CAVO Ep. 47: Debunking Myths to Build a Successful Virtual Workplace

More than a year post pandemic, many organizations are bringing employees back to the office in some type of hybrid format. As the virtual workplace evolves, there are myths and challenges that must be addressed and overcome to achieve a climate that supports virtual work success. Iwo Szapar, Remote Work Advocate & Co-founder of Remote-how, the world’s leading platform for remote professionals, joins Dr. Stephanie Menefee, Associate Dean of Students in the School of Business at Northcentral University, to discuss skills needed to create a positive and productive remote work culture. 

Transcript

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  0:02  
Welcome to the Center for the advancement of virtual organizations podcast, debunking myths to build a successful virtual workplace. I'm Stephanie Menifee. And today we're joined by Evo shop par, remote work advocate and co founder of remote how the world's leading platform for remote professionals currently representing over 25,000 individuals from 128. countries. Evo welcome. And thank you so much for taking the time to come chat with us about the skills needed to lead a remote team.

Iwo Szapar  0:34  
Thank you so much for invite.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  0:36  
So I was reading an interview you did last year where you said the biggest obstacle preventing companies from going remote was trust. But that micromanagement would have to end in 2020, or companies would forever fall behind. And I actually got really excited about our conversation today. Because I think many leaders are still struggling a bit with having their offices completely. For now mostly virtual.

Iwo Szapar  1:00  
Yes, yes, absolutely. And this is something that was already the case before the pandemic, there's this famous study by Oracle showing that 64% of employees trust more robots, and their own managers, which is really scary. And and that's an that's an red flag and the big alarm that needs to change the ways how managers lead their teams, and what do you really focus on because it's, it's no longer about checking if you're working, going to your desk and making sure that this single task is delivered, and then we will, we'll be micromanaging queue again, for the another one, it's about setting long term goals, providing support, building the culture of trust. So those are the things that are really not just purely connected to working in the in a distributed fashion. It's just how the work should be done anyway, always. But unfortunately, because there's always an important target project to deliver a deadline, oftentimes managers simply neglected that the self development, and then truly be making sure that they're becoming better leaders. And now it's the time to take a step back and, and finally, and reevaluate how they're leading their teams. Because simply, if they want change, they would fail. And this could cause a big backlash on the whole concept of working outside the office, which is proven to work because you have many successful companies worth billions of dollars, like automatic OR gate lab, they simply don't have an office, they have very high retention rate of their employees, they're growing. So this model works, it's just requires a lot of change. And this change starts with with the leadership.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  3:07  
Absolutely. And I want to jump right into our questions. But I You were right on time with remote how and so to get us started, would it be possible for you to tell us a little bit about yourself and why the subject is important to you?

Iwo Szapar  3:21  
Yes, of course. So actually, I was one of the managers that in 2017, was looking to expand the team. We recently moved to Austin, in Texas, from Europe, and it was really hard to find talent. And then on the other side, what I really noticed that there are many people that start to value experience over possession. So this whole shift in how we view our life and what is the role that that work place. So basically started to connect the dots that maybe giving people an opportunity to, to work whenever will make them happier. And as a win win situation, it would also help businesses simply hire people from anywhere in the world to solve their their challenge of talent shortage shortage. So long story short, late 2017, we started to look into the remote work topic and we discovered that there is a big problem with the mindset. Of course, people are afraid of change and things related to trust, etc. And then once we're past that, then there is a big gap when it comes to skills, how to actually do it. So there was the beginning of remote how we started off by organizing the largest virtual summit in 2018. With like speakers from Asana, Forbes and organizations that were already starting to, to embrace remote work. Then we launched the remote Academy. We trained 1000s of professionals all over the world, how to lead distributed teams, and this year, we learn Do not have a marketplace where experts, top experts from distributed companies are helping enterprises all over the world, how to go through remote or hybrid transformation. My background is in business development and in partnerships. And this is, this is a very short overview way we are, we are having this conversation, but I'm extremely passionate about remote work it also the fact that we started to work on remote how gave us the option to work anywhere we want. So when we moved in 2018, out of Austin, and then we traveled and lived in 14 different countries throughout the last over three years. So yeah, it's we are we are living by proof. We are preaching and living, what we are what we are talking about.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  5:55  
That's an incredible story, and I can hear your passion. And wow, just having that kind of freedom to move around. I'm really excited to have you share a few secrets with everyone.

