Get best of the week

Productivity and motivation at a distance: Russian IT companies share 2 months of experience in isolation

imagePhoto: Accentuate Staffing / Flickr

Many IT companies quarantined in mid-March, without waiting for an official order from the authorities. It became interesting to us how they were able to organize remote work, what difficulties arose, and most importantly, how to remotely maintain employee motivation. It turns out that everything is not so bad and some are ready to continue working in the new mode and on.
, . , . , , - .

:
: , AdTech Rambler Group

? ?


Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte employer’s brand brand development manager:

Some teams have begun to work more efficiently, some have maintained their previous pace of work, for some it has been more difficult to switch to the remote format. 

But in general, the productivity of the entire team has even increased. With the lockdown, we had many new tasks - it was necessary to quickly respond to changes in the world and adapt the product to remote formats. We did it very well.  

As before moving to a remote location, we do not track working hours, but focus on the amount of work done and tasks performed. We have a roadmap, sprints and task trackers.

Sergey Luchin, spokesperson for Mail.ru Group:

In work, we are most concerned about the result, not the process. Each employee has their own ways of achieving it. Keeping your finger on the pulse is important, but this must be done carefully. It is necessary that the controls do not take too much time - if a person spends an hour or two on reports, the working day is essentially reduced and used inefficiently. Moreover, there are tasks for which progress can be seen only after a long time, and such daily reports simply do not make sense. Often, one half-hour conversation with the leader in a week will be much more effective than five daily “statuses”.
It is enough for us to understand that the employee is included in the process and is available to colleagues.

Throughout our remote work, we conduct regular surveys to find out how colleagues feel when working from home. Most note that in remote mode they are comfortable, and they work even more efficiently.

Olga Filatova, Beeline Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Organizational Development:

Interviews with managers show that employee performance has either not changed or increased. Beeline began to implement the BeeFREE remote work project back in 2016, and during this time we have gained extensive experience in organizing and managing remote work. This experience also helped in April of this year to quickly transfer more than 90% of employees to completely remote work.

Employees and managers use the corporate portal to organize and manage remote work. Employees fill out to-do-lists with tasks for the day, and this tool helps to monitor effectiveness. In addition, we conduct surveys of executives.

Rambler Group Press Service:

After the first three weeks of the udalenka, we selectively interviewed colleagues and found out how they feel when working from home. About 20% of employees of different levels from different departments took part in it. Most of them have increased the amount of work (like 57% of people around the world), while many felt a sense of universal mobilization and unity. Productivity also increased - employees on a remote site began to work more actively and more. Therefore, after the announcement of the days off in April and May, the majority of employees (more than 80%) expressed a desire to continue working on the projects that they are conducting.

HR-team “Dodo Pizza”:

After the transition to remote work, many children have a longer working day. When working from home, you don’t have to spend time on the road and it is difficult to keep track of time. The work day starts earlier and ends later. Many work too on weekends.

Every quarter we conduct a pulse survey and in April we added a question about remote work. The results showed that the guys are comfortable, they have everything they need to work. The only thing is that there is not enough live communication with colleagues.

We continue to send furniture and equipment from the office if employees have a need for it.

What are the difficulties of working remotely in a large team? How do you build communication? What services do you use?


Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte:

We are used to talking a lot: not only at meetings in the meeting rooms, but just fleetingly in the corridors or in the kitchen, on business issues or informal. Previously, we often went to work lunches or discussed issues quickly for coffee. This is part of our culture. Therefore, when everyone left to work remotely, it became unusual and at first a little complicated - there was not enough communication.

But at the same time, we already had experience in remote communications. VK has offices in different locations and cities, a lot of remote employees, so even in "peace times" we talked not only live. This system is well established through the VKontakte platform: we use chatrooms, work communities and other internal interfaces.

It is important for us to be on the same wavelength and to know what the neighboring teams are doing. Therefore, the process of informing employees has always been a priority, long before isolation. However, in modern realities, some formats had to be slightly corrected.

For instance:

  • Reported longreads of teams used to be released once every two weeks, now - every week;
  • speeches about the news in the work used to take place in the format of broadcasts from the Headquarters. You could come to the conference room and watch live, ask a speaker a question, pat. Now they are held in video format. We pre-record videos, edit and publish at the usual time in the community for the whole Team. Respect can be expressed in the comments;
  • meetings with the management (we call them “Friday”), where the c-level answers the questions of the Team and talks about important events, switched to the broadcast format.

Rambler Group press service:

We were able to quickly switch to a remote work format - it took us about two to three days. The Rambler Group has long established a process of remote work for most of the group's employees.

For mass meetings, we immediately set up Teams for everyone, bought Zoom licenses, helped employees to configure new communication services and equipment (for the period of full access to the remote mode, the technical support team worked out about 500 tickets). For quick access to internal services, we replaced VPN routers and provided standard access for over 1.2 thousand employees.

