[Extra] LinkedIn Live: How to make remote, hybrid and distributed work actually work, with Lauren Razavi

And so we got into what that means and how you can make it work in your organizations now that so many people are working remotely and want to stick with it past the pandemic. So that's something we did on LinkedIn Live. So you can see the video as well on LinkedIn or on YouTube, or you can just listen to the audio here. And if you're interested in this kind of stuff, we're going to be doing another one next week, same time. So that's Wednesday July 14th, 1:00 PM london time.

So that's 2:00 PM in Europe and that's 8:00 AM in New York. So look to my LinkedIn, look to the newsletter, and all my social feeds to get the links or the YouTube channel. So again, that's me and Lauren Razavi talking about remote and distributed and hybrid work and how to make it work.

And next week, we'll be talking about how to build a global career, the thing that you need to think about, the things that you need to think about, uh, right now, if you're thinking about transforming your career and taking it in a direction that gives you a little bit more freedom of location. So that's what we'll be getting into next week since apparently everyone is quitting their job right now because they don't want to go back to the office. All right. I'll let you listen.

And I'll talk to you soon. Hello? Hello everyone. We are live, I believe. Hi, I'm Isabelle Roughol and I am joined today by Lauren. Hi Lauren. How are you?

Um, and I'm, I mean, if you're following me on LinkedIn, uh, on YouTube, you kind of already know who I am, but, I'm Isabelle Roughol, I am the founder, producer, one woman behind the one woman show that is a borderline, which has podcast and newsletter or community, uh, media for, um, defiant global citizens covering kind of lives, lived across borders.

Um, and I was in my previous life, the, um, international editor at LinkedIn on this very platform, um, hence, uh, being here quite a bit and, and having this experience of managing um, a remote team. And so I was, as I was saying in a post announcing this, uh, the two of us together have like a couple of decades of experience of doing all the things people have been doing during a pandemic, you know, working remotely and on the zoom and all of that.

And, and around across time zones and borders. Um, so that's what we're going to get into today. Um, let's start by defining some terms and I want to say hello to everyone. I can't even keep up with the chat, but I love seeing everyone mentioning the country that they're from like Turkey. Pakistan. Um, that's awesome. So hello everyone. By the way, we'll be taking questions to like drop them in the stream. Uh, we'll absolutely be answering them. Um, Cameroon Bangladesh. It's so cool.

Um, so yeah, right.

And now there's a new word hybrid as everywhere. Can you define what those are?

So the team that I was running and the teams that I've worked as part of in tech has been fully distributed. So there was no kind of like monitor sitting in the office, uh, sort of not located with the remote work. But instead of the entire team was completely distributed. So everybody was working from home or from their own co-working space.

So I think this is a sort of an interesting thing for us to think about now, because there's been a lot of talk this past year about remote work for obvious reasons, but actually the move that I think businesses need to be making is towards more distributed structures. Um, meaning that you're sort of designing for the people who aren't in the room. Every single time, uh, you kind of make a decision, uh, or do something.

And now, uh, with things sort of beginning to reopen, et cetera, we have the rise of hybrid work, which is sort of parts in the office and part remote. Um, and I think we're going to dig into that a little bit and kind of like the do's and don'ts, uh, in our conversation today. Um, but I think the biggest thing to be aware of, uh, is that remote. Um, so sorry. Remote suggests, uh, being remote from something. Distributed suggests that everyone's kind of on equal fitting.

Uh, and that actually there, perhaps isn't an office that, uh, that people can gather in, I'm

So in practice, that means making sure that you're kind of redesigning functions, so that decisions aren't being made by like the three people who are in an office and then sort of being reported to the 20 people who are not. Uh, in the office who are remote workers. Um, so we need to master, uh, asynchronous communication. ie not, uh, making decisions in a room together, but instead, uh, kind of communicating in a more thoughtful and intentional way.

Um, and it's really, really important, um, to, uh, get really serious about documentation. So there are some great companies out there, her leaders in the remote world, um, like get lab. Ghost and WordPress, um, who create extensive documentation and really document every decision and process, review that stuff and make it useful for every employee or entire teams within the organization. And it labs case.

A lot of that stuff is actually fully public, so anyone can access it and kind of gain from their knowledge of how to, how to design a business in this way and how to work in this.

