RWL064 Laurel Farrer Transformative Strategies for Remote Team Management with Laurel Farrer

Evolution of Remote Work Thought Leadership

Alex Wilson-Campbell

0:00

Hello everybody. It's Alex at the Remote Work Alive podcast, or from the Remote Work Alive podcast. You're very welcome. Thank you for joining me today. And yet another special guest with me today.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

0:12

I've got Laurel Farrer with me today and I've been following Laurel for a little while now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

0:20

She's one of the very first people that I started to follow when I was considering remote work myself some 10 years ago, and I just really feel privileged to have the opportunity to have Laurel on the podcast today, because when it comes to knowledge and insight on remote work, there are people who are experts and then there are thought leaders, and Laurel is really up there in terms of her thought leadership. She she's a distributed operations consultant and she collaborates with some of the the world's top remote friendly companies to strengthen, you know, virtual operations, digital processes, develop long distance management strategies. She writes for some of the top magazines in the world or top online publications about remote work, forbes being one of those publications. So you can imagine that Laurel really knows her stuff. And in terms of her clients, I mean a client is a list of the who's who in the world of companies, let alone remote companies New York Times, logitech, upwork, fast Company, microsoft Gallup. You know all of those names. So, laurel, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

Laurel Farrer

1:39

My pleasure, my goodness, I'm going to blush with an introduction like that. I appreciate it. Well, you know, I'm going to blush with an introduction like that, I appreciate it.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

1:45

Well, you know, I'm going to tell you as it is, and we only have the very, very best on the Remote Work Life podcast, and you certainly are one of those. So thanks so much for taking the time to join me. I know you're so busy. You're appearing on podcasts here, there and everywhere, so how is that all going? I'm sure you're pretty busy at the moment going.

Laurel Farrer

2:03

I'm sure you're pretty busy at the moment. Yeah, it's been a memorable month and a half, that's for sure, but it's starting to slow down, or at least stabilize, now that the shock factor has passed us, and so now it's just a matter of switching the conversation from shock to sustainability. How do we implement remote work on a long-term scale? And that's a better and more comfortable topic to be discussing, oh yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

2:32

Hang around, because that is essentially what we're going to be discussing today, because, as Laurel said, the shock factor I hope for you has worn off as a manager of a remote team, whether that's because you've you've been forced into remote work or because you're all of a sudden having to really just sort of, I suppose, amp things up a bit or at least get things streamlined and steady. So we're going to be speaking really to you, managers of remote teams, today to really help you to, I guess, take things to the next level, now that you've started to get your feet under the table in terms of remote work and you're trying to make it work for you, for your team. So, yeah, please do stick around. So, laurel, I'm really intrigued.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

3:21

I mean I've looked, I've done lots of research on you. I'm really intrigued. I mean I've looked, I've done lots of research on you, but I'm really intrigued, from your own standpoint, to know how you got to this point. I mean, you've been in remote work for a number of years, been doing remote work and advising on remote work for a number of years, but from what I can see, you were in events at one point. How did that all transition into where you are now?

Laurel Farrer

3:45

yes, I'm the black sheep of the remote work world, that I do not come from tech and that's actually part of my my origin story, I guess, if you will, because I was in in services. I was in the events industry for the first decade of my career and so I was running fully distributed teams in that industry and didn't get connected with the terminology and the community of remote work until just a few years ago. And when I did get connected with them, it was just this huge epiphany and revelation and relief, because they had so much structure and terminology around things that I had been doing for so long. And so it was this great moment of knowledge sharing because I said, oh, I'm so excited to learn from all of you guys, these other distributed companies and virtual leaders. I said, oh, I'm so excited, I've only been doing this for 10 years. And they said 10 years. We were in middle school and I said, oh yeah, I know you were.

Laurel Farrer

4:53

So that's when we had this back and forth right that I said, you know, this is a best practice that I found in the different companies that I've worked with. And they said, oh, yeah, we have a word for that. It's a standup right. Or, oh, we have a word for that Like it's distributed or you know things like that. And I was like, oh well, you guys really have a lot of information to share. It could do with a bit more polishing based on on longevity, but you really should get this out of the tech world. You really need to share this with other industries and larger companies. And so that's what put me into the position that I'm in, and it's like, yeah, let's talk to healthcare and see what they're doing. Let's talk to engineering and see what they're doing. And so it wasn't necessarily that I was the best or the brightest expert that put me into a thought leader position. It was that I was willing to expand out of the silos that previously existed and I think, yeah, those silos.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

5:56

I suppose that's um characteristics of the of many of the people within the remote world, not just just yourself, but it's about, I think lots of people think about remote work and remote workers as being quite closed off and quite retreating into their bedroom or wherever it may be. But it requires so much more. It requires a lot of um communication. It requires a lot of getting out there and seeing what people are doing in a deliberate way, doesn't it? Um? It looks like that's what you've really been doing I love that.

