Slashdot Mirror
Remote Work Works, a New Google Study Finds (fastcompany.com)
Working remotely can be really tough. To get some insight into how to do it better, Google conducted a two-year study involving data from 5,600 employees across the U.S., Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. From a report: Approximately 30% of the company's meetings involve staff in more than two time zones, and 39% involve more than two cities. Veronica Gilrane, manager of Google's People Innovation Lab, oversaw the study and has written a guide for how to make the most of distributed teams. Last week, she released a report of her findings. On the outset of the study, the team hypothesized that distributed teams might not be as productive as their centrally located counterparts. "We were a little nervous about that," says Gilrane. She was surprised to find that distributed teams performed just as well. Unfortunately, she also found that there is a lot more frustration involved in working remotely. Workers in other offices can sometimes feel burdened to sync up their schedules with the main office. They can also feel disconnected from the team. Gilrane says there are three key tricks to optimizing a remote workforce.
The first is being flexible about time zones. For her own teams meetings, which has people on the West Coast and East Coast, she makes sure meetings are at different times every week and are equally convenient for workers in each time zone. If workers extend into more varied time zones, like Greenwich mean time or China standard time, she says to make sure that a manager should alternate meeting times so that one time zone isn't inconvenienced more than another. Next, she suggests making time for team members across the globe to get to know one another. She thinks managers should be really thoughtful about when they use technology for meetings and when its more appropriate to fly out team members to meet in person. Though distributed teams cannot meet in person often, she thinks managers should encourage workers to get to know one another. Her team meets once a week for 30 minutes with no express agenda over video chat.
The first is being flexible about time zones. For her own teams meetings, which has people on the West Coast and East Coast, she makes sure meetings are at different times every week and are equally convenient for workers in each time zone. If workers extend into more varied time zones, like Greenwich mean time or China standard time, she says to make sure that a manager should alternate meeting times so that one time zone isn't inconvenienced more than another. Next, she suggests making time for team members across the globe to get to know one another. She thinks managers should be really thoughtful about when they use technology for meetings and when its more appropriate to fly out team members to meet in person. Though distributed teams cannot meet in person often, she thinks managers should encourage workers to get to know one another. Her team meets once a week for 30 minutes with no express agenda over video chat.
The methodology seems to be surveys and focus groups. As if employees will report that distributed / remote work is less effective or productive.
The only way to do this properly is to measure the waste in their processes. The farcical thing is that the report actually identifies a whole bunch of different types of waste that are caused by alleviating some of the challenges of remote work: travelling to get face time, fiddling with technology, delays in communication due to needing to schedule meetings, etc.
I've known for 20 years that distributed work environments such for the business and are great for the employees. I've worked in both collocated and distributed environments and I've actually measured (objectively) the effects of both. Business people; don't be fooled! Distributed teams usually cost more than they are worth!
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I've worked in both collocated and distributed environments and I've actually measured (objectively) the effects of both. Business people; don't be fooled! Distributed teams usually cost more than they are worth!
Maybe at one point that was true, but I highly doubt that is the case now as group communication has become really efficient.
Also I question how objective your measurements really were. If they were not with the same PEOPLE over that entire time, they mean nothing - some people and teams work well as a remote group, some do not.
What is an absolutely objective fact is how much time is saved every day by the remote worker in terms of not commuting. That is time that can either be used for work (often true) or sometimes for personal errands, which would have eventually been taken out of work time anyway. Distributed workers have more time and energy to give a company, point blank.
Anyone who says otherwise has not experienced a lifetime of calls or out of work errands to try and deal with stuff on company time, that has to be dealt with during the day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley