Insights for Working, Leading, and Learning Remotely

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes 

New Year’s Resolutions: Yea or Nay? During our January Networkplaceless event, attendees agreed that resolutions can be fun and inspirational, like Teresa Douglas's resolution to “eat better cheese." However, are resolutions useful when the goal is to make real progress? How many resolutions have we all let slide as the year progresses? How do we align our day-to-day energy with our bigger picture goals and aspirations?

With another uncertain year ahead, goal setting can undoubtedly help you and your teams feel in control. As remote workers and virtual team leaders, having a vision, setting goals, and meeting goals are especially crucial for remote career development and for virtual employees to document their value. Goal setting in a virtual environment can also look different than in-office—from the types of goals and the resources available to how you share and achieve your goals.

The four key steps to remote...

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 47 seconds

No matter where you are located, relationships are an essential component of getting work done and building a career. However, when you’re physically removed from an office it can present new challenges for cultivating the kinds of meaningful interactions that historically grew as a result of frequent and informal connectivity. Some of the most common challenges to building relationships remotely were shared during the previous Networkplaceless. 

So how do you begin addressing these challenges? We welcomed Laurel Farrer, CEO of Distribute Consulting, to give us her take on building relationships remotely and which individuals you'll need in your network to help you succeed. Think of this as a remote advisory board—a set of cheerleaders, supporters, advocates, and helpers who are rooting for you as you develop professionally.

Who You Need in Your Remote Network

The people in your virtual...

The top two challenges highlighted during the September Networkplaceless discussion about remote opportunities were: 

1. Lack of leaders creating and fostering opportunities 
2. Lack of relationship building opportunities 

During our October Networkplaceless we welcomed Julia Taylor Kennedy, Executive Vice President at the Center for Talent Innovation, who shared expert advice on how the area of sponsorship could apply directly to remote work environments in addressing these issues.

In all work environments, it’s critical to establish and foster relationships that encourage career growth, however, it’s also necessary to think through objectives and expectations for each relationship. Four categories of professional development relationships include: 

• Coaching. A coach shares advice on closing discrete skill gaps.
• Advocacy. An advocate helps a colleague by endorsing an idea or project. 
• Mentorship. A mentor provides a safe space for...

Stagnancy is an innovation killer. In today’s marketplace, companies and remote leaders that want to encourage and sustain a culture of innovation, recruit and retain top talent, and maintain a competitive advantage must have and communicate a vision for creating career growth opportunities inclusive of their remote teams and remote workers. 

It is vital for leaders to stay tapped into the concerns of their remote employees, who too often are left wondering: 

• “What kind of influence will I have working from home?”

• “What if no one notices my hard work?”

• “How limited are my next potential remote roles?”

• “How will I ever get promoted?”

• “Why take that kind of risk at this point in my career?”

They also worry that working remotely puts them “out of sight, out of mind”—uninformed of new opportunities and overlooked for advancement. It is crucial that remote leaders and people operations...

By Kimberly Bringas, Remote HR Expert

Any opinions expressed within this blog post are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

A common misconception about remote work is it doesn’t require anything more than giving an employee remote based tools to do their work. “Here is slack, zoom and a working computer, you’re remote now.”—it’s not quite that simple. In actuality, it’s often overlooked that building a successful remote work environment requires the same level of care, attention and proactiveness as an actual office space. As the former Senior HR Manager at Olark, I worked on converting PeopleOps based programs, processes and policies using a specific remote lens. It was during this time I learned that remote and office environments have the same goal of ultimately wanting engaged and thriving employees, however remote requires different approaches. This is profoundly evident in the area of employee...

Updated February 26, 2020

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 55 seconds 

Remote work, telecommute, live/work—whatever you want to call it—the concept isn’t new. Humans have been making their living outside of co-located offices for years. The resurgence of the “workhome” came on slowly, but it’s reached a fever pitch and the writing is on the wall for businesses and job seekers alike; remote work is here to stay.

However, in our mad dash out of the offices, there hasn’t been much time dedicated to addressing the skills needed to be successful at working remotely. Hiring managers the world over find themselves now in situations of back-filling competencies that haven’t been comprehensively considered. Hiring remote workers isn’t just about the bullet points on a resume—there are layers of innate and learned skills that are often difficult to suss out or even control for when hiring and evaluating team...

Developing a career that reflects our passions and provides opportunities to grow is the ultimate professional goal. Career development takes constant work, and when you work remotely, there are special considerations that you need to keep in mind. We've identified seven keys to remote career development that address the unique challenges that remote professionals face.  

Interests, Knowledge & Skills 

Your interests, knowledge, and skills form the foundation of your remote career. Your interests are topics or fields that inspire your curiosity or passion, like law, education, or design. Your interests guide the learning experiences, professional opportunities, and hobbies you pursue.

Your knowledge is the theoretical and practical understanding of a subject, which you acquire through formal and informal education and experience.

Your skills are your particular abilities—these include hard skills, like computer programming or accounting, and soft...

Guest post by Linda Ginac, CEO of TalentGuard 

Any opinions expressed within the blog are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

The world of work is changing rapidly, thanks in part to the advances made in the technology marketplace. As companies continue progressing toward a more modern approach to operations, it is no surprise that an estimated 63% of businesses have remote workers among their ranks. What may be shocking is that half of these organizations have no remote work policy, including the absence of career pathing capabilities for those who work outside the confines of a traditional office. Remote workers deserve the same type of career development frameworks and opportunities as on-site employees, but the distance can make this task more daunting. The good news is that technology makes this less of a challenge for organizations with remote employees.

Here’s what companies need to know about the importance of career pathing among...

At some point in our careers, we have all had those moments we can call crossroads, where we need to make a decision about whether to stay in a job or take other opportunities.

This moment could be the result of a job offer, a burning desire to strike off on your own, or it could be the result of your current position not being the best place for you at this moment in your career.

The Remote Career Crossroads

"Should I stay or should I go?"

Before you can answer this BIG question, ask yourself the following series of smaller questions.

What does your ideal job look like?

Describe what you really want to be doing on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. What kind of projects are you working on? What are you learning? What do you want to accomplish? And finally, how do these responses differ from what you experience in your current position?

Is your ideal job possible in your current organization?

If you can see real examples of people moving up in the way that you would like to...

By Christina Lewellen, MBA, CAE

Any opinions expressed within the blog are those of the author and not necessarily held by Workplaceless itself.

Like many career-minded individuals, I had professional development and advancement goals for climbing the corporate ladder long before I had heard of the concept of “telework.” As my career has unfolded, I’ve had several opportunities to work virtually but I never lost sight of the trajectory I envisioned for myself. As it turns out, you can have the best of both worlds—but it does take planning, focus, and a willingness to pedal a little bit faster than everyone else.

VIRTUAL STRENGTH TRAINING

I started my career in journalism, working for daily newspapers, television, and magazines. Looking back, I now realize that these jobs were my virtual employee strength training program. I worked when the stories broke, but the deadlines were firm and constant. I experienced a boot camp, of sorts—I had...