Laurel Farrer

6:30

I've never thought about that as a symbolic macro representation of what we really epitomize as remote workers. But, yes, you're absolutely right that you need to be much more transparent, much more proactive and much more consistent and open in your communication style. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be, you know, extroverted or aggressive or any of those negative words, but just more open. And so, yeah, I've never thought of myself as an exemplification of that, but I guess I am. That's a fun thing to think about, definitely, definitely. Not to mention, you're appearing on another two podcasts today as an exemplification of that, but I guess I am.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

7:04

That's that's a fun thing to think about definitely, definitely, not to mention you're appearing on another two podcasts today, I think. So that does require itself a lot of uh, a lot of networking, a lot of speaking. So, yeah, um, just keep doing what you're doing. I love it. I really do love what you're doing, um in terms of okay, so for you then I mean, you're at distributed you, you you run, you're a CEO of distributed um at the moment. Um, but where does so your, I suppose, happily appears as your main 100 distributed role? Could you take me forward from there then in terms of, uh, how you sort of evolved into then becoming the consultant that you are today as well?

Laurel Farrer

7:46

Yeah, I think I was the largest distributed team that I managed. But how I actually got started in remote work was almost a decade before that. It was when I took my own team remote as again, I was operations management. That's been my career until I founded Distribute Consulting.

Laurel Farrer

8:06

And back in the very beginning it was me and the CEO of a small events firm in Colorado and we were in a critical stage of growth that we were looking to save costs on real estate. We were just at that stage that we needed to get the big downtown office to impress all of the clients, and so we were getting ready to make that jump. But the irony of the events industry is that you get an office but during the busy season you're never in it because you're always on site at the event. And so we were getting ready for that busy season. We were scaling up, hiring people and we said you know what if we just pushed pause just for a few months just to save on those real estate costs, and at the end of the season we'll get the office space? And so that's what we did, and we never got the office. We were just so impressed with the employee retention and the recruiting benefits with the saved costs. I mean, we were a small business and that really made or broke our bottom line and we were just thrilled with the results that we saw.

Laurel Farrer

9:21

But at the time, I mean, this was what 2006. So this was, it was not cool then. It was not, um, you know, trendy to be a distributed company. You could not tell anybody that you were, that you didn't have an office space. There's no way that we would have been taken seriously as a woman owned small business without an office. Like no way. Um. And so that's when we had to play it off as good customer service, like, oh, we'll meet you at the event site or we'll come to you, or let's meet for coffee or something like that.

Laurel Farrer

9:53

So we had to cover it up. But it was just made so much sense as a business strategy. And so through the years I consulted on the side as technology continued to develop. I would just answer questions for people in my network about how to operate this way to save on real estate costs, and so it was fantastic. We watched the evolution of video conferencing becoming accessible and cloud collaboration with Google Suite and stuff, and it was a really great process to be a part of and to grow and build, and so that's what gave me that consulting experience.

Laurel Farrer

10:35

So, yeah, after I worked with those larger companies and realized that there was a right way and a wrong way to do remote work and that there really was some a need for consulting in that space, then that's when I just took my you know, on the side consulting hobby and turned it into distribute consulting. And so now we, we advise on all things remote work. Sometimes it's change management consulting, sometimes it's just subject matter expertise and we advise on products or market research. Um, we host events, we write content, like all things remote work. We really help people understand it and leverage it on it and in a in the best way possible and would you say?

Alex Wilson-Campbell

11:17

I mean you mentioned that uh, almost like a credibility issue that you had with trying to convince people that you were I don't know what the word is, but I mean I had that myself, not not in the same way that you did it, but did but, um, when I was consulting in terms of my career consulting I chose to, um, I chose to be fully remote as well, but everybody always used to ask me um, can we, can I meet you at the office, or where's, where's your office, sort of thing. And that, for me, was a big challenge, a big hurdle for me to overcome. Was that probably your biggest hurdle in terms of that factor that you mentioned?