But I remember being so frustrated, it would take me like over a day of like emailing around and all of that to find out because. Like in the room with these people. So you never know, you can't just go up to someone's desk and find that information. So the documentation is so important. Um, you reminded me also of a conversation that I feel like we didn't have enough.

Um, especially, you know, when people started talking about how, you know, the pandemic had revealed remote work, everyone was going to get back to that. Cause it was so much better. And people talk about how it's so much better. You know, for working parents or for people who are disabled and, and maybe cannot, um, you know, access the office as easily.

The thing that bothered me with that, and it gets to what you're talking about remote versus distributed, is if you're just remote, you're also remote from the centers of power. And so I protect, you know, we're S we're pretending that we're making work more accessible, but actually we're still marginalizing people who can't be there physically, um, in the room with the decision-makers.

I think that, uh, there are a lot of managers who perhaps want people back in the office because they're not quite sure how to be a manager in a remote context. And it would be easier to just kind of get everyone back where they can see them. But actually I think like the whole.

The whole, like negotiation of work has changed and we're seeing all over the U S right now, um, people quitting their jobs, uh, because they're not happy with how their companies are kind of transitioning, uh, or sort of adjusting to this new world. Um, I think we're going to keep seeing that. I do think that there's been quite a big power shift over the past year from companies setting the tone and setting all the rules to individuals. now Um, it's, it's kind of up to you.

Like what you can, uh, like what you, what you want to get out of, work how you want it to fit in with the rest of your life. And I guess I'm completely biased on this because as somebody who's been a remote worker for such a long time and the digital nomad, I really believe that people should be able to sort of have the freedom to define their own lives.

Um, and that work should fit into that rather than be the kind of leading force that defines Absolutely everything else that you're able to do.

And um, so many people now are coming to me being like, oh, how did you do this? Like, why. Uh, you know, give me some pointers and everything. And you're talking about the difficulty of managing remotely, uh, hit me up because I did that for years with hiring and managing, I think we'll do another, like another life because there are many, many, uh, You know, tips and tricks for doing that. But I think the fundamental one is, trust.

Um, like the old world of work, if you're still thinking I'm a manager, therefore I'm the boss therefore I tell you what you do. That's never going to work in a distributed or remote or hybrid world. Right? Like you first, you got to empower the individual. You gotta hire people that you can trust that, you know, are, smart and are going to do the right thing And you just gotta let go of the illusion of control because you have. none

And I think that's applicable whether it's in an office or in a virtual environment. Yeah. I'm

You're not paying for an office, but you better have a really good travel budget. Like right now, obviously. Uh, it's not possible in a lot of places for a lot of reason, but when I was building my, my global team, um, you know, we, I first, when I started out before I was a manager, um, we were a much smaller team and my boss was in New York and I was in Paris at the time. And, um, I had a quarterly trip. Part of the deal.

I was in New York every two, three months, because I had to, especially in the beginning when you don't really know people, I had to gel with them. Uh, and every is also like about motivation and inspiration. Every trip kind of charged me up for the next three months and like really motivated me. Cause it can be hard to be kind of isolated. And then when I built my own team, same, you know, I mean, yeah, I did a lot of interviewing hiring remotely. Um, but.

You know, I try to go and visit the offices too. We would find like a central city that we could all, uh, join in. And then we would have, um, yearly kind of offsite, like big, you know, everyone like 50 of us together. Um, you know, socializing, you know, working, but also just getting to know each other as people. I think that's super simple. Um,

Uh, founded what pro they're the creators behind, uh, what press.com? Um, those guys organize a grand meetup, I think is the language that they use, but they bring together all 1500 of their employees who are based in something like 70 countries around the world. They bring them together in one place.

And then that's a very sort of intensive in-person experience, a sort of company retreat, um, which obviously costs a lot of money, but also delivers a lot of value because, uh, these team members are able to kind of come together in person, have a really like pleasant social time while also kind of getting to know one another, um, more professionally. Uh, and then when they kind of go away, when they go back to home or less kind of remote work environment, those relations. Are a lot stronger.

You're able to remember sort of have these shared memories of that time at dinner or when somebody had too many glasses of wine. Um, and I think that side of things is really, really important and I'll just, um, I'm going to keep like cheerleading for get lab, um, because they truly, really like doing everything right. I think, um, but uh, those guys make available, um, a fund so that members of their teams are able to, um, basically go through a small, a short price.

