RWL203:From office manager to international remote work expert w/ Laurel Farrer, Founder Distribute Consulting

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:01

Hey, it's Alex once again from the remote work life podcast, and I have with me for a second occasion Laurel Farah. Laurel's been on the podcast before. She's a remote work expert, somebody who I've known about Gosh for many years now. In fact, when I first started to work remotely, Laurel's one of the people that I wanted to approach but didn't quite build the courage until I started the podcast. So Laurel's first time on the podcast was talking about what she was doing with Distribute at the time. Laurel is now with GitLab. So, Laurel, I just want to say thank you so much for joining me on the podcast for a second time. You're very welcome.

Laurel Farrer:
0:43

Oh, my word, I was excited to see your name in my inbox again. I'm always happy to be here, nice. Thank you for the second invitation.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:49

No, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Yeah, I don't think a remote podcast or a remote event, in fact, would be the same without having you on the roster. So that's why I had to have you back for a second time, and I just wanted to find out on this occasion, because we only really talked about, we only glossed over the surface of what you do, what you're about. But I thought this time around, we would find out a bit more about you, how it all began, where it all began and the why behind Laurel Farrah and everything like that. Yeah, let's dig into it Sounds great, excellent. Well, let's start then. So tell us about you. I know a bit about you, but tell the audience about yourself, laurel, yes, of course.

Laurel Farrer:
1:38

So my name is Laurel Farrah, as you so eloquently introduced, and I am absolutely honored to be one of the top remote work experts in the world, which definitely was not a thing a few years ago.

Laurel Farrer:
1:51

But here we are, and I absolutely love what I do. It's an absolute dream that I get to fill this role on an international level for a career. So what I do is the same as many other remote work experts and influencers is that we primarily advocate for the strength and viability of remote work as an option, and then each of us have a bit of a niche in which they encourage that advocacy to turn into action. And so some people specialize in culture, some people specialize in recruiting and talent acquisition. For me specifically, I specialize in infrastructure or business development and organizational behavior. So what that means is I help the actual business, the company, convert from being a traditional co-located format into a virtual format. So I build the handbooks, I audit the tools, I build the policies, actually help the company itself as an entity make that transition.

Laurel Farrer:
3:00

So I did that previously as the founder of Distribute, which is when you and I originally connected, and that is still the world's leading consulting firms specializing exclusively in remote work. The company lives on even though I'm not there anymore. So that's, I think, the goal of every founder. But now I individually am, like you said, at GitLab. So GitLab is the world's largest fully distributed company in the world and I'm helping them convert their knowledge and expertise into a shareable format so that more companies and more people can learn to operate in at high scale virtual first operations better. So that's what I do now and I'm kind of a founder all over again. I'm building this new startup called TeamOps within GitLab and it's exciting. I feel like I'm living that founder dream all over again.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
3:58

That sounds great and it's. Yeah, I was excited to see that you'd move across to GitLab as well and, like you said, you're still very much involved with Distribute as well. But I'm also intrigued because in this series of podcasts, I've been asking people like yourself, experts like yourself, people who are real advocates for remote work, not just for the sake of it, but for the benefit of the people who work remotely. I'm trying to dig a bit deeper in terms of how did that all come about, how did that advocacy come about, and why so? I guess my next question is take us through your you know, a part of history, I guess, of your career and where that I guess that transition came in, or if you had a light bulb moment, or I don't know, where did it all begin for you?

Laurel Farrer:
4:50

Absolutely so. My story starts 17 years ago, which always makes me feel a bit old saying that, but here we are, which means that I have great experience, right. So, we'll play that angle. It's experience, wisdom, this is what I say.

Laurel Farrer:
5:10

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Good answer, alex. So, yeah, I was an office manager for a hybrid team 17 years ago, which I had no idea that it was a hybrid team. Right, because it wasn't a thing hybrid thing. What hybrid teams were? Not a thing, it wouldn't be language that we would use until 15 years later. So but it was. We happened to be changing locations of our office, and the new office wasn't ready yet, and so we had to move into a temporary workplace which was much, much smaller than the one that we had been in and the one that we would be going to, and so we only had a few desks and workspaces available for the staff and now this all sounds very familiar.