Laurel Farrer

11:53

Oh yeah, I mean we still see this now, right? I mean this is why remote work is such a big topic right now during the coronavirus Contingency plans is because people think is this sustainable? Like would we lose any credibility? Would I lose any credibility if I weren't in the office connecting with my boss every day? Like this is still a big concern for everybody, and justifiably so. I mean, this is a big transition and it's part of an entirely new industrial revolution. And it's part of an entirely new industrial revolution and so people are.

Laurel Farrer

12:26

There's a lot of uncertainty and it's a big risk to take in your career.

Laurel Farrer

12:30

So that's exactly why we exist as consultants is to make sure that people understand that this is a sustainable strategy and how they can position themselves as a business or as a worker or as a manager to be more visible and more confident in their career development, and just making sure that people understand that this is really a benefit and reward on so many levels. And I think that's exactly what makes distribute consulting unique is that there are so many people out there that evangelize remote work, that they are just they say, oh, this is so great, everybody should do this. Anybody that's not doing this is ridiculous and that's ridiculous and that's completely unrealistic. And so we do. We pride ourselves in being that credible, realistic thought leader that says we understand that this is complicated and we're going to walk you through this process. We understand that there's, you know, unsexy issues to talk about, like compliance and payroll and international tourism laws. Like we understand that and so we talk about the more serious side of remote work.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

13:44

Understand that, and so we talk about the more serious side of remote work. And again, you're also founder of the Remote Work Association. Does that association always sorry, not always but also sort of underline that point in terms of getting our credibility out there, getting our, you know, having a credible voice for people within remote work? Is that what that's all about? Yeah, Absolutely.

Laurel Farrer

14:05

This is all about building community, and when I started the Remote Work Association, it was never intended to be a large community like it is now, and so I didn't even know the term remote work until I was a remote work thought leader.

Laurel Farrer

14:33

The first time I heard the word agile was when I spoke at an international agile conference. You know, like it just so much was siloed, and so I wanted to help that and say let's all unify, not just from the tech industry, but from all of these different industries, different countries, different levels of roles, like whoever you are, if you're a freelancer or a C-level executive, if you're a remote work advocate and you want to talk about this at a deeper, meaty level, let's meet here in the Remote Work Association. And it just started as a very small informal invitation that I sent to about 30 friends that I had spoken at conferences with, and, and then now it's several hundred members strong, with members all over the world and and companies, um, that are some of the most reputable and and impressive brands in the world. So it's it's an honor to be a member of that community, let alone the founder of it tell us the url for that.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

15:30

I want to share that out as well. I'll put it in the show notes too, obviously, because I think that's really important, because I mean it feels like remote work is a movement, but it really. I mean it shouldn't necessarily I don't think necessarily should be a movement in a sense, but it's good that there is some sort of movement, if you see what I mean that there is some sort of movement, if you see what I mean.

Laurel Farrer

15:52

So what's the URL? Where can we find that? Yeah, that's the remoteworkassociationcom, and it's where thought leaders connect and can really ask each other questions and share their expertise with newcomers. And so we have a great campaign that's really taken hold during the coronavirus contingency plan wave of keep the world working, and so it's all about economic impact and business continuity during this time of transition, and it's where a lot of our members are offering free consultations to new leaders that have a lot of questions about remote work but maybe don't necessarily need or can't afford full level consulting. That's what they're providing through that association and, yeah, it's people that are actually credible experts, as opposed to, let's say, marketing capitalists that are taking advantage of good SEO and a strong news cycle. That's something that we really saw a lot of during March 2020, right, a lot of businesses, a lot of companies that said, oh, we're work-from-home experts. And we said, oh, okay you have experience with this.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

17:08

Yeah, exactly.

Laurel Farrer

17:09

Because I remember two months ago asking you if you worked remotely and you said no. So yeah, it was a. It was a tricky time to navigate, but and it still is. So we want to make sure that people have access to true authorities and not just enthusiasts and not just experienced workers, but true, comprehensive, diverse uh thought leaders and experts that can help them through through this transition make sure, guys, you check out the show notes.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

17:38

The link to the association will be in there and have a look. And yeah, it was really disappointing in some ways to see you call them um. What did you call them marketing? He was very polite in what you said. You called them marketing capitalists I like that, I like that, yeah, opportunistic people who are just jumping on the bandwagon of oh, we can do this for your, your tech, we could do this for your team, we're remote, this remote that it was.