Uh, and then be able to be funded by the company to go visit a colleague in another city or another country and things like that. I think, um, companies can sometimes be a bit resistant to it because they envision absolutely everybody taking a trip every other week, but in practice, like people don't want to travel all the time. They're probably just going to take a couple hours.

Pay. Yeah. And then that's, again, going to be really, really meaningful for sort of having that, um, that colleague relationship that I think a lot of people, which is completely understandable after the last year and a half, uh, seeing remote work as an incredibly isolating and lonely thing. Whereas I think that the kind of next stage, if we say we've done remote work during a pandemic, the next stage is going to be distributed work.

I think it's just a really, really exciting time to be an employee or to be running a team or running a business.

We fly to somewhere in comment in New York or whatever, but, but we are, um, getting together and that's really important. So starting remotely, um, is hard, but I love what you're saying about like, like meeting someone in a parking lot. That's actually something, um, I've noticed quite a few people doing. Um, you know, during the pandemic it's yeah.

The offices were closed, uh, but you, you could still, you know, have several people, especially in big cities from the company in the same city, and there's nothing stopping you, you know, meeting for a walk in a park or something like that.

Um, what I do like about, you know, not having to work in the office and I noticed something that a lot of people are big fans of is, you know, working in coffee shops, working in coworking spaces, working in, um, I don't know if you experienced that when you were at Google.

One thing that frustrated me frustrated me working in tech is that it felt, um, Divorced from the community because a lot of the people and that's, you know, that's a whole other issue, but a lot of the people who work in tech kind of have the same backgrounds, the same age, um, you know, the same interests. And so the chances that you're going to meet, uh, Older person, an immigrant, a, uh, someone who works in a completely different field, um, end up being pretty low.

And since you're working like all the time, and you're having your meals in the office as well, because food is provided, um, you're just, yeah, you're in that bubble. And that disconnects you from your users, from your customers, from your community, from the people you're doing this work for in the first place.

Um, and we were basically able to, um, to just collaborate in this distributed fashion, I guess this would have been like 2014. Um, but we were able to kind of collaborate in this distributed fashion, um, which to me felt incredibly intuitive. Um, and so we were kind of able to, uh, to do that. And the team was very, very diverse and very, very international. Um, later on, when I was leading a team, I made a real conscious effort to be working with people across borders and across cultures.

Um, because I was running creative teams and creativity. Definitely it doesn't just remain within one nation's borders. Um, so yeah, I think that for me, although I. I sort of heard from, from colleagues, uh, have, have worked from the big tech companies about these kinds of experiences of really like living at the office. Um, I would say that my experience was very, very different because I was a remote worker throughout, throughout that.

And then we have a question from Martella, um, On on, uh, young people kind of needing, I mean, he's talking about students, but you can kind of extend that as well to younger professionals needing the structure and the discipline of an office. And I also think about them, like just needing to be able to absorb, um, the codes of the, of working life and the mentorship. Like, how do you, how do you get that as a really young, uh, worker?

Um, if you're not in the physical presence of other people, if you're just behind you.

Processes in place, you will get exactly the same value, um, that you would expect from the office in that way of the structure of the discipline, um, of kind of meeting people, um, and learning the kind of ropes. Um, I really don't think that changes in a natural environment. I just think that it's really grounded. Um, because previous generations had that experience that somehow, you know, the office water cooler is where all the best ideas come from.

Um, and I guess my response to that is like, there are an awful lot of water coolers on the internet and you can be in your pajamas while you, uh, while you access them. Um, that's, that's a very, uh, sort of remote first mentality. But in fact, um, I can't remember. I was recommending this to you. The other day is about that. There's, um, there's a book. I think it's cool managing talent in the networked age.

And it's a re like Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn is one of the, um, the authors of that book. And in it, they essentially argued that, um, the future of careers, uh, is going to be more about the kind of networks you cultivate as an individual, rather than about, um, working for a particular company and sort of playing by that one company. I really think that's true and it really reflects my experience. Like I've been a remote worker since 2010. I've been a digital nomad since 2013.

