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Remote work without preparation. Brief introduction



In the light of recent notorious events, the issue of remote work becomes especially acute. You cannot just stop working, the business has customers, there are customers, there are restrictions. Now even banks are transferring employees to a remote location, and banks, it must be said, even in ordinary times, remote managers were not always given remote access, let alone ordinary employees.

If before there were many articles comparing remote work and office work for the IT sector, now it is relevant for everyone. To begin with, let's try to make out what kind of animal it is and dispel several popular fears.

Popular myths


Remotely means inefficient


One of the most probably popular myths is that remote work is not necessarily effective. A rumbling cat, a ringing fridge and a beckoning bed do not allow employees to work, and everything rolls into tartarara. I cannot say that this is completely wrong, but all the same people are different. I worked on a remote site for 4 years, and it was the most effective time in my life. On the other hand, there are people who really cannot force themselves to concentrate in a familiar atmosphere. This myth, combined with the following, usually kills remote work initiatives in the bud.

Here, as for me, the main thing is to provide the right tools and support people in their work. Use the tasktracker to maintain the coherence and volume of tasks, a single means of communication, for example, corporate Slack or Skype, show the delights of using a calendar, so as not to forget about meetings and tasks.

Remotely means uncontrolled


The issue of control, in principle, is acute, and I am skeptical about it. If you always control people, then a priori they stop working on their own, and the remote mode of operation will show where management representatives have problems. It is important that the problem is primarily with managers, since they are the ones who build the team work process and often do not want to recognize the presence of micromanagement and the lack of initiative in teams. As Preobrazhensky said: "Devastation, it is in the head." Indeed, this is often the case, but it all depends on positioning. It is clear that if work outside the office is perceived as a weakening of control and a breath of fresh air, then it is unlikely to be effective. But if you have this, then first you need to think about whether your work in the office is well organized.

Udalenka is suitable only for IT companies


The situation makes us change this opinion and build the process in new conditions for banks, agricultural holdings, retailers and other non-IT businesses, technology has taken a very far step in recent years, so it doesn’t matter if you are an IT outsourcer, or a chain of stores, you can transfer a lot of things to a remote site . It’s clear that it’s impossible to quickly convert cash registers and do the whole process without people, but at least what you can do is worth doing. You don’t have to choose, so you need to build a process, choose tools, preferably without incapacitating the business until the adaptation process passes. But then you need to go back to normal mode, or not?

what can you do


Processes and tools


Office by office, but it is important to follow the processes. Who and when gives tasks to teams, how they do them, how to track time (and whether it is necessary to track time?), How reports are made, how, in the end, to start a working day and finish? These and many other questions immediately arise when we talk about transferring work to remote mode.

First, you need to define and coordinate the process with stakeholders.

It is good practice to synchronize every day, with leaders among themselves, as well as with their employees. So you will be sure that you are going in one direction, preferably the right one for you. For this, it is necessary that all people work on teams / departments. Yes, a team can be of one person, the main thing is that there are no people who are doing something and somehow in a vacuum, and then it turns out that something is wrong - the level of uncertainty is incomprehensible here. We use Skype for this, but there are Zoom, Teams, Hangouts. The main thing here is that it should be systematic: in the morning we phoned, discussed tasks, discussed problems, identified those responsible for the tasks and let the guys go, if everyone understands the importance and value, then the teams inside themselves will be able to find each other and discuss their issues.

The same should be with customers - determine the synchronization process that is comfortable for you: phone, skype, slack, telegrams and more. The main thing is not to let things go by themselves, the more understatement, the more alterations and discontent will be. This, of course, is obvious to many, but in my practice, regular synchronization with customers and stakeholders is neglected too often not to repeat it again.

Workplace


Customize the workplace for yourself, make it convenient, help your teams, if necessary, give out monitors, comfortable chairs, everything you can help to make the working mood really work. Often, this important issue is ignored, but you do not need to score on time and health, namely, the workplace affects these parameters. Separate between personal and work, determine the conditions in which you work and do not work. Headphones, a separate room, an arrangement with loved ones, all this should help you, not distract.

The next question: how not to lose tasks and information?


Here the track trackers come to the rescue, which allow you to conduct tasks on a specific process. We use the entire Atlassian tools, it’s not surprising, we are the Atlassian Solution Partner. In Jira Software, tasks are broken down by project, tasks have a specific workflow, required / optional fields. Teams have boards for the convenience of working with tasks. There is also a Jira Service Desk for processing requests from customers and our employees, SLAs are already set up here, queues for support agents, and there is also a workflow. And in Confluence we maintain a knowledge base, call results, implementation requirements, activity presale and everything that may be needed.

In the future I plan to delve deeper into the problems of remote work and their solutions, setting up processes in different teams and tools for them. If this topic is interesting, let me know so that I do not publish articles once every half a year :)

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