Laurel Farrer:
6:02

They were like, oh, you were hot desking and you know like we have words for it now. But then it was like what are we going to do? Okay, let's figure this out. Like some of us can work in the office sometimes, the rest of us can work from home or from client sites, and we'll just make it work for a few months. So that was my first experience with hybrid workplace location, and that's when I saw, as the office manager, how much it was impacting our team in positive ways. We were all able to stay perfectly productive, and even more productive sometimes, and we were able to have a really interesting dynamic of what value the workplace provided and didn't provide, and so that really was the point that opened my mind to maybe work doesn't have to be a place.

Laurel Farrer:
6:57

And so it was in my next role that I was the operations manager for another company, and we were kind of in a similar position that we very temporarily needed to save money. We were planning on moving into the next big workplace because we were scaling as a team and that office wasn't gonna be ready yet, and so we were, but our lease was up in our current place. So we were thinking, oh, what do we do? What do we do? And we were a small team, we were a scaling, lean, and so I was like you know, we did this thing in my last company and it worked really well. I feel very confident asking my team to do this again. So the CEO had actually had a similar idea. So we validated each other and we said, yeah, let's just ask everybody to work from home for just the summer, until the lease is ready on the new place, and then and that'll help us save money we won't have to get into any additional debt and this. I think this could work. So it was a risk, but we tried it and at the end of three months, everybody loved it so much that we extended another three months and, long story short, nobody ever went back into the office.

Laurel Farrer:
8:17

We, as the operations manager. I saw that our retention was so high, our attraction was so high for our talent and our profitability was so high as a company that I couldn't say no to it. I saw that this was the absolute key to us running with like 60% more profitability than we were before. So we were just like let's ride this wave as long as we could, and they never went back.

Laurel Farrer:
8:48

So that became essentially my kind of superpower, my arsenal, my niche for companies that I would go to as an operations manager after that or as an operations consultant is I would always be called in to increase that profitability and to optimize those metrics as much as possible. And I said I know one really good way to do that and let's all embrace remote work. And in small businesses and startups every penny counts and that was a huge value that I brought to every operation that I worked with. So that's how I got started was just based on the numbers, based on business management, saying I see that this is positively impacting every single metric that we are trying to improve. It's a no-brainer.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
9:39

And then from that, I guess that's, like you said, the genesis of you becoming a consultant in remote work. Or was it that you were going into businesses that weren't necessarily, didn't necessarily have that mindset, and you were going in to help them to save money, so you were pitching those sorts of ideas. Was it like that?

Laurel Farrer:
10:07

It was a little bit of both. It was mostly by nature of just questions that I started consulting Because remember this was 17 years ago remote work was not a term yet, Workplace flexibility was kind of a term, Telecommuting was kind of a term, but certainly not common in certain industries and in first small businesses. And so it usually just evolved by nature of just telling people what I did professionally and somehow it would slip that we didn't have any offices. And then that was usually the lead generation for becoming a consultant, because they would say, wait what? You don't have any offices, how does that even work? And then I would answer questions and then I would tell them about how much profitability it had impacted our organization and then they would say can you come do the same thing for my company? And that was it.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
11:05

Wow, 17 years. I mean, I only go back as far as 2008. And again, I tell the story at every single podcast. Literally, I was the point where I was working remotely. I didn't tell anybody that I was working remotely because they were like they look at me in a funny way.

Laurel Farrer:
11:24

Yes, that's what people don't understand, right? They were like oh, you must have been such a proud pioneer. And I was like are you kidding? We never told, we never breathed a word to anybody, especially as small business, as startup. If you said that you didn't have a storefront of some kind or physical footprint, you were not taken seriously. So it was not something loud and proud like it is now. We kept it a secret.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
11:52

Yeah.