And yeah, I have not a tool struggled with not having a physical presence in an office for more than, you know, the occasional week, maybe, uh, every year or two. Um, in fact, I've really been able to. Take advantage and I guess not get distracted by some of the distractions, the office politics, um, and just really kind of forge my own path. And I'd really encourage anyone who is worried about that.

Particularly younger people to just stop kind of, um, stuck kind of like thinking about the next. And just stop thinking about how you can embed yourself in communities and industries and things that you'll really passionate and excited about. I think there's a huge opportunity for a more kind of bespoke individual to you, uh, career in the future. Um, and yeah, if you're, if your current company really sucks at remote work, like choose another thing that right

Um, there are, you know, there's just a lot of different organizations that, that you can join and you can have that physical. Yeah. Um, interaction, uh, you know, like what, what Khalid was saying, which is, uh, uh, you know, that the socializing aspect, um, can be challenging. When you're working, um, uh, remotely, uh, but yes, the comment is too long from the screen, but yes, you have slack, you have activities, you have things that you can do in person, for sure.

But the reason that I'm actually saying it to everybody here is because I don't think those things work very well. Just as a top-down kind of thing. Like P like the people who run the company, telling you how it's going to work. I think a lot of it builds from the Boston. It's more like grassroots.

Um, and so for example, um, arranging like a monthly town hall, Where everybody can kind of get together for an hour and maybe there's some kind of structure, but the main idea is so that anyone can bring anything they're struggling with, to the table on like a company level or organizing a couple of hours each week where you're doing co-working sprints via zoom. So you, a bunch of you can log in together.

Someone does a bit of an introduction, um, and you just kind of worked together and you know what, you perhaps know what you're working on and kind of can collaborate live a little bit like you might in the office. Um, these kinds of things can just really, really help to actually build company culture. And . When I've worked, um, on like loads of different projects, this is like really important.

If you aren't meeting in person is to still kind of understand what your check-in points are and to have those more informal and kind of casual interactions, um, day to day or week to week as well. So like, rather than feeling bad, if you may, to something that's really not working, like really feel empowered to suggest something and perhaps. Oh, so be the one who sets things up and then rotate running it amongst colleagues,

And, um, they had this tradition, uh, where kind of everyone could speak up and say, you know, whatever that was on their mind, but it was, um, I like, I wish I wonder. And it was like the, the sentence had to start by. I like, or I wish or wonder, and it just like created this, like, um, Kind of amazing a brainstorm where people like, you know, I like, you know, this new product feature. I wonder why, you know, we're not doing this whatever. And, um, it just, I was such so wonderful.

Uh, and it, you know, it's a simple ritual, but it just gives people like that framework to rather than just say, Hey, tell us what you think, which can be a little bit like, oh,

So if I can say really, really briefly, um, essentially at these awesome people who run Lyndon right to Salah and, um, Matt and Pearl, when the whole world went into lockdown last year, they decided to kind of move, I think what were like monthly events online and they started writer's hour, which you can check out on writers, iowa.com. And basically it's a free writing spring.

At, I think it's 8:00 AM and like four different times zones, every weekday and it's grown so that there are hundreds of people, um, who are attending these, these sessions every single day. Um, and so this is kind of like in my view, a writing community infrastructure, um, and it's really, really cool to just kind of have these things in a remote context that you can show up to and that you can kind of feel in, in community. Um, around.

So I think the kind of takeaway, uh, the reason that I bring this up as an X, as an example is because if it doesn't feel right to do that within your current team or your current company, as in, come up with a ritual and start something also look more widely actually at your industry and have a think about whether you could do something like writers. For the marketing community or for the tech community. Um, and really like, don't be afraid to experiment.

Like we're in a playground of experimentation right now. Nobody knows what the hell they're doing. And those of us who've been the remote working for a decade. So everything's up for grabs. Like

So the, the, the technology is going to keep changing and therefore the ways that we work are going to keep changing. Uh, we have tons of great, like great questions coming in. I can't even keep up with, uh, so we're going to go really quick. Uh, fire round, like really quickly, um, lightning round, sorry. Um, Marcella Marcella who's uh, hi, who's a member of borderline. So you can do like her and support the work@borderlinepod.com slash subscribe. That was by my a plug.