Navigating the Remote Work Landscape

Laurel Farrer

18:05

Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean, yeah, it's been, uh, it's been tricky, I don't. I mean, I'm I'm happy for the support of remote work. You know, as advocates. This has been something that we've been working for for a long time, so I'm happy to see that people are are supporting and understanding remote work on a larger scale. However, uh, as you mentioned, I'm a forbes writer and so there's a lot of press releases that come through my inbox from people that are hoping that I'll cover it through Forbes, and I started sharing them with my team at Distribute just so we can get a laugh together, because some of the capitalism that we've seen, the opportunistic marketing that we've seen, is just absolutely hilarious. I've seen like a smoothie shop that was trying to capitalize on this. I've seen like stuffed animals. I've seen just like false eyelashes.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

19:04

Really, how is that? I know?

Alex Wilson-Campbell

19:07

I'm like, wow, okay, that's my market and my competition has changed a little bit in the past month, just a bit, and it just I mean that's, in a way, while I started a remote work, life was just a really well, actually not this wave of sort of opportunists, but even before this whole wave, this, this whole thing is now, I suppose, intensified because of what we're going through, but just wanted to to be able to have some place where people can come and really see people like yourself, who, who know what they're talking about and they can be sure that they're talking, you know they're listening to somebody who's an expert, because it's it becomes information overload, doesn't it? If everybody's saying, yeah, I can do this for you, I can do that for you, I've done this in terms of the remote world. So overload, doesn't it? If everybody's saying, oh, I can do this for you, I can do that for you, I've done this in terms of the remote world. So, yeah, it doesn't make it easy and it can be very dangerous as well.

Laurel Farrer

19:57

If you're listening to people that have no idea what they're talking about, you can put your company in a lot of danger. That's the problem with change management towards remote work in general. The problem with change management of towards remote work in general is that typically it's a very careful, meticulous, well-planned strategic process that takes at least three to six weeks minimum, if not three to six months. And now we saw the entire world do this overnight. And then they think, oh well, now I'm a distributed company. Click, like you know, I'm done, check it, that was easy. And I'm done, check it, that was easy.

Laurel Farrer

20:31

And that's not the case at all.

Laurel Farrer

20:33

It is not just a matter of sending your workforce home with a laptop.

Laurel Farrer

20:39

And if all the only perspectives that they see is this noise of these opportunistic marketers that are saying, yeah, like, it is that simple, and yes, this is so great, and if you're not doing this, you're stupid. And and you know, here are here's a comic book that I wrote about remote work. You know, like all of these ridiculous, ridiculous messaging, yes, it's beneficial for their business, but it makes it harder for leaders to get access to the resources that they actually need to make this sustainably and successfully. And so, yes, I mean I highly recommend that all of these leaders understand that allowing remote work is very, very different than actually adopting remote work, and in order to do it successfully, you need to adopt, you need to make changes to your learning and development teams, your onboarding systems, your talent acquisition funnels, your policies, your infrastructure and communication channels. Your org chart, like everything, needs to be evaluated on a very serious level, and so make sure that you screen your consultants and your subject matter experts very, very carefully.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

21:50

Yeah, and there's going to be a lot of them popping up in your inbox or on your LinkedIn feed. So yeah, you do have to really scrutinize them In a way.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

22:00

It's kind of on the other side of things. It's like you said. It's quite dangerous because I get a lot of people, for example, on the side of job seekers who are trying to, you know, get into remote work, and they're faced with like a plethora of people sort of claiming to offer that sort of facility because they're using it as a means of marketing their business, as opposed to you know what the business is about. They're saying, oh, they're using that as their main banner to get people involved, and that in itself as well is also it's pretty dangerous too, because people get burned from those sorts of experiences.

Laurel Farrer

22:37

So yeah, yeah, if you adopt it correctly, you can make a lot of money from, or I should say, save a lot of money from, adopting a remote work model. I mean, the average is about $11,000 to $20,000 US dollars per worker per year if you adopt it correctly. However, if you don't, it can cost you that much, if not more. So yeah, it's. I mean, you really put your, you're taking a risk if you are consulting the wrong authority.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

23:11

Absolutely. And on that, I mean, let's talk a bit about them, because we're here to sort of really help managers of remote teams and some of whom have been put in a situation where their hand has been forced into the scenario that they're in Others, where I guess remote work is something that they've been doing for a little while, but there's still areas that they need to improve within their team as well. I mean, what steps, laurel, can managers take to really help their team to become better remote workers?