Laurel Farrer:
11:53

Like I mean deep, deep secret. We did not tell anybody that we did not have a storefront. So, yeah, I love that you have the same experience. That it was like no, this wasn't like cool pom-poms, like yeah, I'm a remote worker. It was like I swear I'm still a professional. Okay, like you were just constantly trying to convince people that you were still credible.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
12:16

This is it, and I think because I obviously you know, you mentioned the different verticals that people work in, where remote workers concern and recruitment was one of the areas that I first had my experience of working remotely. No-transcript. I at the time was was trying to interact with, you know, really serious businesses, and I was thinking to myself how am I gonna do this in such a way that will have me allowing me that credibility but, at the same time, working a way that I think is the most efficient? And yeah, it was. It was quite painful because there's, you know, again, I was using I think I was using Skype back then as well. Skype was the was the.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
13:00

Yeah yeah, yeah, and I always do any that question. So where are you based, Alex? And I'd be like, well, I work remotely. That's where the conversation was like oh yeah.

Laurel Farrer:
13:15

I'm not a part right to have those interviews that you would. Yeah, you would either have Skype or you would be on the phone and you would have those interviews of they. Well, I don't want to speak for you, but for me. They would see my resume and we would have some phone conversation about who I was and what I did and they would be so excited Because I I'm proud of my accomplishments, I'm good at what I do and I'm I'm not too proud to say like, yeah, like I'm an impressive person on paper, and so they would get so excited about it. And then that would slip, that I had been working from home and they would go, oh, and then it was like the whole interview was over and I was like, does this not mean that I have Still done all of these things? Like I just happened to be sitting in a different seat when I accomplished all of these results. That's the only difference. And it was hard to not be taken seriously as a professional for many years because of where I worked.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
14:18

Yeah, it was. I agree that. Yeah, completely agreed what you, what you're saying there with with guys, my CV and everything, and for you then, laura, was that again I don't know assume anything but your advocacy behind remote work and establishing Distribute as a consultancy. Was that the driving force for you or was there something else?

Laurel Farrer:
14:43

It was so many things. Honestly, it was professionally. Yes, it started with. This is a great way for businesses to grow and scale in a lean way, in a way that it's positive to both local and greater economy. So that was, that was the beginning of it.

Laurel Farrer:
15:04

But then, the deeper that I got into it, the more that I saw how much it impacted my life and the life of my co-workers, and the life of my community and the life of my friends and family. And so Now, especially, having done this for so long, I've had the amazing privilege to meet thousands of people all over the world that have told me their story about how much the ability to work remotely has impacted them as a single parent, or as somebody with a disability, or as a business manager, or as a minority, or or or or. I've just heard so many stories that Now it's just so deeply ingrained into who I am that I can never turn my back on this. I can never turn my back on those people, because it is our responsibility to advocate for greater diversity and inclusion in Business and greater opportunity for more people and for more businesses. I think it truly is the great equalizer, and so I think it is Incredibly. How are we of us like I'm trying to be diplomatic here, but I'm like okay.

Laurel Farrer:
16:25

It's cowardly of us to turn our back on remote work. Yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
16:32

And I kind of I know I shouldn't, probably Someone's soul should be quite a lot, and I love I watched a lot of the sort of Stuff that comes through my my news feed and other news feeds and under in the general media. And there's still, you know, those people who journalists, who are still, you know, on the back of remote work and still I mean I don't if it's genuine, but they're doubting the benefits of remote work and I know that it doesn't suit everybody who might work, doesn't? It's not for everyone, but for all the reasons that you mentioned before, that, that for me, I mean parenting. That was my biggest thing. I think there's been such a massive gap in my career had I not had the ability to work remotely, whilst looking after my daughter, for example.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
17:23

And it makes me really wonder why there's so many detractors or people putting things out there that potentially could harm, I suppose, what is a movement? I guess you know it really makes me wonder that. So we need you. We need you to continue with the advocacy, so please don't stop. And anything I can do to help, anything we can do to help, is yeah, absolutely will You're spreading the word right here, right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
17:49

Doing my best. I'm doing my best, and for you. How did you then? Okay, so let's look a bit more at distributed, how you established that to be the force it is now. How did that all pan out? How did that all come about? You know?

