Working from home, under duress…

Aiera hired it’s first employee in the early summer of 2018, and then took on another two just a month later. Of those first three employees, two lived in or near Boston and one lived in New York. As such, we had to jostle with and solve for the struggles of a distributed team right from the beginning.

Over the last 20 months, the team has grown to fifteen. We have people working in Boston and New York (in the city and in the suburbs), Austin, San Diego, and San Francisco. The New York cohort does usually work together at our headquarters on Park Ave, which is where sales, business development, client support, and marketing operate. But we’ve otherwise fully embraced remote opportunities, with the engineering team fully distributed. While this setup is not without it’s challenges, having been this way from the very beginning has forced us to build and nurture a culture that accepts these challenges and makes it work.

some of the home offices of Aiera employees

In the last few weeks, millions of Americans (and millions more around the world) have suddenly begun working from home, and are doing so under less than excellent conditions. First, many companies will not have any underlying remote culture, and proper adaptation will be slow at best; and second, the reason for the sudden distribution is a global health crisis, and many employees will be understandably stressed.

The reason behind this global experiment in distributed work is distressing. However, we’ll have to find a way to face this new reality, as it will probably remain our reality for quite a few more weeks (or months). While every team and every company is different, there are some themes that I believe are universal to successful remote work, and I’ll share them here.

First, let’s start with the basics:

1. Technology is key: You’d think this would be obvious, but in my experience it’s often lacking. It’s not enough to have Slack and call it a day; technology needs to be interwoven throughout company operations. You need to have a common place to store and share documents, a shared calendar, a common communications channel, and you want them all integrated. You also need to provide the hardware and support needed for each home office, including a good laptop, monitor, printer, maybe even a desk and chair. And make sure everyone has good A/V equipment (camera, microphone, headphones).
2. Communication is everything: If you’re going from an in-person environment to a remote environment, one of the first things you’ll notice is the lack of casual interaction. You can no longer just wander over to a desk and chat. All communication needs to now be deliberate, and if you’re not careful things can become scattered and frustrating. Start focusing on how, when, and why you communicate, and try to keep most communication focused on a single channel (Slack, Teams, whatever). Be really careful that all the right people are invited to each chat, and make sure that everyone is included in some chat or other as often as possible. I also recommend having a weekly or biweekly all-hands, even if on occasion you just end up talking about nothing important. Finally, don’t just type, make sure you use audio and video often, hear voices and see faces. And make sure some of these chats are casual (check-in, say hello, talk about the weather). You need to replicate the office culture without an office, and it takes effort.
3. Have empathy: There are some tasks that are genuinely more difficult to do in a distributed team. Developers will often overlook this reality since software development is uniquely suited to distribution, but it’s important to be empathic to challenges that will emerge. Additionally, not all people will love working remote; while there are undeniable benefits, including flexibility, no commute, and (right now) benefits to personal health and safety, many people thrive in social environments and will struggle in isolation. So be understanding, listen to your teammates and employees, and be as flexible as you’re able. And when the fog of danger is eventually lifted, make sure to have some in-person time (off-sites, lunches), it can be good for team building.
4. Have trust: Related to empathy, you need to trust your employees and teammates to do the job. When a manager can’t physically see a direct report, it can be tempting to pester and micromanage, but that is nearly always counterproductive. Trust that each person is working, leave them alone, and simply check on progress when appropriate.

Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s also review some of the unique things that can make remote work culture wonderful. You don’t want to accidentally squash the benefits of a distributed team while trying to maintain the schedule and configuration of the office you left:

1. Flexibility: The best thing about working from home is that you’re at home. While it’s important to set boundaries, to define when one is and when one is not “at work,” the flexibility of being at home can also be hugely valued. Many employees would rather work late or start early, taking breaks throughout the day for errands or personal tasks, rather than simply replicating the hardened 9–5 of the office. As long as an employee is available for meetings and can deliver on tasks within the expected timeframe, don’t try to force a traditional schedule.
2. Better focus: While social interaction in the workplace is certainly valuable, it can be overlooked how disruptive and distracting an office can be. Whether it’s simple noise (people talking, typing) or unanticipated interruption (asking questions, impromptu meetings), the office can be a challenging place to really focus. One of the benefits of remote work is the ability to really grind for longer stretches. Leave people alone whenever possible, don’t recreate the distracting nature of the office with endless messages, meetings, or other inquiries.

Finally, keep in mind one thing that is specific to the here and now:

1. Stress: People are under duress right now. We’re all trying to focus and do our work as per usual, but it can be a real challenge when seemingly every hour brings about more terrifying news. You can apply some pressure to the team, but also be respectful of reality.

In the next few weeks, we are going to uncover, en masse, the benefits and risks of distributed work. While the circumstances are less than ideal, I will encourage everyone try their best to take advantage. I have been waiting more than a decade for remote opportunities to really take hold (we’ve had all the technology needed to do it for a long time now), and it has been rather surprising to see it happen nearly not at all, even in technology.

I don’t know what the world will look like when this crisis is behind us, but Aiera will still be here and will still be a distributed team, and I hope the world is awoken to the possibilities of an expanded remote workforce.