Laurel Farrer

23:53

Well, obviously, long-term, I would suggest working with a consultant to really review and optimize your remote work model, but in the short term, we all just need a bandaid right now, right? So, as a benchmark for an emergency contingency plan, I recommend that every single leader do a minimum of three things. The first thing is to streamline your communication channels. The first week or two of just coronavirus media boom, everybody was talking about tools. What tools do I need? What software do I need?

Laurel Farrer

24:28

That was the only conversation happening, and it's really, really critical to remember that, as managers, we can use tools to do our job better and to be more efficient with our results, but we cannot depend on the tool to do the job for us. So it's still important to unify your team, to motivate your team, to inspire results and innovation. You know all of those, all of those factors. You cannot have a tool do for you, and so don't get tempted to add so many tools to your software stack that it becomes cluttered and disorganized and people are in 18 different places all at the same time. Really streamline your software stack as much as possible and just build a toolkit of maybe one or two or three tools and keep your people in those three places maximum.

Laurel Farrer

25:24

That way you're essentially exactly, you're just in. That gives you the sense of being in the same place at the same time and people have much, much more accessibility to information and to each other, and that by itself helps prevent isolation. So that's the first one is to simplify your communication channels. The second one is to upskill, so get some specific training for your workforce. That is about remote work specifically.

Laurel Farrer

25:52

The caveat and the cruel irony of remote work is that you don't know what you don't know. So you go home and you're sitting here with your laptop and you think, well, I think we're doing okay. I mean, it seems like we're doing okay. Are we doing okay? I don't know, and you just have no benchmark, you have no way of measuring, and so that's another reason why it's critical to get connected with a consultant or an expert that is from your industry that can say this is where you need to be as a benchmark. And let me give you that training to fill the gap between where you are now and where you need to be.

Laurel Farrer

26:34

And so that's workforce training on skills like self-management, that's leadership training on how to manage and supervise productivity without sensory supervision, like there's all of these components that you need to be thinking about. So second is training and then third is policy. So, as a consultant, the number one reason that people have policy retractions or concerns with their remote work models is misaligned expectations. Everybody has a slightly different interpretation of what remote work is going to look like in their life, and often those don't match up with a manager's perspective and a worker's perspective. And so there's problems like oh, I can't get a hold of them when I need to, or you said you were going to deliver that, but I needed it last week, and like there's all of these just small frustrations that add up and accumulate to big problems and big frustration.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

27:34

And so developing a remote work policy and just having a discussion as a team about what is going to be expected of us to make this work is absolutely essential, not only as a legal document but as a team agreement as well, and I, on the distribute consulting website, we have a free policy download for everybody, because we do feel like this is so essential for everybody to to know about and to have yeah, and I think we should link to that as well in the show notes, because, um, you, you take me back to a time when I I was in a team that allowed um, it allowed me to work remotely, but not everybody on the team was really on board with remote working and it caused all kinds of um, confusion and conflict and frustration and there was no, there's no policy around remote work for everybody just to sort of gravitate towards and understand that this is how we you know how we've implemented remote work within our team, so I think that's really important, so I'm going to ask for the link to that so I can put that in the show notes.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

28:44

Um, yeah, definitely okay.

Laurel Farrer

28:46

yeah, distributeconsultingcom and and it's just there as a banner on the top of the screen.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

28:51

Oh, it's at the top of the screen as well. Okay, good, great, okay. So those are great steps there. Thank you, laurel. So I mean, in this scenario, in the scenario that we're in, it's very unusual. As I mentioned before, lots of people managers, you know teams have been forced to go the way of remote work, unfortunately for them, and they may have a mix of skill levels, because, I mean, one of the things that you associate with remote workers over the years is that they have a pretty good handle on technology and how to use cloud systems, email, you know you, you name it. But if, if your team has a mix of skill levels or kind of job functions, um, that probably aren't that acclimatized to, um, working with the technology, how do you keep them on board and avoid that sort of isolation?

Laurel Farrer

29:54

Yeah, isolation and discrimination too right. We see this a lot with the team members that are on site and they have the accessibility to each other that they need. They have more visibility for job promotions. And then the remote workers are kind of out of sight, out of mind. A quote that I refer to often is from a partner of ours over at Work Placeless and they say if you have a remote team member, you have a remote team. And that rings true for every company that I've ever consulted.

