The Stay Connected with Tech Data Series is designed to help our customers adapt to industry changes around virtual collaboration. Now, more than ever, the importance of staying connected with your team and your customers are important, so we hope you find the resources we provide in our series helpful.
At this moment, the flood gates have opened. Countless workers, educators, and industries, in the US have had to pivot from a brick and mortar tradition to a virtual workspace for the first time.
Surprisingly, I’m still coming across headlines and social media posts calling attention to the great work from home debate.
It doesn’t matter that major research institutions have studied remote work for years with positive results, or that many Fortune 500 companies have adopted policies as an employee benefit or a flexible 50/50 arrangement. It just seems being in-person is ingrained in the way we operate. It’s part of our culture. It’s who we are.
That is, until we are tested and required to exercise business agility in a time that demands stay-at-home policies to preserve our public health.
Innovation within the Stay-At-Home Limits
Because of new and emerging remote work policies across the United States, we are finding ourselves being put to the test, and we’re seeing unprecedented levels of MacGyver-like creativity because of it. Especially amongst jobs or activities we once thought exclusively required face-to-face interaction.
Just in my home state of Florida, I’m witnessing work-from-home “magic” everywhere:
In Boca Raton, a self-employed professional photographer, Kareem Virgo, managed to keep his line of work possible with a little imagination. How’d he do it? He took his services to new, virtual horizons, by web-conferencing his clients, and instructing them to pose from afar. Cell phone cameras have evolved so much so that most of his clients have the tools to pull off their photoshoot with a little bit of guidance. As part of his professional services, he edits the photos professionally.
At the end of the day, this photographer’s art comes down to light, shade, perspective, and improvisation. And through it all, he also discovered a way to expand the geographic footprint for his services.
In Tampa, a local meteorologist, Denis Phillips, delivered his weather report from his living room. Denis had his laptop propped up on a laundry hamper instead of a professional podium. Accompanying him were his two young children, one providing live, at-random keyboard performances, and another acting as a stagehand. Was Denis’ weather delivery flawless? No. But he found a way to show up and do his job anyway. And, to be completely honest, I feel a greater personal connection with my local meteorologist. Who would have thought?
This week, I even witnessed similar creativity play a role in a significant personal life event. A couple I’m connected with on Facebook was faced with a challenging decision: cancel, reschedule, or get married without the company of their family and friends. Nonetheless, they made it happen, thanks to Facebook Live. Probably with a few extra uninvited remote attendees (myself included), but it worked! And I bet you one thing, their wedding is probably going to be one of the most memorable amongst family and friends for years to come. I can imagine them telling the story to their grandchildren decades from now, “We got married on Facebook Live. We were real trailblazers for the time.”
In my own personal life, I’ve found my calendar packed with virtual coffee, lunch, and happy hours overnight. And I’m finding myself feeling more connected with my friends, family, and colleagues than I have in a long time.
What these examples reveal is that we are an incredibly innovative and determined species committed to showing up and getting important things done.
Yet still, comfort with “the way things have always been done” may stir some doubts in our minds.
So please, take a moment to hear me out as we address five common telework myths head on:
Common Myths About Remote Work
Myth #1: Your Team is Going to Be Less Productive
As it turns out, the question around productivity has more to do with exercising trust in your colleagues to get the job done, than it does in whether working from home will impact overall efficiency. A two-year Stanford study found that colleagues increased their weekly productivity by a full-day! Colleagues were less prone to arrive to work late or leave early. To add to that, they were less likely to participate in distracting activities (e.g., gossip that often distracts other employees as well). The company they were employed by also observed even more benefits, including a savings of $2,000 per colleague by reducing the amount of headquarters office space.
Myth #2: Professionalism Goes Out the Window
You might have heard Walmart is observing increased sales in tops (not bottoms) as more people turn to telework. One theory cited by NPR is more colleagues are wearing comfortable slacks or yoga pants in exchange for dress pants. This may also mean that remote workers are keeping their cameras on during meetings (a practice many businesses encourage). What a “camera’s on” policy ensures is that team members are held accountable for being on-time, prepared, and engaged during their team meetings. A “camera’s on” policy is just one best practice our team addressed in our recently published Working Remote SmartGuide. This is a great asset to share with your team if they need a nudge on how to keep “busy-and-professional-as-usual.”