Laurel Farrer:
18:06

it was like so many founding stories. It was a complete accident. So I was an independent consultant, so I was just consulting on my own, independently, and then I was connected with the woman who would become my COO and then she would eventually become the CEO when I left and her name is Sunny Zimer and she is absolutely incredible, has just as much experience as I do and feels just as passionately about remote work as I do, and so she was just networking and reached out and said you know, I think I see that you're talking about this and writing about this. I have some experiences with this like let's meet, let's connect. So it was just a casual networking call in the beginning, but she just was a perfect match that we said this is. We feel exactly the same way. Her strengths were my weaknesses, my weaknesses were her strengths, and so we said, yeah, let's do this together, let's try to actually turn this into a thing that we can do together. And so we did.

Laurel Farrer:
19:17

We collaborated together for a couple of years and then it kind of there was the next level of opportunity where there was more consultants that were also trying to be remote work consultants. This is pre-pandemic, so there's very little market, but we each had a specialty, and so we said, well, what if we combine together and create a consulting firm, each with our individual, our niches and our specialties, and we can kind of provide a full service consulting firm? And so we tried that out for almost a year and it was exciting and tumultuous and scary. And we were right at that level of is this going to work, is this viable? I don't know. And that was right at the beginning of 2020. And so then March 2020 happened. Our leads increased by 6,000%, and so it was just. There was no going back. We just had to do what we needed to do, and that was really the solidification of Distribute 6,000%.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
20:28

That's incredible. It was a very busy time. And now I'm guessing as well. I mean because there's still so much more to do, because there are there's still businesses out there still trying to establish themselves as being well, establishing their identity. There are those that I guess, since the pandemic, have decided yeah, this is what we're going to do going forward. So I'm guessing those leads will only, I guess, continue to come your way. But what do you see? I mean because right now, the theme around remote work is the news anyway. The news cycle is all about come back to the office, people being told to come back to the office, and that's the sort of general theme that's going around. What do you see as the? Do you think that it's going to continue to grow? Or because obviously, right now things are beginning to platter out, in some cases dip a little bit? How do you see the future?

Laurel Farrer:
21:36

How I see the future is with a lot more intention. Prior to the pandemic, we, as a remote work advocacy community, we hoped and dreamed that we would get to scale eventually. We had all the intention, all of the plans, no market. Now it's been reversed that we have huge market but no intention and no plans, because everything has been so reactive for the past few years. And so what I see right now as a tipping point for our industry is that we have the chance to design the industry that we originally intended to, but with the market to be able to support it. So it really is the best. It can be the best of both worlds.

Laurel Farrer:
22:25

But we have to be a lot more intentional and, frankly, that's why I moved on from Distribute to TeamOps, because I saw that there was a gap in terms of industry leadership as a consultant and as a consultancy. There was a lot of subjectivity in our advice that we would give to companies. We would say this is a good idea because we say so, but there's really no industry standards, there's very little industry research, there's very little overarching support or resources for our entire industry that binds and unifies us together and gives us more credibility, and so I saw that all of us as advocates, as tools, as consultants, as constructors we needed more resources in order to be able to move forward in a unified and intentional direction, and so that's why I moved on to TeamOps was to help build that, to help build a space of unification and a space of intentionality and industry leadership, in order to create more foundation for all of us to build this industry together.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
23:50

Yeah, that is certainly needed, like you said, and I think that will only add to the credibility, because there's so much information going around and I suppose data can be. Certain bits of data, again used by the media, can be used in any way that you want tell any kind of story that you want. So we need, like you said, your advocacy, and you've got GitLab behind that as well, which is like one of the forerunners where distributed work is concerned. Tell me a bit more about the work that you're doing, then. Loro for GitLab, please.

