The Future of Work: Balancing Remote and In Person Collaboration
There needs to be a balance of remote and in-person work. The right balance is 1 day a week in-person.
Technology is the answer. With a willingness to challenge the status quo.
One day a week or even a fortnight will be enough to foster better collaboration through the remote tools at our disposal. Monday is the perfect day to be in-person, it’s a good time to recap last week and focus on the week ahead without having to be formal.Remote tools like Butter or Slack’s Huddles and Miro’s built-in Video Calls are great for when teams need to break out and work together remotely and none of these require cameras to be on; we spent decades doing business over the phone before video calling was even a thing, if seeing someone on a 2D screen isn’t improving communication then go back to basics, the phone call works it’s just not a phone anymore.
And a special mention to Notion; a well structured Notion workspace can hold everything a person needs to get their job done, from company policies to client documentation and help articles. The list is endless. Knowing that everything is in one place means you don’t need to bother a colleague to find what you are looking for, ask Notion AI and it’ll serve it right up, instantly.
Once again Slack saves the day; #music #friday-beers #football #geeknews #tvshows, the list goes on. Give your team the ability to create their own channels or create an approval process to do so and let them share what they desire, on their terms.I also use the term ‘office’ lightly as well; even when we do meet in-person the location doesn’t have to be fixed to a single place. If the team is scattered across London or even the UK find a location that works for everyone, there are lots of ad-hoc co-working spaces opening in and around London, these help make the perfect remote business failing that even a decent cafe can serve as a great spot.
People want agency over their own lives, give this to them and this, in itself, will maintain and improve morale. Parents want to be around for their family. Nobody likes having to rush to the ‘Daily Stand-Up’ for fear of being called out for being 60 seconds late. Mentors find themselves helping others and not getting their own work done, let them sign off for focus time when it suits them. If the work gets done to standard and on time it shouldn’t matter when it’s being done.
Remove time and attendance boundaries (for internal meetings) and give staff the flexibility to manage their own time, get their work done when it suits and you will be surprised of the results.
In most cases a new hire is the most productive person in the company, they push themselves to prove themselves then at some point they coast off with the rest of the tenured employees and it appears things are getting done at the last minute or corners are being cut and the attention to detail has gone. I asked myself why this happens and realised in most cases the work in this scenario is the mundane, repetitive tasks; Add a client to the CRM, update database records, renew system and software licenses, file documents, review customer feedback, i could go on.
All of these tasks, and more, are prime to be automated. n8n is the star of the show when it comes to automation, a well crafted workflow will ensure these mundane yet essential tasks are not only taken care of but are always error free and the best part, these workflows run 24/7. It’s like having +10 employees, they never take leave and they never sleep. That leaves your human staff to do the work that keeps them engaged, the work they show up to do that drives them and your business forward and if they want to take a break every now and then, then let them. After all, they are only human.