Iwo Szapar  6:11  
Today. Yeah, yeah. And these days, once once the pandemic will be over, and we will never go back to the old reality, people will forever have a choice where they where they live, how they work. And it's already happening, like the fact that people are coming back to rural areas where they originally come from either in the US, or it's happening also in Europe or in Asia, this is the very beginning of the trends that is in general reshaping how the world looks like. So it's extremely exciting that more and more people will get this opportunity to truly have the freedom. We just need to do it, right.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  6:56  
Yes, yes. And today, we're going to start with the top of the organization. So yes, if you if you had to name the top three skills necessary for a remote leader, what would they be and why? Yes.

Iwo Szapar  7:11  
So they are all important what I will rely on mentioned. So just it's not that the order doesn't matter. But I will start with communication. And remote work requires totally different skill sets and totally different approach to how we communicate. So two main aspects. So first of all, asynchronous communication. So the days of meetings are happening through the whole day. Some of them are badly plans, some of them are very ad hoc. So we are interrupted all the time, they are gone, as well as the days or should be gone. Unfortunately, it's not the case for many organizations, as well as days when managers keep messaging pass on instant chats and there they are expecting that we'll be replying immediately those days will be also over so looking at the fact that it's we need to change the way how you communicate both in the in the written format as well as in as in meetings that requires a big change and on the on the manager side. So especially making sure that we have rules how we communicate internally within the team or within the organization, whether the self service level agreements, what what is the tone sorbets, I can go into this very deep, but maybe I will just stick into within them general statement that managers need to change the way how they communicate. So this is this is extremely important. The second aspect, the there is that is connecting with writing more and more and defining how the work is done. It's the worker organization. The very successful and well structured distributed teams have oftentimes something which is called a handbook or a playbook where basically it's an like an ongoing instruction of how the team works, but also how to work progresses and to create as much as visibility and transparency within the organization. So this is the other aspect of a leader that the leader needs to make sure that this single source of truth of work not just exists, but it's improved every day and and the team is really engaged with with creating this right so the days of working just with an email and calendar and maybe a spreadsheet are over. We need to simply become a better workers and one of these components that that is connected with this is that we need To write more about our work, we need to have more more rules in place that we are happy that we are.

Iwo Szapar  10:09  
That we are following through, right? I know that in the beginning, it will, it will be painful, and it will mean that we won't have time for for other tasks. But once we have this foundation in place, it's an optimization in the long run. Because imagine that you were asking an or, or you're looking for an answer to a question that someone already asked three months ago, are you looking for this file, and if everything is perfectly structured, then it's super easy to find that and this is just a very simple, simple example. But there's, there's way more. So I would say that this is this is the second one. So the work and organization and creating playbooks handbooks, and then working accordingly to them. And the third aspect, extremely important, very broad, and we kind of touched on this, in the beginning, is a culture. So finally, a manager needs to be more of a mentor and a leader, rather than the just task management planner, right. And, and this would cause a lot of challenges around especially the culture fit, that companies were not considering as strongly as they should, when they were recruiting for certain positions. So right now, managers need to spend more and more time on cultivating the culture engaging with the team motivating, especially if they are working with individual setup, rather than checking if someone is actually working, because this is this is right now, completely, completely irrelevant. So probably as you can, as you can hear, the third aspect is that the manager needs to take care of some of the HR people operations, roles, when when, when it comes to cultivating or maybe creating from this crutch, the small culture within the team. So everyone is happy. And everyone really likes to start today. And don't be this person from the meme that oh, my God, this Monday again, right? So I would I would group them in these three areas. But of course, there's there's way more but the question was about three.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  12:25  
I know. I know. And I instinctively want to ask you about the others. But outside of the your wonderful remote, how Academy where I know, you have a really fantastic group of people who can assist remote leaders who need a bit more coaching in these areas. You know, if if we have some listeners who are thinking, wow, you know, I'm not the best at the communication piece, or my organization doesn't have a playbook or or, you know, how do I become more of a mentor, as opposed to a task manager? What What kind of advice would you have for them to start developing those skills.