Laurel Farrer

30:24

But especially right now, as we consider this question, who is going to be able to stay working remotely permanently? Who needs to go back to an office? You know what does that all look like? And so that's part of what we do at Distribute is that we evaluate each role and we identify how much do they need to be on site, how much can they be off site? How does that impact the org chart? How much can they be off-site? How does that impact the org chart? You know all of those questions, but the criteria really boils down to if your job primarily uses a computer as its equipment, then it's remote-friendly, and so we encourage as many people to work remotely as possible even if they're not necessarily working off-site.

Laurel Farrer

31:12

So what this means is that all of your team members, regardless of if they are in the office or if they're out of the office, they're all meeting in a remote environment. So they're all sitting down and having video calls from their computer equally, and that helps eliminate, like those awkward situations of everyone sitting in the conference room and here's this webcam that's like way in the corner of the room and they have. The remote workers have no idea what's going on, they can't hear anybody, they can't see anything, and that's what's really creating those discriminatory factors. So, yeah, that's what's really creating those discriminatory factors. So, yeah, we encourage everybody to implement the same workflows and collaborate in the same communication channels, whether they're on-site or off-site yeah, I like that nice and simple, nice, simple sort of a way of doing things that keep things simple here.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

32:08

That's, that's good. So, um, what should managers do to help their team? Because I mean again, um, even as a, as a, I suppose, a remote worker or somebody who's working in a distributed team, there are challenges, and one of those challenges is, you know, keeping the whole mindset on top of things where that's concerned. What should managers do to help their team with the psychological challenges of the current remote work situation?

Laurel Farrer

32:41

Yeah, you know, this is really tough because this is not what businesses have have just converted to. Is not a work, remote work model, right, like this is not remote work. I want to be very clear that even remote work experts like myself are overwhelmed and stressed and chaotic. Like this is not working remotely. This is trying to work remotely amidst a global pandemic and an international economic crisis and meantime, trying to take care of ourselves, take care of our family members, our loved ones, combining our entire lives into our homes. So, all within the same several, you know hundreds of square feet, we are working from home, learning from home, shopping from home, worshiping from home, cleaning from home, exactly like everything in the same space, and it's a lot and it's overwhelming and it's completely disrupting both our personal lives and our professional lives. So, um, so I think right now not I think two months ago, three months ago the advice that I was giving to leaders about how to best support their workers is very different than the advice that I give right now.

Laurel Farrer

33:58

Right now, we just need patience, we need support, we need encouragement and we need we need encouragement and we need open minds because our work and our lives are totally blurred and you know typical advice like, yes, you should arrange child care and have enforced quiet environments and things like that. That's unrealistic, like that's not going to happen right now. So right now, we just need to accept that work and life are the same thing right now. So right now, we just need to accept that work and life are the same thing right now and we need to be okay with that and encourage and allow our workers to be their whole selves. And that might be, you know, taking a break to make lunch as mom, or it might be mean taking a break, or taking a day off to go attend to a sick loved one or something like that. Or volunteer work in an emergency crew or something.

Laurel Farrer

34:58

But our personal lives are flexible, our work lives are flexible. So right now, we just need a lot more patience and acceptance from everybody as a temporary solution. And if people this is Maslow's hierarchy of needs and action right If people feel that safety, they feel the emotional safety, they feel the financial safety of you know, I'm not going to lose my job if I'm not perfectly online at 12.03 pm If they feel that acceptance as a whole person, then they will feel more relaxed and relieved and will be able to focus on productivity and output more than if you were just enforcing and driving results the results, and it requires a whole different um as a manager.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

35:47

It requires a whole different um, not just a mindset in terms of your managerial skills, but just just the way you relate to to people, because you can imagine a manager who's perhaps um really hands-on and looking over the shoulder of their employees to to now be in a scenario where they're having to just completely, you know, take a not a backseat, but kind of just completely change the way that they manage people. It must be a challenge.

Laurel Farrer

36:16

It is absolutely so. Much of our management styles as office leaders are sensory and totally on a subconscious level, we don't realize this, are sensory and totally on a subconscious level. We don't realize this. Right Like this is a derivative of historical office environments. Where they came from.