Myth #3: Creativity and Innovation is Stifled
Science has proven a powerful link between creativity and constraint. In a 2015 study from the University of Illinois and Johns Hopkins University, researchers examined the role of scarcity and abundance in the way people make use of their resources. They found that when people experience limitation, they are motivated to make new connections and use of available resources in more novel ways because they have no other choice.
The safer at home policies in effect throughout the US have required an uptick in creative thought to get important things done. Earlier, I gave you examples of a photographer, a newscaster, and even a friend’s union.
Here is another story that made its way to headlines this week: UF Researcher’s are designing an open-source ventilator that would enable anyone with the blueprint to build it in as few as 15-minutes for only $125 dollars in supplies from a local home improvement store. The University of Florida isn’t the only institution in this race to support public wellness. Another Florida school, the University of South Florida (my alma mater), is mass-producing face shields by the minute for healthcare workers to address shortages. Examples like these are happening across the globe.
Myth #4: Team Collaboration and Projects Will Suffer
While this point may have held a couple of decades ago, cloud technologies, and collaboration tools have evolved so much that team collaboration at a distance is a breeze, and even fun!
As a member of Tech Data’s Cloud Solutions division, I’ve had the opportunity to get up close and personal with quite a few best-in-class cloud collaboration tools. Here are just a few I’m a massive fan of:
Microsoft Teams – You might have seen recent articles about the dramatic increase in Microsoft Teams usage. Microsoft Teams is a collaboration and communication tool for file sharing, video conferencing, chatting, and more. We are observing a lot of public schools turning to Teams to make instant virtual instruction possible. They are using it to communicate with parents, share assignments, and host their lectures.
Microsoft Teams also easily integrates with dozens of apps, including all the Office 365 tools we’ve grown to love and adore, and a trove of third-party tools like another favorite of mine, task management software, Trello. And I’m only scratching the surface of what this tool can enable teams to do.
Google G Suite – Google G Suite is a productivity and collaboration software, best-known for its web-based features and user-friendliness and accessibility for all audiences. G Suite’s unique features make things like advanced calculations in spreadsheets a breeze, or even taking presentations to new and polished heights. Check out this one-minute video highlighting the magic of collaboration that is G Suite.
Facebook Workplace – Facebook Workplace is likely one of the most underrated tools. Still, it’s familiar user-interface to the good ole’ Facebook social network, makes it super accessible to all ages. Enjoy a public feed of updates from across the organization, switch gears from a message to video chat, or follow up with your delivery team in a private discussion group. Facebook is also making a splash in the space of video conferencing, with its tool Facebook Portal. Portal is a unique method of smart display that supports HD video conferencing. This hardware includes smart sound to focus intuitively on your speech and filter out extra noise around you. Additionally, its smart camera knows how to focus and follow the subject that is speaking.
Myth #5: Teams Are Less Engaged When Remote
Let’s be honest. Colleagues can be equally disengaged in-person as they are afar. No matter the circumstances, it is critical to make it a priority to overcommunicate with your team to improve synergy. On my team, which includes workers from regions throughout the United States, we’ve historically participated in weekly standups to address our team’s biggest priorities. Since our entire team shifted to 100% remote a few weeks ago, our standups now take place tri-weekly. We also have a Teams Chat for an open forum, and weekly lunch and happy hour opportunities. Near or far, it’s essential to step outside of your comfort zone and find new ways to engage with your colleagues.
Now that more people than ever before are getting hands-on experience with telework, we might see the work from home debate enter retirement. No matter what side you are on, consider this: While we do not know for sure what the future holds, we are finding ourselves at a very poignant moment in time, that without a doubt will have a ripple effect on how we interact with the world for years to come.
The extent in which we rely on technology is becoming more and more transparent to the mainstream public, and it’s enabling us to “stay connected” and maintain unity in ways that would not be possible 10-20 years ago. So, let’s continue to innovate with a brighter future in mind. In the words of Walt Disney, “Times and conditions change so rapidly, we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future”.
Ashley J. Martinez is a Marketing Strategist for Tech Data Cloud Solutions. In her role, Ashley is most passionate about customer experience and designing meaningful experiences to make cloud things easier for our partner community. Before Tech Data, Ashley served as a marketing professional in higher education and the public sector. In her free time, Ashley enjoys exploring the Tampa Bay Area (her hometown), traveling, and spending quality time with her husband, Tilly, and our three dogs, Felix, Dobie, and Oreo.