The Fast Move to Remote Work: March 2020
Remember 2001 Telecommuting?
20 years ago it was called Telecommuting and it was all the rage. Every big company was creating policies, procedures, assessments and training. HR Executive Magazine, Fast Company, Inc and a host of other magazines were writing articles. Small businesses had been doing this forever - but technology was making it easier.
In the last ten years we started calling it remote work, and until a couple weeks ago we took it for granted - some people worked at home, some people didn’t, some organizations felt it was right for them, some didn’t.
Now every non-front line in-person customer service role has been moved home, or other place where you can work without physically coming into contact with more than 10 people at a time. And everyone wants to know how do we make this work!
We have a 10 inch thick file of ripped out magazine articles and program manuals from those first days of telecommuting (see Training Systems’ staff, I told you it was worth keeping!) . When we thumbed through today we found that almost every one is still useful today. What we mostly used back then from the literature search were the tips on how to tell which of our staff could successfully work remotely.
Yes, they’re already home working but it’s still worth doing. Assessments then were designed to let the staff person and the supervisor know who would have trouble working remotely and who would be even more productive if they went remote. We didn’t use them to exclude people, though some were. We used them to provide training on weak areas. So using assessment questions like the ones below (with some wording changes to fit the new situation) could tell us who is having trouble and why, giving us ideas for what we need to do to help them become more successful. (picture)
Is Telecommuting Right For You
Do you already take work home? If so what?
Have you worked at your organization long enough to thoroughly understand it’s culture and expectations?
Does the idea of telecommuting make you feel uneasy about getting your work done on time?
Are you concerned about how the relationship may change between you and your supervisor/you and your co-workers/you and your staff?
What types of tasks and objectives do you think telecommuting will help you get done most productively?
How much do you think telecommuting will favorably affect the quality of your work? Your productivity?
Can others perform their jobs without you and they physically being together?
Are you content to work in isolation?
Can you perform your job, complete projects and meet deadlines without in-person supervision?
Can you physically take your work home with you in a briefcase?
Can you communicate everything you need for your daily workload via phone, email or video conference?
Does your home allow you to work for long, uninterrupted periods of time?
Does your home have a separate room with a door that shuts in which you can set up your work?
If you have a child, do you have day care for while you work?
If you live with someone else who works from home, what do you foresee the problems and benefits being?
Can you stop work at the end of the work day? If you were your boss, would you let yourself telecommute?
How to use this?
- you could use it as talking points with individual staff
- use it as part of weekly training on how to enhance the remote work experience/their remote work skills (I’d change the title to Remote Work Survey. They’re already working remotely, they have to work remotely and you don’t want them to get the picture that they’re not good at it so they can just come back to the office.)
- got another idea? - share it in the Comments