Lessons from Working Remote During COVID-19
COVID-19 caused much of the workforce to shift from working together in an office to working together from their own homes. For some companies, this was nothing new. But for others, it was a major shift. Rob and Traci discuss what it has been like from their perspectives and how to take the good of this situation and apply it to your company for lasting positive effects in the future.
Transcript
Traci:
Hey Rob, how are you doing?
Rob:
I'm good Traci, how are you?
Traci:
Good.
I was just thinking, let's see, Sparkbox is about 11 years old. And since its inception, you've been working in an office space side by side with your colleagues, but for the last three months since COVID hit and quarantine went into effect, you've been working at home.
I'm really curious—because I've been talking to so many clients that have been experiencing what you've been experiencing, and actually many clients who were always working remotely or from home—I'm really curious, what's your experience been like? Do you have a preference? Have you discovered things you didn't think you'd discover about working from home? What's it been like?
Rob:
Yeah, it's been an interesting journey because I have worked from an office the last 11 years since we started the company. I was probably one of the people who as long as I was in town, I was at the office. That's where I enjoyed working. I didn't work from home much even though we have a pretty flexible policy. What I've discovered is, I like parts of working remotely better than I thought I would.
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Welcome to the Overly Human podcast, where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Rob:
In a previous life, I worked full time remote for almost two years, and I hated it. Hated every minute of it, didn't love the job. Granted, that was before video conferencing was really popular, so it was a lot of phone calls. It was just an awful experience and I told kind of myself that I never want to do that again. And back in March I found myself in a situation where that choice was removed from me.
Traci:
Yeah. What is it that you hated most about your previous experience? Is there any of those feelings that have come up in the last three months, is there anything that you haven't really not liked about the last three months?
Rob:
Well, I think the last three months aren't quite equatable to my previous experience doing it because in my former life when I was working from home I was traveling 70% of the time, so that was a part of it. The other part was is, you weren't in quarantine. If you wanted to go out to dinner you could. My kids were much younger, and I'm in a different situation. I was working for somebody else instead of myself.
What I've figured out after unpacking all of that, is there so many different that they are totally different experiences. And it's really kind of been a reckoning of, “Okay, my baggage that I had from that previous experience no longer applied because I'm in a different situation, I'm a different person. Different things family-wise, work wise, all of that.” In other places in my life it was like, something I thought I knew about myself, I was actually completely wrong about.
Traci:
Wow. What would you say have been the pros, let's start with the pros of working from home for you and what you've heard from your fellow team members?
Rob:
Yeah, for me personally, one of the pros has been is I get an hour a day back from my commute. It was 20 minutes in the morning and 20–25ish on the way home, but there's no commute anymore, which is good. That's an hour, I get back a day. The flexibility is good to be able to have lunch with my family and see them and help around the house some during the day that's been a good thing.
Some of the cons have been, it's a little lonelier, but I think that that's just been opportunity to solve problems. What I've found is I'm much more social and reach out to people proactively when I'm working from home. It's more evenly distributed amongst a wider group of people because I can't be lazy and just walk out my office door and see people.
Traci:
Yeah. It's so interesting because that's what I'm hearing so much of from my clients as well, is that there has been a ton of personal benefit that has taken place during this time. People feel more connected to their families. They've gained back this time that they used to have during their commutes. They also are surprised at how much they can still connect via Zoom, or Teams, or whatever you're using. This kind of intentional mindset you have to have.
Where in the office, sometimes you can kind of take what you're saying, kind of take that for granted. That I'll wander out of my office and see who I bump into by the water cooler, in the kitchen, or whatever. When you're at home, well especially if you're a good leader, you're really kind of trying to put yourself in the right mindset to reach out to people.
The cons are, or what I'm hearing too is, especially from an extroverted person, is just that feeling of being with other humans, to be in an office space. And even if you're used to working remotely, I've had this conversation with a lot of people, this hasn't been a normal work from home experience. Usually you don't have your children around you when you're working from home. I mean maybe in the summer, but typically even in the summer, they have camps to go to and things to do.
So we're surrounded by our entire family. You can have a spouse or significant other that's also working from home, that's highly unusual. As you pointed out, you can't just pop out for lunch, or dinner, or to run errands, or to go shopping, or whatever you can, but it's a different feeling and a different experience.
It's been interesting to me, but the psychological part that's been interesting is how extroverts are responding to this versus introverts. Have you seen that on your team? Have you seen sort of the introverts maybe enjoying this a little bit better, maybe a little less stressed, maybe a little more energy versus the extroverts seeming a little bit more depleted, a little bit more lacking in energy throughout this experience?
Rob:
Yeah, totally. We've actually just wrapped up a company wide survey about people's work from home experience and making sure they're getting what they need. What do they think about it? What is their ideal preference for the future? Because we're trying to figure out what next looks like.
It's interesting, there's a lot of people who have a strong preference from being in their own space and having that control back. There also is a group of people who are like, "I want the office back." It's a really interesting thing to see the difference in the responses and where they're at. I think that you're right. There's a lot of people who just miss being around people, and I'm one of them. I've had to find other ways to kind of do that.
Traci:
I'm glad that you did a survey. I've been hearing a lot of people doing that and I think it's really important to remind people to really consider the bigger picture when you're looking at these survey results because right now we're at this crossroads where now people are trying to decide, and I have a couple of clients that are actually looking to get rid of their leases. One, they can save money and then they've also found that they can actually still maintain a high level of creativity and collaboration remotely.
That's great, but I think what we need to always consider is looking at the big picture and remembering that every person, especially given their personality type, are going to need different things. We can't just base our decision on the future based on our own desires as an extrovert or introvert or based on if we have a highly introverted team or a highly extroverted team. We have to kind of look at the business aspect with the personality and the human aspect of it as well. It makes it a little more complicated as we look at the new normal coming up in the future.
Rob:
Yeah. I'm pretty convinced that we're seeing a shift in society about how people will utilize office space and how people will do work, especially in the fields that you and I work in—the service tech fields. I think that there's big changes afoot. I think that down the road, we're going to look back at 2020 as a turning point for that and what that means.
I think we're seeing that with a bunch of the big tech companies. The Googles, the Amazons, the Facebooks are saying that they're going to support remote work and that's the new normal and all of that. I think that's a pretty big shift. I think that there's going to be some pretty good sized ripples and butterfly effect when that starts happening and people having more options and not maybe moving to these tech hubs. And that's going to have an impact on us.
I think that as a company who has not only one office, but we have two offices in two different cities, and we're that weird hybrid we've got half of our company works out of an office and half of our company is already remote. We're honestly trying to figure out what serves the company best moving forward? What is the right next step? Is it going completely remote? Is it having a smaller office without dedicated desks in it? How do we change how we do meetings?
Some of the feedback we got on our survey was, people felt like if everyone was on their own computer, on their own Zoom, that they had more equal footing. Some of the remote people who were remote before that were like, "I feel like more of a participant in meetings than I have ever." I don't know that we would've got that same feedback have we not been somewhat forced into this experiment, the situation really.
Traci:
Oh yeah. This has been such a great time to really examine our working environment and to really examine, can we be flexible? What does the future look like? I've had so many clients say, "We would've never considered this have we not been forced into quarantine. We had these firm beliefs that it should only be this way, and this is the best way and this is the only way that we could do X, Y, and Z."
What I think has been great is that we've been forced into position that's making us reevaluate, no matter what company we are, what works best for our team and what options can we offer? What are the different scenarios or ways we can structure ourselves and still accomplish what we need to accomplish? Still be able to meet our client's needs and then some.
One of the fascinating things is hearing about how people feel, like you were just pointing out, more connected and even more connected to their clients. Typically, and even at our offices as well, typically you feel like, "Oh, we have to get on a plane and we only can do this meeting in person, but now we're forced, we can't do it in person." They find that they're actually increasing their meeting frequencies and that it's working. There's been a lot of pros, but there still are some cons.
Maybe are there hybrid methods? Like what you're talking about, where you do have an office space where people can park if they need to, but then you do allow people more flexibility of working from home now that we know it can work and we can trust our employees. Because trust has been a huge issue for why people do not like their employees working from home. If I can't see you, I don't know what you're doing and that makes me very nervous.
Rob:
I mean that's such an, in my opinion, that's such an old school management style of command and control kind of style instead of, in my opinion, I think everybody who we've ever hired at Sparkbox has heard me say, "We hire adults. We hire people who can act like adults and do the job that we've asked them to do. And if you need a babysitter, you're not going to be happy here, and I'm not going to be happy with you here. And at the end of the day, I get to stay."
I think that I've always bristled at those questions when I hear people say, "Well, how do I know they're getting their job done? How will I know?" I'm like, "Most of us, we work in the knowledge space. We're not paying people for butts in seats. We're paying people to accomplish something. To do the thing we've asked them to do." I think that flexibility is a benefit we can offer when we trust people. I'm convinced that most of our employees, if we treat them like adults and give them trust, they will pay it back by acting like adults and being worthy of that trust. But the opposite is true too. If we treat them like they can't be trusted, they will show up that way too.
Traci:
It's so true. It is the best attitude to have, but it's not a universal attitude. There are many business owners and leaders who feel like they need to see their employees in the office sitting there to believe that they're working. And I think that this has been a huge test of them having to self-examine. Having to say, "Maybe I'm not trusting people the way I need to trust them. Maybe I am holding onto the reigns a little too tightly, and I'm creating an environment that isn't filled with trust and isn't filled with treating people like adults," like you're saying. That's been another really interesting aspect to all of this is, is how it's stretching people in different directions as far as their leadership skills.
Rob:
Yeah. It is. It's an interesting social experiment. There'll be case studies and some Harvard papers written about this time, and I think about the change in cultures that have happened and what people were kind of forced to do.