Um, any tips on how to fix remotely? What was. Broken in the office, right? If you just take a dysfunctional team in the office and you just make it a home team, they're still dysfunctional. Um, I think, and then I'm going to, uh, send it to you, Lauren. But I think one thing that's interesting is actually. It's a great diagnostic tool. What was broken about your team?

Was it because it was in the office and the office wasn't working or is it something else that, you know, that remains when you're no longer in the office? Like, what was it that was broken? So I, you know, being able to kind of, uh, change the environment, that's kind of your variable in the experiment to kind of understand, uh, better. What, what is going on? Um, Lauren, do you have suggestions?

But, um, I wouldn't say that, um, a team that was already dysfunctional in the office and is sort of trying to translate exactly what they were doing. Into a virtual environment. I don't think there's, there's going to be a change there. Um, I do think there's an opportunity for employees. Um, and any team member, really bit to just kind of like step forward and say, Hey, can we have some honest conversations about. Working and what's not working.

And maybe actually the tend to remote work gives you a bit more of an ability to diva because it's like the reason to stop the conversation. Whereas perhaps a couple of years ago that wouldn't have been possible because where is the space to, to kind of talk about the dysfunction.

Um, when you do that, when you do that remotely, and again, if you're in the same city, you can just go out for coffee. But if you're not, um, you know, you can do that via zoom and whatnot. I mean, we do, we do everything on Cigna. Now we do therapy on zoom. We certainly can do, uh, you know, one-on-one with a manager. Uh, in fact, uh, that's I did for a long time, I'm going to take a couple more questions, send your final questions.

And I'm realizing we're already a half an hour, but there's so much good stuff here that I'm happy to continue unless you need to run. Um, Lauren. All right. Let's, let's take a little bit more time. Um, I like this cache this question from a Manuel because, uh, how can I present myself as a credible person? If I'm to work from Ghana for someone abroad? Uh, I mean, your being from Ghana doesn't make you any less credible than a, than anyone else.

I mean, the beauty of remote distributed work is, um, is that you can do it from anywhere now. The challenges. Find, um, is like, even if some companies are increasingly either open to remote work, but they still want to hire, um, in a country where they have a legal structure where they have an office where they have, uh, where they're incorporated, uh, you know, for tax reason for, uh, social insurance, social benefits, everything kind of reason. So that's, that might be the challenge.

I know Lauren, you were telling me the other day about some interesting innovations that are happening in that.

There are many of them now, but essentially these, uh, these companies are popping up so that they are able to, um, sort of be the intermediary step between people like Emmanuelle and perhaps like a European or an American company, um, who wants to be able to work with him, but actually don't want to set up a local office.

Um, this kind of stuff basically makes it so that a company can sort of run a global payroll, um, of freelances, um, and be able to kind of like, uh, comply with all of the local regulations in whichever country somebody is in. Um, one thing I would say just a really practical level is, um, be really, really careful with American job applications in particular, because a lot of them ask you for that. Lots and lots of information, lots and lots of time and energy.

Um, and then don't even stay anywhere, but that only open to like us citizens. Um, I've actually been caught out with that, uh, with, uh, the media organization before. So I always want to like warn people against it. Like, there's nothing wrong with like getting on the phone or sending an email to just try and clarify before you send it an application.

They have no idea how immigration works. If they're not immigrants themselves, they've never encountered it. They have no idea how complex and restrictive it is. Um, the way that we understand. Um, and so they just want to go for what they want to go for in like the very end of the process when HR is drawing up the paper. So like, Nevermind. Um, so yeah, pick up the phone cause you don't want to waste your time. Like your time is precious. Your job searching time is precious.

If anyone thinks you're not credible coming from Ghana. Oh my God. You do not want to work for them. Like that sounds dreadful. Um, all right. I'm going to like go through will quick. This is a great comment, which is too long for the screen, but check out the common stream. Cause there's some great stuff coming up. I'm just. Pull out the questions. Um, there's a question. I see a question, mark. I bring it up. Um, how are people managing their teams back to the office? That's the whole point.

We don't want them back to the office. Do we.

Even if some people do go back to an office to work in new ways to work with a broader kind of cross section of people, um, perhaps globally. But yeah, I think that, um, in my view, like, uh, getting the teams back to the office, I literally trying to go back to what things were like in 2019. Um, doesn't make a lot of business sense. Like it's probably not going to get the best out of your teams.