To stay in the general information field, we hold weekly online meetings with business leaders, the CEO meets with the team once every two weeks. We remain in contact with teams and leaders. We even want to leave this practice in the future, almost the entire team can attend an online meeting, minimally breaking away from work tasks.

Olga Filatova, Beeline:

One of the most important tasks is to maintain constant and transparent communication with all employees, both within departments and with top management. In order to constantly be in the information field, managers conduct continuous video conferences in Zoom, Blue Jeans, Skype for Business, use groups in various instant messengers to exchange information. An important role in communication is played by the corporate portal Space, on which we publish news and announcements of meetings with top management. Such meetings are held regularly with us, as constant communication with company leaders is now a guarantee of peace of mind for employees.

Sergey Luchin, Mail.ru Group:

We are a technology company, and it was easier for us to transfer work to a remote mode: Mail.ru Group has many strong communication products, including two leading Russian social networks. We used to solve many issues in messengers, mail and video, but now we just transferred all communications online, including meetings with partners.

MegaFon Press Service:

The company provided all its employees with the opportunity to connect the Unite! Tariff, which includes home Internet, mobile communications and TV, for successful organization of work from home for three months. For the same purpose, experts at MegaFon Corporate University MegaAcademia conducted a webinar for employees and their relatives with recommendations on improving productivity, arranging the workspace, and information on digital tools for uninterrupted communication and quick problem solving. A training was developed for managers on how to properly organize the work of employees from a distance. In total, they held more than 20 online events: workshops, webinars, career fairs and others.

How do you motivate employees? How do you compensate for the lack of team building events?


HR-team “Dodo Pizzas”:

We have been isolated for more than a month and we all miss each other. To maintain team spirit, the guys call up teams, play quiz on weekends and conduct online tastings. In April, we celebrated the company's birthday online. They organized the broadcast on the YouTube channel in the form of a program guide and their own channel “Dodo TV”. Colleagues on the air taught to cook, draw, play sports at home, take beautiful photos and played the game “Guess the melody”. Of course, there was a news program from the company's CEO and after party at Google Meet.

Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte:

Before we moved to distant work, our offices had a lot of entertainment and activities for employees: Friday pizza, games at the Brain Slaughterhouse, master classes, table tennis championships, joint cinema trips and much more. When it became clear that the remote work would last more than a week, we began to think that of our activities it was possible to adapt for the remote format. And immediately they asked what needs may arise for employees when working from home, which we can help close. They asked the whole team what they lacked and what they would like, and, based on the answers, prepared new formats. 

As a result, we reformatted our internal community for VK Lectures employees (where lectures for the Team from the Headquarters were broadcast at the usual time) into a community to maintain good spirits on a remote site - VK Isolation. And they moved the team buildings there in a new format.

We reformatted old entertainment and added new ones relevant for remote work:

  • Food. We publish cool and simple recipes from colleagues for those who first turned out to be alone with the kitchen. For the advanced level, they organized more complex master classes by chefs via video communication. Promo codes for discounts were sent to all employees at Delivery Club.
  • . , , - - . , , - VK, . 
  • . «» . : .
  • . Random Coffee , Discord.
  • . , , . , , , . 
  • . .
  • . , , , , , Zoom.

They also gave lectures on the history of the Singer House and the department store “Near the Red Bridge” with historians of the Lev Lurie Culture House. 

Olga Filatova, Beeline:

We use the online involvement of employees, which helps them to feel part of the team. For example, on the corporate portal we collect collections of photos with the employees' home workplace, practice joint online sports, quizes, online chess tournaments, e-sports. For a more comfortable work in Zoom made custom corporate backgrounds. We gathered all the events held in the company in the weekly upcoming BeeFREE Digest. All remote employees are charged an additional packet of Internet traffic to their service number, and telemedicine is also provided in the VHI package.

MegaFon Press Service:

MegaFon organizes online entertainment events for employees who are working remotely on the MegaFon TV platform. In April and May, an online concert of the famous foreign star and a cover band party took place. On May 7, a quiz was organized. On Friday, May 15, a rock concert will be held. There are also plans to hold a culinary master class with the children of employees and a master class in drawing.

Sergey Luchin, Mail.ru Group:

We have translated almost all social activities online, even corporate sports and programs for employees' children. They launched additional projects: a discussion of films with film critic Anton Dolin, joint cooking of breakfasts with professional chefs, and so on. Also, when switching to remote work, we provided additional discounts from Delivery Club for all our employees. Our policy in the areas of development, training, compensation and benefits has remained unchanged.

Rambler Group Press Service

We are constantly in touch, we can say that we met earlier less often. We have online quizzes, mitaps. Participation in events is exclusively voluntary, we understand that self-isolation does not cancel personal affairs, and work can take up more energy. Therefore, we are just trying to help: keep the children busy, explain new rules for self-isolation, give effective tools.

Many activities are organized by the employees themselves. For example, we have a weekly Rambler / bar, in the framework of which everyone is interested in discussing online not only work issues, but also resting, talking on abstract / personal topics.