Laurel Farrer:
24:23

Yeah, so I'm working on a program called TeamOps, and what TeamOps is is identifying and defining and measuring the standards, the universal standards of virtual first organizational development and organizational behavior. So what does it mean to work remotely in a successful way? How do you know if you're doing it in a good way or in a bad way? How do you know if you're doing it in a way that is sustainable? Ultimately, answering that question for all of those companies that you mentioned earlier that are going back into the office why isn't it working? How do they know if it's working? How do they know what is not working?

Laurel Farrer:
25:08

Those assessment standards and metrics have not been universally defined by anyone yet, and that's the gap that I'm trying to resolve. And the content that I'm trying to develop is how do we create that universal measurement system for all of us and use that information to then inform all of our various goals? Whether we're trying to build a tool, or we're trying to be a change agent within our organization, or we're trying to consult somebody else, where is that information that tells us what we should be doing and what help somebody needs?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
25:52

Wow, yeah, that sounds much needed.

Laurel Farrer:
25:55

I hope that's the goal.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
25:57

Well, it sounds that way, it sounds like it's needed and I mean, did you imagine that you'd be in this situation? I mean, obviously not 17 years ago, but did you imagine even your time, even prior to distributed? Did you imagine being here, say, 10 years ago, doing this kind of advocacy work?

Laurel Farrer:
26:14

No, I mean months ago. I couldn't have imagined this.

Laurel Farrer:
26:18

Oh wow, oh, I mean and that's an unusual feeling for me and for the other remote work thought leaders that we all have become so familiar with over time we're all good friends. We've been in this fight for a long time and we have very personal conversations together as friends to say what are we doing Like? What does this mean? Where do we go from here? I think, in the back of our minds, none of us really thought that being a remote work advocate was permanent. There was never really that enough of a market share to justify doing this for a long time, or at least to do it full time. We all just you know, I wrote for Forbes on the side and I was one of the very few that did it full time, so it was always kind of a phase of our careers. And so now, when it is full time and there's an industry and surprise, we're thought leaders, all of us are dealing with a lot of whiplash to say what do we do with this? And not only that, but where do we go from here?

Laurel Farrer:
27:27

That's a very vulnerable question. When you are building an industry, there isn't a growth path that exists. There's not. You know, you go to college and you get a degree in this, and then you start in this job and then you grow into this job that doesn't exist. The jobs that people are trying to grow into are the ones that we created. The curriculum that people are learning are the content that we wrote, and it's so. Whatever opportunities are next in terms of our career development or industry opportunities, those are yet to be created by us, and it's a very surreal feeling. So, yeah, as an operations manager, you can imagine that I'm a planner. I like to know where I'm going, and so to think of my career future as a great big question mark is. It's an uncomfortable feeling, but it's also an exciting feeling to know that I get to create what that question mark is.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
28:34

It seems as though you as well that you've you've been able to navigate your career by creating opportunities for yourself Obviously value very valuable opportunities and opportunities that were perhaps before their time. Almost in a way, you know, you're looking back, like you said 17 years ago, when you were advocating for remote work. That's like years ahead of you're thinking years ahead of everybody else, in a sense, and that now is what you're required to do, in a sense, in your current roles. You've had those attributes. But how did you then? Because I know some people, some people actually I'm actually going off tangent slightly, but I'm intrigued to know this question.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
29:15

But how do you then navigate your? You know the conversations, the interviews on your resume, when you're trying to move from role to role, career to career. How did you what's the word sort of? Convince somebody who you're sitting in front of that this is the way forward, or I'm the person who can help you to do this? I don't know if you see what I'm getting at.

Laurel Farrer:
29:42

Absolutely, you know. I think it's important to realize that in hindsight. The career development path that I was on seems very linear. It seems very simple that I was going from one job to another and the common thread was remote work. But I can only look back and see that very linear path because remote work as a term and as an industry exists now. So, yeah, I can look back and see that very straight line. At the time it was not a straight line. It was just as confusing to me as anybody else it was. There was many, many times of star fishing on the floor and thinking what am I doing with my life?