Iwo Szapar  13:09  
So first of all, everyone needs to be aware of a simple thing that it will be a long process, so it won't happen over denied or maybe organizing one time workshop will, will will make a big difference. Of course, it will be a good first step. But it's a pure change management process. If we're looking from the organization side of things. And then we've if we're looking at an individual level, this is basic create creating new habits, right, it's the same way how we want to if we want to start doing push ups, we'll start tomorrow we'll do five push ups, and then it will if we will continue maybe in three or six months, we'll do 50 or 100. But we need to be very consistent with this right so it's like a long term plan. So this is something to add to definitely have in mind. And and then as this is a habit and people are not always best in, in following in pushing through and I'm also an example I'm not always perfect, especially and with with the push ups thing. It we see this emerging trend of having a mentor. So the same way how you have a coach when you were or like a personal trainer, we will see more and more virtual coaches virtual mentor someone that is basically has a lot of knowledge in the field and is able to help us hands on with a specific long term long term plan. So I would say that this is the second thing that is that is very important. And then of course, knowing exactly what are the biggest gaps that we have and when it comes to this the skills so oftentimes What we hear from our clients or coming through our marketplace are like, Oh, we want to do X, right? We want to help our leaders with x. And then after the the actual assessment, it turns out that actually, this is not the biggest problem and there are five other there, they're more crucial. So that the takeaway from this is to make sure that we're focusing on the, on the most urgent things in there in the first place. And in order to assess that you need an expert again, so it's, it's really a good moment. And, and, and way to work with someone that has experience so we are not wasting our time on making mistakes. Because like I mentioned the beginning, this is an experiment. And and there is a big risk that we will fail. So it's it's easier to work with folks that have been managing distributed teams for years. So we are not repeating their mistakes, because they also that mistakes are best.

Iwo Szapar  16:09  
Sometimes making mistakes is part of the process, right? Yes, absolutely. And I love how you how you, it's kind of a theme, you know, put the time in now you put the time in now to have the benefit later. And you one of the things that you mentioned, in the top three was communication, and also culture. And so I'd like to kind of explore that area that more with you. You know, one of the myths of remote work is there's a lack of communication and company culture in the remote environment. But we also know the tone really depends largely on the team's leadership. So I'm wondering if you could give us some insight on how a team leader might create or start creating a positive culture through communication.

Iwo Szapar  16:55  
So it really all starts with assessing what is the culture right now, because in in many companies, there are beautiful values on career pages, and the definitions, what we believe in and what we do within the company, etc. But then in the reality, reality is completely different. So we need to do, sometimes hard check, reality check where we are right now. So then we can build, build the plan, what needs to be what needs to be improved. So that would be the the first aspect that the second aspect is that what we see that companies try to offer something like let's say a solution to this challenge, whether like all fits, or a one size fits all. And unfortunately, this is not the case that would work. 

We as humans are very different. And, and simply I just had a conversation with a company that was complaining that at their team events, people announced a couple of weeks before the event that there will be 80% participation and then actually after a couple of weeks when the event happens, then only 20% shows up right? And, and the responses that hey, maybe not everyone needs to be forced to go to this event, there are a lot of introverts that simply prefer to stay at home, spend time with their family or with their friends, they will be still happy within the company. But it doesn't mean that they need to be a part of everything that is that is happening. So making sure that we really understand the needs of our employees and we can we can adjust accordingly to, to what they what would really make them happy and not what we think that would make them happier or, or engaged. And, and then speaking more from the from the communication side, from the from the leader, transparency, transparency, and once again, transparency. 

So increasing the communication that is open to everyone. So writing and open channels, if you're using Microsoft Teams or Slack, make sure that there are less silos within the within the company. When people are just talking one on one in direct messages or creating a group messages. They're not visible to everyone else. That creates a culture that is built on transparency and built on have built on trust. The other aspect around the communication that actually impacts the company culture is radical candor method, which basically means that we are very honest and direct with each other. That doesn't mean that we are mean to each other. It's just mean that just means that if there is a problem if there is feedback that it's not all this is awesome, this is amazing, it's more of a feedback, if we can maybe improve a couple of things this and that, like we need to be, we need to start being more honest with each other and not always sugarcoat. 