Laurel Farrer

36:33

This all came from the industrial revolution, where we had physical equipment and physical products and physical workflows and physical supervision. We can see work happening, we can see goods being produced, we can see people talking, we can hear phones ringing Like this is all. This all tells us that the day is being productive. However, for knowledge workers specifically, our products have become virtual, our workflows have become virtual, our equipment has become virtual, and so it now makes sense that we need to update our management and supervision styles to also be virtual. And so, yes, this is a really critical piece of that upskilling and that training that we were talking about earlier is that we need to understand what the difference is. It's not a big difference, but it is a very important and intentional difference on how to measure productivity, how to support and offer feedback, how to build relationships and empower productivity and efficiency.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

37:49

Like all of those things need to be in an office in January. Now you're in an office, now you're working from home.

Laurel Farrer

37:54

So the whole culture of your organization is like just changing literally overnight, you know on the consulting end, too, that previously all of our clients, even if they were coming to us hesitantly, they were still coming to us right Like, we can see that we need some help with remote work. We're here, we're willing, our minds are open and so, therefore, we're ready to to engage with your consulting services. But now the market is so diverse. It's people that have previously never thought of themselves as remote, friendly, ever, and now they all of a sudden have to figure it out. Or people that were very, very against remote workforce, whatever reason. Now we have to help them through that mindset shift, like and as well as people that said, well, this is great, I always wanted this and I've always thought that this was a viable option. And now here we are.

Laurel Farrer

38:52

So it is. Our market has polarized and expanded, so so, so much, and so, yeah, there's a lot of people that have a lot of questions and need assistance on levels that we previously have never seen before. I mean, we're working with companies that have never even had a video call. I've been asked for people to fax information to them in the past few weeks like, oh, I don't have that capability. Do you have that capability?

Laurel Farrer

39:25

Oh, oh oh, wow yeah, there's a lot of companies that are really hurting because they don't understand how to make this transition, and that's why we're here to help and yeah, I mean I I guess I'm laughing at that but yeah, it's different.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

39:39

I mean, it's a different world, isn't it? The remote world is different, but it's it's. It's still. It's very open. We're all about supporting and collaboration and communication and all that sort of thing, but I guess those kinds of things it can be quite. It is stressful for managers, the whole situation right now. But if you're a manager and you're under these kind of stresses, how can you also make sure that your team, the people around you are, are happy as well? How do you do that without sort of bombarding them with emails or bombarding them with with, you know, video conferencing calls, all that sort of stuff?

Laurel Farrer

40:19

yeah. So because of that transition from that physical supervising methodology into virtual management, it is the default and very subconscious default, for most managers to turn into micromanagers in a virtual environment. Like, I need to know what you're working on. Like, are you working? This is by far the number one concern of all managers is how do I know that my people are working? So there's again, the training helps with this. Because I know that my people are working. So there's again, the training helps with this. Because I know that this sounds like a big difference just when I say it, but if we can transition our methodologies to be based more on trust than on sensory supervision, and then that gives us the permission and the flexibility to start measuring results and output instead of activity, so we're measuring accomplishment instead of activity, and that that really is what gives us the that flexibility to take our hands off during the production workflows.

Laurel Farrer

41:26

So a very oversimplified and basic example that I give is if I hire a company to wash my car, I don't need to watch them do it to know if they did a good job. You know, I don't need to know if they washed it in the garage or in the parking lot, or what type of soap they used, or did they do the backseat before the front seat, or did they do it in the morning lot? Or what type of soap they used, or did they do the the um backseat before the front seat, or did they do it in the morning or the afternoon? Like? I don't need to know that. I just need to empower them and trust them to do what they do best, to do the job that I hired them to do. And then, at five o'clock, when I pick it up when they told me to pick it up I'll be able to see if they did a good job and, uh, and maybe there's some things that I can do in the meantime to support them in their job and to clarify my expectations prior to it.

Laurel Farrer

42:12

It doesn't necessarily mean that I, you know, take my hands completely off, but we do need to just be able to facilitate our workflows in a different way, and that does mean more of an indirect relationship as managers that we are. Now, instead of controlling the results ourselves, we need to empower our workers and our team members to self-manage the results on their own. While we indirectly support the results by supporting the team member, so we support them as they control the results instead of us controlling the results. And that is where we see the highest levels of retention, productivity, profitability is with that enhanced model of a supportive management role.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

43:05

I love that analogy analogy though with the car. I really like that because obviously, when the car's finished, you'll be able to see it's nice and clean and shiny, won't you? Without having to be there. I love that. I might use that in the future. If that's okay with you, I'll quote you. I'll quote you on that.