Laurel Farrer:
30:26

and my career you know like, and many, many times being my own critic and saying my career is not credible or valuable because I haven't been working in an office. I would have been so much farther ahead if I had just done the corporate ladder like everybody else. So it's not as simple as it seems in hindsight. But at the time how I did create more of a path for myself and start to find that common thread is very regularly thinking what do I feel passionately about, what am I really good at, what do I want to do more of? And that just helped me tack from one opportunity to another and eventually come down into the funnel of identifying oh, this is my niche, this is what I'm really good at. So the conversations at the time were really good. Sales.

Laurel Farrer:
31:26

To be honest, it was like okay, this is what I see you need for your company and, based on this previous experience, I feel confident that I could do that for you. So just finding their pain point and drawing on my very diverse experience to find one little piece of it that would prove to them that I could solve that pain point for them. And that's kind of the bittersweet reality of being an operations manager is that you're a jack of all trades, master of none, so I was really good at a lot of things, but not exceptional at one thing, and so I was able to be a chameleon, kind of in that way, of any consulting opportunity or any client or any job opportunity that popped up. I could say I can do that for you, because I happen to have some random experience in the past of doing that. So, yeah, a lot of convincing myself and then trying to fake it, enough that I felt confident enough to be able to convince somebody else as well.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
32:35

And, by the way, I hope I wasn't necessarily saying that you look like a simple path, cause for me it doesn't look like a straightforward path at all. It's like you said you're a problem solver, you're somebody who solves problems, pain points, but at the same time you're you're trying to convince people of things that perhaps they don't even not even aware, sometimes that they problems that they had, and give them solutions that perhaps they weren't even thinking about at the time as well. So it's a combination of lots of things coming together to the situation that you're in now, and that's with GitLab, which you know. How are things you? I mean GitLab is, like you said, the biggest out there. What's it like? How has it been for you in the last few months?

Laurel Farrer:
33:29

Oh, it's been very exciting, it's. I was a little nervous about going back into corporate. I haven't worked in corporate for even you know since before I was working remotely. So 18 years ago was the last time I was working corporate. So I was a little bit nervous about it, a little bit excited, and. But I've been advising and consulting corporations for the past several years so I felt pretty sure I knew what I was getting into and it did not disappoint. Gitlab has been a very exciting challenge for me and it has been a really good step for me and my personal career development because, you know, I was ready to be challenged in new ways and receive new mentorship and and solve new problems, and that's exactly what I'm doing. So personally, I've absolutely loved my time so far at GitLab and then professionally, it's been incredible to be able to see these gaps in the industry and be able to start building solutions for them. I'm very, very fulfilled and satisfied right now.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
34:39

All right, sounds good. And what are you excited about then? Because it's like he says, it sounds like you're. You know where you need to be and where you want to be right now. What are you excited about when it comes? I mean, some of the work that you just described actually is exciting me, but I want to know what's exciting, exciting you?

Laurel Farrer:
34:56

It's that it's being able to pay it forward. I think so much of our work as thought leaders and as pioneers in this space is solving problems for other people that don't know that they're problems yet, or building solutions so that somebody else doesn't have to go through the same frustration that I did. So it's all about creating solutions for people behind you, and so that's exactly what I'm excited about is I know the pain points of building tools for remote work. I know the pain points of consulting on remote work or advocating for remote work. I know all of those firsthand, and so I'm. I know that my peers and and our successors will have the same frustrations. So what solutions can we build? What documentation can we build? What resources can we build now that will not only make it easier for myself, but make it easier for everybody around me and everybody behind me, so that we can just gain momentum as a community?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
36:02

Sounds good, sounds good, laurel, and I was going to say thank you so much for coming on to the podcast for a second time. It's it's been a pleasure having you and of course, I'll be keeping track of what you're doing as well, and I just wanted to wish you get lab distribute all the best going forward and, yeah, great to see you again.

Laurel Farrer:
36:23

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great conversation.