Have there been any cases of burnout? How did you work with such employees? Do you have a staff psychologist who is ready to help in such cases?


Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte:

For more than a year now, a professional psychologist has been working in our Headquarters, which all employees can contact. With the transition to remote work, the opportunity to turn to a psychologist was preserved - only now the sessions are through video communication. 

In addition, we have an HR business partner with whom each employee can discuss any problem that concerns him. We are for an individual approach, and always try to find the optimal solution for the specific problem of each employee, including when it comes to the problem of burnout. Someone needs time to relax and completely switch from work tasks, someone needs a change of activity within the team, and someone needs help to build a clearer line between work and personal time. 

Rambler Group Press Service

At the very beginning of our isolation, we entered into an agreement with the Understand Remote Consulting Service, under which employees of a group of companies can consult psychologists, lawyers and financial consultants for free.

Also, our training and development team offers everyone a personal online coach session. This is communication with high-class specialists on various issues, including burnout, loss of motivation. Those who want to eat, we know for sure. But naturally, the whole process is completely anonymous.

Olga Filatova, Beeline:

Over the five years of the project, we have studied in detail the causes of staff discomfort and found effective ways to work with them. In the required training courses on remote work, we give the necessary introductory notes on planning and time management, share life hacks, how to maintain a work-life balance. Additionally, after the pandemic began, our corporate university developed the webinar “How to Cope with Anxiety”. To maintain the resource state of employees on the internal portal, we publish collections of music, books and films, applications, life hacks for remote work and other useful materials.

Sergey Luchin, Mail.ru Group:

We provide our employees with useful information on the topic of telecommuting and help colleagues adapt to the self-isolation mode. We help with issues related to the organization of the workplace, the use of work tools and communication.

In addition, we launched a stress and functional state webinar program. In the conditions of remote work, colleagues may encounter a number of difficulties, including in building a work-rest balance, therefore both our office psychologists and third-party online psychological counseling services are available for all employees, to which we made corporate access.

MegaFon Press Service:

In order to avoid professional burnout and quickly solve problems that arise in a mode of self-isolation that is not typical for everyone, employees can turn to company psychologists who are ready to consult, provide support and give recommendations on how to cope with the extra load.

What do you do if an employee becomes uncomfortable working on a remote site?


Olga Filatova, Beeline Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Organizational Development:

To properly organize remote work, managers and employees take online courses prepared by a corporate university. They must pass all employees working remotely. From these courses, colleagues learn about all the necessary actions and algorithms that help work comfortably from home. At the same time, of course, employees can always discuss particular issues with their supervisor, and work through the difficulties encountered at an individual coaching session.

Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte:

We conduct surveys on how employees feel remotely and whether we can help with anything else, read answers and try to solve problems that arise. To everyone who was uncomfortable working behind laptop screens, we transported monitors from the office, and those who suffered at home without an office chair brought chairs. We try to predict the needs that may arise for employees with remote work, and look for ways to satisfy them. 

Any employee can address problems with both their immediate supervisor and the HR business partner or HRD. At the moment we cannot allow the employee to work from the office for security reasons, but we are trying to solve all other requests.

Rambler Group Press Service

We try to inform employees about the life of the company and support them. From the first day of the remote work, we began to carry out direct connections with the general director, business leaders and teams. In addition, we organize our own webinars, where we talk about how to keep calm in the new reality for both specialists and managers. One of the first webinars on remote work skills (including personal and psychological) was attended by about 700 employees.

Sergey Luchin, Mail.ru Group:

If difficulties arise, any colleague can turn to both his supervisor and the HR business partner of his team to help resolve any issue.

How long has your team in theory been ready to work in the mode it is now?


Olga Filatova, Beeline:

We have been working remotely since 2016, so we are not experiencing difficulties. Moreover, we are ready to share experience in organizing and managing remote work with other companies and their employees. In March 2020, Beeline created a site with relevant materials : rules for remote work, language of legal documents, life hacks from employees, webinar entries on this topic, etc. Over a month, more than 100 thousand people visited it.

Natalya Tanaeva, VKontakte:

Work in a remote format has both minuses and pluses, and so far we are doing very well. Can we go on like this? Yes, while there is such a need. But we, of course, like everyone else, are waiting for the normalization of the situation and the opportunity to return to the usual rhythm of working in the office and meeting with colleagues live. 

Press service of the Rambler Group

In some medical assets ("Poster", "Rambler") the flexible shift regime has been introduced for a long time, and their schedule has not changed significantly. Technically and operationally, we were ready to move to a remote location and, according to asset leaders, we maintain our effectiveness. But there are projects whose work is not possible in a remote format. This applies to our media, Okko project studios - about 3% of the total number of employees.

We all missed the office, colleagues, friends and managers, so we want to quickly return to the office. We ourselves feel and see / hear this in the framework of feedback from colleagues.

HR-team “Dodo Pizza”:

After weakening the quarantine, we plan to recommend working from home in order to eliminate the risks of infection in public transport.

More articles:


All Articles