By Te-Ping Chen
The coronavirus epidemic has lately prompted many companies to
permit, encourage or ask office workers to work from home. But in
recent years, separate from the recent crisis, some companies have
proactively chosen to design a remote workplace, believing that
structure is better for business.
It can, they say, yield better access to talent, a better
culture and more productivity. Success, they say, hinges on whether
remote employees can maintain their sense of collaboration and
community without feeling left out. Their strategies range from
hosting virtual holiday parties to setting clear etiquette for
online chats and video calls.
"You kind of have to plan for it," says Michael Pryor, head of
software company Trello, which was purchased by Atlassian in 2017
for $425 million. "It isn't as simple as, 'hey, let's all just go
home and we'll keep working.'"
Take meeting etiquette, for example. Trello employs around 200
workers, with 80% of them remote. For any meeting, if a single
participant is remote and participating in a video call, everyone
else is expected to individually do so as well. In practice, that
might mean four people sitting with their laptops open in the same
New York conference room, each with a camera trained on their
faces. Mr. Pryor says it places everyone on the same visual
footing.
Such a practice reflects a core principle Mr. Pryor and others
say is key: ensure everyone can participate equally, no matter
where they are. At Trello, special occasions are also celebrated
remotely, too, with managers sending cakes or gifts to workers for
their birthdays.
At cloud-computing software company Veeva Systems, the company
makes a point of not asking remote employees to travel to the
office for impromptu meetings, because doing so would imply their
location limits how fully they can participate, says Chief
Executive Officer Peter Gassner. And during his company's quarterly
staff call, he speaks via video link while sitting alone at his
desk, rather than present on video before a room full of people at
HQ.
"Otherwise it develops into an us versus them," he says.
Communication is a delicate dance in any workplace. Even more is
needed when workers migrate to a remote office. Companies have to
be deliberate about ensuring employees get to know each other, says
Wade Foster, co-founder of the all-remote software company Zapier.
Still, he says those efforts can yield more meaningful connections
than hallway small talk.
Zapier employees are randomly paired up every week to get to
know each other in informal 30-minute video calls. And every
Friday, when people write up posts summarizing their work for their
colleagues, there is also a tradition of adding something personal,
such as a link they enjoyed that week or a photo of themselves and
their families doing something.
"People really love that stuff, getting to see pictures of
teammates doing interesting things," Mr. Foster says.
Small gestures matter, says Automattic Chief Executive Officer
Matt Mullenweg, who oversees a workforce of 1,175 that is almost
entirely remote. The software company provides employees with a
$250 monthly co-working allowance that they are free to spend on
anything from avocado toast at local cafes to rent on a co-working
space. If more companies embrace remote working, Mr. Mullenweg
says, it could help bring prosperity to places that have been
bypassed in favor of big-city heavyweights like San Francisco and
New York.
"We can unlock economic opportunities across the U.S. and the
world," Mr. Mullenweg says.
Another all-remote company, software development company Art +
Logic, hosts virtual holiday parties: last Halloween for example,
employees wore costumes and hung out on webcam, talking about what
Halloween was like for them growing up. (For his costume, Art +
Logic President Bob Bajoras used the "pixellate" function on his
webcam and went as the anonymous whistleblower who alleged
President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe
Biden.)
There are certainly hazards to avoid, especially when using
workplace collaboration tools like Slack. At software services
company CloudBees, people didn't have a clear sense of when it was
acceptable to try to arrange meetings with colleagues in different
time zones, says Chief Executive Officer Sacha Labourey. Some
employees were abusing a Slack feature that sends notifications en
masse to everyone in a channel, so that people were getting
bombarded with alerts.
So CloudBees employees drafted a "netiquette" guide, which
instructs employees on best practices, such as rotating time zones
for meetings when people aren't in the same place. The company
currently employs nearly 500 people in 18 countries, 70% of which
are remote.
Remote boosters say messaging tools like Slack can make it
easier for colleagues to share high-fives and praise. At photo book
provider Chatbooks, emojis are used with abundance to offer
encouragement -- an arm flex, a lightning bolt, a raised-hands
'hallelujah.' A GIF of a heavily bearded Robert Redford smiling and
nodding with approval -- one taken from the 1972 movie "Jeremiah
Johnson," which was shot at Mount Timpanogos, near their company's
offices -- is especially popular in-house.
"Everyone can go click [the Robert Redford GIF] again, so you
get 17 nods of approval, and it's like, hey, I had a good day,"
says Chatbooks Chief Executive Officer Nate Quigley.
But chat tools, some of these companies say, aren't suited for
resolving conflict or long discussions. In those cases they say
video calls are best. Mr. Quigley says his company obsesses about
camera placement in its conference rooms to find the right angles
and ensure people don't feel like they are peering down, birdlike,
at peoples' heads. To avoid a tinny sound, they also spent money on
$1,200 speakerphone systems.
Chatbooks says its location-flexible attitude means it can tap
more diverse talent pools. Its all-remote customer support team
features so many working mothers that it is known in-house as the
company's "MomForce." Chatbooks also delivers pizza to the homes of
its support staff during the busy season.
"We order it for them, they don't have to do anything, they love
it," says Angel Brockbank, Chatbooks' customer support
director.
Write to Te-Ping Chen at te-ping.chen@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 13, 2020 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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