Insights for Working, Leading, and Learning Remotely

We hosted our March 2020 Networkplaceless event on a regular schedule prior to the surge in remote work and school closures due to social distancing recommendations to stem the spread of COVID-19. These are the results of those conversations, however, elements are applicable to many more professionals as they enter virtual working relationships for the first time.

Humans are social beings. While this may manifest itself differently in every individual, it's important to recognize that interacting with colleagues is essential to building and maintaining trust in any team. And that trust is a critical element in any team’s success.

Continuous interpersonal interactions aid in achieving business objectives, reaching personal development goals and frankly keeping our sanity. These interactions become more important, yet more challenging, when team members are distributed. By not being physically located next to one another, employees miss out on the impromptu conversations...

Quick Access Guide:

Why we’re talking about this
Emergency Online Learning Guidelines
Resource: Trainplaceless Remote Facilitation Mini Course
Resource: Emergency Online Learning Checklist
Additional Resources

As COVID-19 continues to spread, educational institutions are updating their contingency plans. Italy has ordered the closure of all schools and universities. Inside and outside the US, responses from universities have varied from completely canceling classes to putting lectures online, while public school systems are considering shutting down completely. 

The implementation of social distancing in education parallels the actions taken by businesses to encourage or require employees to work from home. Workplaceless has pulled together a Guide to Preparing for Emergency Remote Work full of immediately actionable resources to specifically meet the urgent remote work needs of those organizations. Yet, we also recognize the immediate need for resources...

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 38 seconds

A new decade inspires all sorts of predictions about the soft skills and hard skills needed for the future of work. At Workplaceless, we've identified the skills that are needed to thrive in remote work environments, because being able to work, collaborate, and lead remotely is crucial to developing a career that can adapt to an increasingly distributed work environment. 

No matter what skills you are looking to develop, in order to gain them, you need to start with the most important skill of all: the ability to learn autonomously and placelessly.

#workfromanywhere is fueled by the ability to #learnfromanywhere 

At no time has this skill been more critical than in our current economic reality, when all that’s certain is that it’s impossible to accurately predict how or to what extent changes like widespread adoption of workplace automation will affect our work and daily lives. This...

Published March 4, 2020  |  Updated May 1, 2020

Quick Access Guide:

Why we’re talking about this
Emergency Remote Overview
Resource: Emergency Remote Checklist
Resource: Unexpected Remote Work Course & Remote Workday Module
Sustainable Remote Roadmap
Resource: Company Remote Readiness Assessment
Still Have Questions?

Access the Placeless Playbook for strategies to transition from suddenly remote to sustainably remote

Frankly, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is not a reason we want to be talking about remote work. We've hesitated entering into the now trending conversation, as it's a serious issue that is affecting lives and livelihoods across the globe. However, as we see companies turning to remote work as a potential solution to help the stem the spread of the infectious disease, we have additional concerns: 

• At a company level: Only 30% of business leaders feel their organization is well prepared for the rise in remote work.^*
• At a...

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes, 28 seconds

By Katie D. Scheuer, Curriculum Specialist at Workplaceless 

Ice Breakers. Team Builders. Structured Adult Activities.

For some, these words inspire an array of emotions: dread, joy, terror. For me, it’s pure and radiant “this is what life is all about” happiness. Team builders for me are what sports are for others.

It started with theatre games at summer camp (“This is a tick. A what? A tick. Oh, a tick! This is a tock!), and in college I insisted on being “Ice Breaker Chair”, a made-up role for my volunteer organization. I host “Teach Me Something New” parties with my friends. My dreams come true when Charades are played on ski trips and when baby showers have improv games led by zany aunts. 

When I started working remotely, I wasn’t sure how I would handle working by myself after years of leading workshops, teaching, and coaching live on college...

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 52 seconds

By Teresa Douglas, an American professional living in Canada. She is the co-author of Working Remotely: Secrets to Success for Employees on Distributed Teams.

We're grateful to Teresa for sharing her expertise. Any opinions expressed within this blog post are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

I walked out of the meeting with housing services feeling like I wasted my time. This was the second group session I attended as the finance chair for our local neighborhood association. After (what seemed like) a highly productive pre-meeting email discussion, I had expected to leave with a decision and a course of action. 

Instead, we spent the hour covering the same points discussed in our email chain. The only decision we made was to schedule another meeting to discuss this “very important issue.”

I’ve spent more than ten years as a people and operations manager....

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 27 seconds

Buffer and AngelList’s 2020 State of Remote Work reveals that 43% of companies are hybrid, meaning part of the team is full-time remote and part of the team works out of the same office. However, an additional 24% of companies allow individuals to work from home on occasion. That’s a total of 67% of companies who are navigating the complexities of remote vs. in-office dynamics. We wanted to understand in more depth the challenges that these hybrid-remote teams face on a daily basis. 

At our Networkplaceless event, we specifically asked attendees, “Does your company have a plan in place to address hybrid team communication gaps?” Thirty percent of respondents said yes, 39% said no, and another 30% said not sure. (Note: if your team members aren’t sure, it’s probably time to revisit your policy and make communication improvements).

In order to provide solutions to some of ...

By Ali Riehle, Freelance Designer and Researcher, working remotely since August 2018.

We're grateful to Ali for sharing her experiences, especially as we've dedicated time in our remote community to discuss challenges and solutions to hybrid team relationships. Any opinions expressed within this blog post are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

Most recently in my role on the design and development team at LUMA Institute, I worked at the company headquarters for a few years, called in from home occasionally, and worked remotely and nomadically for one year. These experiences have presented me with many challenges and have changed the way I think about collaboration and work in general. 

Being a member of a hybrid-remote team isn’t easy. At times, I’ve felt isolated, left out, or frustrated by the technical problems this setup can create. Aside from all that, I’ve benefited greatly from this...

Remote work is growing—rapidly. Work-from-home roles have grown by 173% since 2005. But that remote work trend means different things for different people, and for different organizational structures. Some teams are 100% remote, but more often we see teams that are a mix, or hybrid of different working models. 

So when we refer to different working models, what do we mean?

• Co-located: A company or team whose employees all work in the same location.
• Distributed: An company or team whose employees all work remotely (also referred to as “fully distributed” or “remote-first”).
• Hybrid: A company or team with some employees who are co-located and some who work remotely (also referred to as “remote-friendly” or specifically as “hybrid-remote”).

You can reference all of this terminology in our remote work dictionary. 

Within a hybrid team model, there can be variances of experience: if there’s only...

“Workplaceless aims to positively impact both the supply and demand of sustainable remote work opportunities.”

We believe in the power and potential of remote work, and we’ve been working to define for you how we make remote work work for the long-term. Let’s break down our mission.

The demand of remote work refers to the number of workers seeking remote or flexible job opportunities. People are seeking remote work for a wide variety of professional and personal reasons. 

Entrepreneurs, working parents, freelancers, travelers, digital nomads, people with disabilities or chronic illnesses, students, military spouses, retirees, and anyone who wants better work-life balance might be able to find work where they couldn’t before.

However, when we take a look at remote-first companies, such as Doist, we see that the number of job applications far outpaces the number of roles available at 1,000+ to 1 ratio. The likelihood of getting hired...