You said something earlier that I made a note of that I think is worth talking about a little bit. You made a comment about saving money about going remote.
It's interesting, we're a hybrid company. And I don't have the personal data from Sparkbox going fully remote and what the cost savings were, but from talking to peers and the data that I've seen is it's not a cost saving measure. Because your retreats and your other things actually go up in cost and there's other things that offset that.
Not that it's completely the same, but I think that a lot of the people and experiences that I've talked to, there's a leveling that happens. They expect to see all the savings because there's no rent, there's no physical spaces, but that costs get interchanged for other things that have to be done to maintain those pieces. I think that when we've talked about it as a leadership team, a team of directors we've said, "Okay, this can't just be a cost decision. This has to be a, is what we're doing the right thing for the culture and what people need and would benefit to them."
I think that's an interesting place here because I look back at our early days and from a culture perspective, our culture was really dependent on being together for awhile it felt like. I feel somewhat comfortable transitioning to a fully remote culture if that's the decision we ended up making because of the fact that there's roots in it being together.
I just don't know what's going to happen because I think that the story is not told yet. You made a point earlier about traveling. Maybe you don't need to get on a plane and go do that meeting in person. That sounds fine right now for me because nobody can do it. There's no competitive advantage for doing that, but I know that in years past we've traveled on purpose to pitches that are out of state, out of town, and where the client during the proposal process has been like, "Oh, you don't need to come out." I'm like, "No, no, can we?"“ They've said, "Well, yeah, you're welcome to," and we've showed up. I think it's been to our vantage that we've showed up.
Now, right now, none of us can show up, but if things start going back to more normal, whatever the new normal is—maybe a new normal is the way to put it—is would that be a choice and will that competitive advantage still be there? What does that mean?
Traci:
Yeah. And I think everything you're saying is true. I think where I'd stretch our thinking is, is that now we're understanding that we can maybe have a little bit of it all. Before, and I totally agree that being in person with a client, being in person with our staff, having that human connection face-to-face is essential. We need that, but what I think we're learning from this whole experience is, we don't need it all the time.
We can still visit our client, but we also can add in some Zoom calls. And we can still be in the office and then have that human interaction, but we can allow our staff to have some time to work from home each week. Then what are we getting? Because what do we keep hearing over and over again has been the benefit of this quarantine, is family time, personal time, personal space, even if you live alone, sometime that time to refuel and that time to be with friends.
I think what we're learning here is, sometimes we have sacrificed that personal time with our family or that personal time to refuel ourselves because we need to always be in the office or because we always need to be on a plane visiting our clients, or because we always need to be selling or always doing. We have sacrificed so much for our health, for our personal wellbeing and now I think what we're seeing is, “Oh my gosh, man, I feel so much better. I'm so happy that I can have lunch with my kids or I can save some time commuting.”
I think this has been a great lesson that maybe we can have both. Maybe we can start to allow our colleagues to work from home a bit and provide a space for us to be together. Whether that's we come together for retreats, whether it's we maintain an office space, but we allow people to work from home and we start reaching out to our clients in different ways in addition to being in person, but we also start to have more Zoom calls with them.
One of the benefits I think that's going to come out of this is stretching the way we think about how we work together. Also reminding ourselves as the earth has taken a deep breath, and we've seen our environment start to look better, we are also seeing our humans have been able to take a deep breath, reconnect with their families, remember what it's like to be at home and to have lunch. Some of us haven't had lunch with our kids for ages.
I'd like to—which I know is part of the reason why we wanted to do this episode—is just to say what have we learned and how will we apply that learning moving forward? How will we take the benefits of this quarantine and use it to better our business and to better our lives with each other?
Rob:
Yeah. I mean, I think it comes down to giving people those options and that flexibility and letting people in some way, choose your own adventures. I think that there'll be, as companies make changes, people will decide if they want to continue working places based on those changes and not everyone will be happy with every decision. That's not the way things work at scale.
That's a lesson learned for me, but I think that this experience really is just another reminder for me that I need to be open, to be wrong about things that I'm sure about. I think that is so many things in my life over and over and over again, point back to that fact that, be careful what you're sure about and what you're not willing to consider because we've got news for you. We're going to open your eyes and make sure that you have to consider these other things.
I think this is just another one of those. This is going to be a turning point. I don't know that there's a one size fits all just like there wasn't a one size fits all before. That's the beautiful thing about all this is there's a whole bunch of different colors at work.
Traci:
Yeah. I think it's been great learning and I think as hard as it has been on so many levels, just mentally, physically, just a difficult time, I think for us to sit down for a few minutes and talk about some of the silver lining and some of the learnings is important. I hope we can kind of continue these conversations so that we go into the back half of the year and into 2021 with fresh perspective, fresh set of eyes, fresh way of looking at things and use this for the good.
Rob:
Yeah. Let's not waste the opportunity and the things we've learned, right?
Traci:
Yep. Exactly.
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