usually think it’s like their own preferences. This can be done during your initial kick off meetings or during one-on-ones. Once you have clarity on communication preferences, you can work on understanding the motivation of each team member.