Operations and HR leads around the world are grappling with a number of critical questions around when and how their employees should
In particular, the question around whether or not to return to a physical office is a decision that will change a company’s culture, workflow, and the fundamental ways in which employees connect and engage with each other. At
There’s no one clear map that every single company should follow when looking at the pros and cons. And there shouldn’t be. But as I’ve reflected on our process, having some sort of playbook — or at least a set of guiding principles — for the role that remote work should play in a company would be a very helpful starting point for any C-suite exec or team leader embarking on this process.
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Based on my experiences as a COO helping lead a high-growth company through this transition, here are the core tenets that operations and HR execs should consider before deciding to go remote permanently.
Know the difference between remote-friendly and remote-first
This is a crucial distinction. At the beginning of the pandemic, so many organizations — mine included — abruptly transitioned to a remote model purely as a means of survival. Leaders tried to make things as seamless as possible for employees to work from home while maintaining a similar operational flow and levels of productivity that occurred in a physical office environment.
For us, that meant providing people with WFH stipends, staying in touch via video conferencing, and adjusting other company policies and perks to be as flexible as possible to meet the needs of our team. This is what I think of when I use the term remote friendly — for us, these quick pivots were more of a band-aid solution, rather than a long-term fix.
The concept of being
At Skillshare, we realized thatremote-first was critical to our future as a company because it leveled the playing field for all of our employees, regardless of whether they would eventually be able to return to our NYC headquarters. This isn’t universally the right choice to make, but it’s essential to be able to think through these differences.
Communicate clearly with employees, every step of the way
Early on in the pandemic, we conducted a survey and discovered that a large number of our employees weren’t interested in returning to any office full time. We wanted to make the decision to become a remote-first company so that employees could move on with making decisions about how to manage their lives outside of work, their families, and so forth. We made the right decision for our people, but we went about communicating it the wrong way.
We rushed to let the team know that we were moving forward with becoming a permanently remote company at our quarterly business meeting, without enough detail or clear context about what specific steps we were taking and why. The announcement was initially met with silence, followed by a flood of questions, and a lot of anxiety from employees, particularly around sustaining company culture and connection.
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As a leader of this effort, I got caught up in making the right call for our team, without thinking deeply enough about how this decision should best be communicated to the entire company, and how we could put people’s minds at ease. It was an important learning moment for me.
Upon further reflection, leaders need to address those employee anxieties upfront. I workshop new ideas with a small group of folks first, get feedback, and then think critically about the best method and channel to deliver these updates — whether that’s email, Slack, Zoom, or some combination of the three. It’s also equally important for employees to feel like they have access to the information they need, which is why your digital information repository should be constantly up-to-date with the latest policies, plans, and programming.
Have a long-term plan for sustaining and growing company culture
This is the big question that all company leads, whether you’re remote-friendly or remote-first, are thinking about constantly: How do you create culture in a remote environment? Again, there’s no one clear solution. As a starting point, my operations team has built out a programming calendar to include team events, learning and development opportunities, and surprise & delight moments to ensure a deliberate approach to employee engagement.
That said, being deliberate is the key to success. I actually think that too many connection points — such as an excess of virtual team bonding activities or internal meanings — can actually have a counterproductive effect on employees. Meaningful connections means knowing when, how, or evenifa meeting should take place. As a leader, sometimes you need to say no, whether that’s scrapping meetings on Friday, or sitting down with a project lead 1:1 and updating the rest of the team over Slack.
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At Skillshare, we have the longer-term plan of holding in-person offsites on a semi-routine basis, but that’s still pretty far into the future. For now, it’s equally as important to bring people together over Zoom as it is to know when to draw a line.
The truth is that we’re all figuring this out as we go. Maybe being remote makes sense for the time being. Maybe you’re at a point where you’re ready to ditch the office for good. In any case, you need to be transparent about where you’re at with employees, and always make sure they’re at the center of the process.