And because then in the long term ever in the midterm, it will, it will simplify your back. Because it's we are not living in a fairy tale. And it's not always amazing. So the earlier we, we get things resolved, the better. So having in mind, from the video perspective that in order to create, let's generalize it, that happy company culture, happy team culture, you need to be very honest with your people, which means that you need to be also open for a direct feedback from them. And this could be very painful for some of the managers because they've never received feedback from their team. So you need to be ready for for a change here as well.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  21:01  
I love that. And I love the idea of the 365 evaluation. I, you know, just my personal opinion, I think every team should have one of those. And then your rate sometimes, sometimes leadership and management needs to know. So they approve, right? And and everybody gets happier than

Iwo Szapar  21:22  
Yes, yes, like, like a lot of things that that we're discussing today should be implemented within the companies for years. So now it's kind of this moment where the big change happened out of the blue, and now we just need to reshuffle internally to to make it work. And in the long run.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  21:48  
Yes, exactly. And you mentioned a few minutes ago events and engagement. When I think in general people seem to want to connect. But as you said, when it comes time for the actual event to take place, that low participation in the extra curricular event might send a different message to leadership. And I keep seeing mixed reviews on social virtual gatherings for remote employees, like, for example, a happy hour. What are your thoughts on leaders holding social time for employees? Is it better to build that into regularly scheduled meetings? or hold the time separately? What's your insight?

Iwo Szapar  22:27  
Yeah, so if you if you look at the participation rate and happy hours that were happening, prior to pandemic, just simply within the Office, it wasn't like 100% participation from everyone, right? There was the group that was always interested in this there was a group that was going there from time to time, and there was a group that was simply not attending this kind of events, right? Or, or maybe, maybe maybe very rarely. And right now, if once everything moved to the ritual right now, it will be it will be a mix, there was this very strange opinion that you should be present on these virtual events, because it's easier to track because people are accepting declining living information in the pool if they will be there or not. So it's kind of like easier to see, and then track the attendance. Right? Right. 

So it's just as a as an intro to add to my answer. It's not very different from from what we had in the in the past, right. And then looking at, at the future, and the fact that most companies will be hybrid. So we will not be in the situation where basically, during the pandemic, the offline events than in person events were not possible. Now, it's, it looks like it will be possible, at least in some parts of the of the world in the in the short term, which, which basically opens up the possibility that these events can be a mix. It can be online and offline. And this is also how companies that were remote friendly remote first before the pandemic were approaching this, for example, companies like Git lab buffer automatic, it wasn't that they were never ever meeting in person. There were all all hands company meetings, there were team retreats, and there were spontaneous meetups in different cities for larger organizations. So this kind of stuff happens. 

What What is different and what companies shouldn't should really think about is how to encourage people to give them more power and start having more community lead events. So not that we are just coming up with an idea. No, we are encouraging people to start organizing time that they will be spending together and that will really this is the part of the whole empowerment and showing trust to your pure employee so it's less about where it happens it's more of what is the what is the logic behind it and of course from the perspective of a leader it really all starts with understanding what the team wants because this 365 assessment is something that that they were not doing and they are just assuming that something needs to be needs to be done in in a specific way so just simply talk with your team say hey guys we want to do we want to create or improve the current situation in our in our team so we are even happier than we are right now. 

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  26:16 
What are your ideas like do a brainstorming and out of this brainstorming you'll be really surprised how many ideas people have they will also feel that it's not just you making the decisions but you're part of these part of these decisions and I would I would start with that
you have given us some really fantastic insight today and actual action items we can go away and implement them are there any additional pieces of advice or bits of wisdom you might leave with us today

Iwo Szapar  26:30  
I think we need to keep in mind that this is a long term process that will be very hard for a lot of organizations because of the big legacy that they have. So it will take for summer canonizations years to actually get to this ideal ideal scenario. So keep in mind that there will be tough moments and and There Will Be Blood and you'll be crying but at the end of the day remember that people that work in distributed companies that are doing this right which I there's a study said that 91% of people it was done by FYI I guess two years ago 91% of people won't change ever and and go back to that to the office. So it's absolutely possible to create a company that is truly remote first, have a good culture have a good work and education provides a good work life balance. It's it's just a group effort. And I'm sure that many companies will will go on this journey and will succeed.

Dr. Stephanie Menifeer  27:49  
Thank you and for any of our listeners who want to connect with Evo or learn more about remote work, remote dash how.com is the website. Check it out. There's so much stuff there.

Iwo Szapar  28:09  
Thank you so much.

Dr. Stephanie Menifee  28:10  
Of course Eva, thank you so much for joining us and supportive the Center for the advancement of virtual organizations. We really appreciate your insight and we know our listeners will benefit from your experience.

Iwo Szapar  28:21  
Thank you so much.