Um, it's probably not like the best approach if you want to kind of retain your talented workers and make sure that they're happy and make sure that you are competitive in this new realm.

Take into account people's, you know, kind of personal, um, situation. So yeah, you have to be in the office less, but you're still restricted in a way that a lot of people are just not really willing to do. Like, we don't have the whistle at the top of the factory telling us when to come in anymore. Like that's, that's.

It's kind of being told they need to work from the office for two days a week. And that ends up being two 12 hour days in the office. And then the rest of the time, a sort of normal working day from home and that, but is hybrid failure like that. The polar opposite of what a successful hybrid work model looks like.

Um, and yeah, I think it's really important that, uh, employees, that team members are in fact, like holding their companies to account on that because, uh, it is going to just kind of breed a toxic culture. It's going to make it much, much worse human experience to work for that company. And even if you decide that you're going, if you're not going to stand for it, I think we all kind of have this obligation to educate patients. On what it is that we want as individual humans right now.

Um, and there's definitely an opportunity for that, uh, on companies that are misstepping, uh, in terms of that, that return to the office.

Not have that disconnect from work to home because often that's literally like sitting on a different side of a couch or something like, um, so, so it is definitely, you know, something to keep in mind. I think we're all still, you know, both managers and police self-employed as well. Uh, that's certainly my experience at the moment. Well, you know, we're all kind of figuring out what the, where the, where the boundaries are.

I like the idea that I know something you talk about a lot at like, you know, forget work-life balance is more about like harmony and how did it to kind of kind of fit together. But that's often used as an excuse to just be like, oh, sure. I can work at 11:00 PM because, you know, I took a break at 2:00 PM to pick up my kids or go to the gym. Like, it's not kind of where, um, I want to go. I realize we're we're at 40 minutes. I think we're going to close it for today.

Anything else that you want to. Touch on Lauren.

Um, and a lot of asynchronous. Um, communicators. A lot of distributed companies, um, are actually really, really bullish on, uh, having no interest in, in the number of hours that you're spending. I, if you're, if you're being paid for 40 hours a week, but you're getting your work done perfectly and 10, that's fine for them. And they're not going to argue with it. Um, I think was just a kind of useful framing.

The final thing that I'd just like to say is I'm very bad at self promotion, but I have a newsletter if you'd like keep in touch and buddy, uh, you'll find me at. L Ross that's L a Zed or Z for the Americans, uh, dot dot com. Um, that's totally free of charge. So please feel free to, uh, sign up and drop me an email sometime and reply if, uh, if you fancy

I saw that, um, LinkedIn recently, uh, did some, uh, put out some research around kind of the fastest growing remote work, um, in. The United States, I think it was, but, but it applies really everywhere and it's not all, uh, you know, it's not all professional. Desk-based, it's, you know, there there's a lot of other things. Um, the other, you know, when you were pointing out, you know, not doing by the hour, reminded me.

It has been, the system has been, uh, for decades in Marsay, in the south of France with, um, waste collection so that the garbage collectors are paid, not by the hour, but by. When is the garbage collected, and if you can do it and if you can do it in 10 hours, Why we're just going to leave you on your truck for another 12. Like, just so you're, you've put in the hours. That's ridiculous.

Now would that, unfortunately in Marsay that's often meant that the job has half-assed because then they could get out early. So there is that question of quality control. Um, but if you fix that, then it's absolutely, um, something, something that can be done that just reminded me of, I'm also terrible at self promotion, but I'm going to do it anyway. Um, you, my work is@borderlinepod.com. You can find the podcast, which, uh, just had a great episode.

If I'm a see, saw myself come out yesterday, uh, which I loved, there's a newsletter that you can subscribe to there. A lot of it is free. You can support it, uh, with a paid membership. Actually, a lot of it is free and, uh, and, uh, yeah, I hope you'll, you'll join us. There. There's a community of, of global citizens talking about work and life and immigration and all these things that happen in the spaces between, uh, countries and cultures, where a lot of us live now.

Including the two of us. All right. Well, thanks everyone. We're gonna sign off. Um, we'll be back. We'll be back next week. Same time. We're going to keep doing this, um, uh, throughout the summer, minus a few weeks where we'll be on holiday, but, um, we'll, we'll keep talking about working across borders. So stay tuned for the day. And