Laurel Farrer

43:21

Thank you Credit. I appreciate that.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

43:24

Excellent. I mean, I've got to tell you what. Every time we cover an answer, I get more questions coming into my head. But I know that you're you're really busy and, um, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. Um, laurel, but um, I just wanted to ask you just another couple of questions before I let you go. Um, yeah, we can do a part two.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

43:47

Another thing oh, that would be great, excellent, excellent, good, good, good, good, what, uh, I suppose, when you're not, when you're not working, what? What kind of things are you? Are you doing in a normal sense, and are you what? What other kind of stuff do you normally do?

Laurel Farrer

44:01

I'm just gonna say, like right, that's a very short answer. No, this is really important because, ironically, as a segue from what we just talked about, most managers are so panicked, right, that their remote workers are not going to be working during the hours that they say that they are going to or that they need to. The irony is that remote workers actually work more than their in-office counterparts, and so burnout is very, very, very common in remote workers because it is so easy to work a 10, 12, 14 hour day and I'm definitely fall into that category that I do that all the time. Cutting my hours off at the right time is really hard. Even after almost 14 years of working remotely, I still struggle with this on a daily basis. So this is a good question to ask. So, with the caveat, the disclaimer, that I am not as good at this as I would like to be, I love spending time with my family.

Laurel Farrer

45:06

I do have two kids and a husband that also works from home. We live in a farmhouse in rural Connecticut that we renovate, so that's a big thing that we do. We have chickens that we're raising and we are renovating the home and doing a lot of landscaping work. We bought it as a fixer upper last year and there's still a lot of work to be done, and so doing something physical like that is really fun for me. Because, you know, so much of my day and so much of my time is all on a screen. It's really satisfying for me to be able to go outside and work hard with my muscles and my hands and, you know, get dirty. Um, it's a nice juxtaposition for the work that I do during the day.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

45:49

I love that as well, because you you raise a nice point there as well, because I think it's important to have something else to do, um and and sort of take yourself away from the computer and have that discipline. I also struggle myself with with working too much, but I think having sort of like a project where you can get your, get your teeth into something else that's going to take you a month or two months to do is something that can be a welcome distraction from from from work. So I like that example, love it.

Laurel Farrer

46:16

Yeah, I think that managers can and should encourage that, um, encourage that transparency of what have you been working on? How are you preventing burnout? Because the last thing they need are a whole bunch of frazzled and depressed employees that are just working too hard that they're burning themselves out. So, yeah, ask people about it Again. It allows them to be their whole selves during this time of a lot of blurriness, and it's a great culture building activity to build relationships and camaraderie with each other to say, oh yeah, I'm, I'm building a chicken coop too, or I just finished this great book. I think that everybody would love it. Or here's a picture of me. You know, I went out running today and it was so great like it just allows people to uh, have those interpersonal kind of water cooler chats that we might be missing from the break room and there was everybody thinking that we just spent time in our bedrooms on our laptops, just just working away at our keyboards, you know we're maybe not as much of hermit hermits as we thought we were exactly, exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

47:21

Well, laurel, it has been a pleasure and, yeah, I hope we can do that part too, because, as I said, I've got loads more questions for you. Yeah, definitely I'd be happy to Excellent. It's been great having you on what's the future look like for you and what's the immediate future, I suppose.

Remote Work as Business Continuity Strategy

Laurel Farrer

47:38

Yeah, the future is. We're really focused on positioning and encouraging remote work as a business continuity strategy, not only for post-COVID, but especially as our international economy starts to head into a deeper and deeper recession. We're very, very focused on that. Businesses can save a lot of money and a lot of jobs by leveraging remote work. A lot of money and a lot of jobs by leveraging remote work, and so that's what we're focused on as a consulting firm is helping businesses do that, but then also helping national and international governments understand how to support businesses in doing so. So, yeah, we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we are happy to help and honored to be in this position of authority and assistance during such a hard time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

48:30

Guys, for more information go across to distributeconsultingcom. Laurel, thank you again and we'll speak to you again soon, I hope.

Laurel Farrer

48:40

Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me, Alex. I appreciate it.

Alex Wilson-Campbell

48:43

Anytime.