Some useful practices we adopted to keep the remote working system goes smoothly.
This policy is written in the context of our current company setup. Specifically, this document addresses working from home on a regular basis. It goes valid for:
- A full-remote team.
- Individuals that manages and responsible for their work.
Even when we aren't in the office, our teammates are still counting on us and it is our responsibility to make sure we are exceeding their expectations.
At the same time, it is the responsibility of workers in the office to reasonably accommodate remote workers. This means being willing to schedule meetings in light of timezone differences and to manage expectations around immediate feedback.
The guidelines in this document (and the handbook at large) give us tools to make remote work easier, but tooling is only a small part of the solution. Every employee needs to complement these tools with extra work to make remote work effective for the employee working remotely and the rest of our team.
Adoption
Plan & prepare beforehand
It's your responsibility to both make sure you are effective and don't let your teammates down , regardless of the location you work from. This means that you should plan & prepare in your free time before you leave to work remotely.
A non-exhaustive list of things to ensure are in order are:
- You will have a fast, consistent wi-fi connection
- You will have a distraction-free environment to work in
- You will have a quiet, private place to take phone calls and meetings
- You will be able to work a full workday every day you're working remotely
Pro-active checkins
When we're all in the office, it's easy to see when a teammate is around or available. When an individual is out of the office, this visibility immediately drops to 0. When we're working remotely, it's our responsibility to let our teammates know when we're around and available.
Doing this is as easy as posting a message in Slack to say when you drop in or leave. It's also a good idea to be proactive about letting teammates know what you're working on and how it's going. 18F has a great paragraph on this:
Proactively communicate. As Kate Garklavs, a content designer who lives in Portland, puts it: “Because I'm remote, I've taken to sending short, proactive progress updates to my teams ("Hey, all , wanted to let you know that I finished writing XYZ and sent it to so-and-so for approval , should hear back by Friday."), even when daily stand-ups aren't required. By sending these short updates throughout the day, I hope to keep folks in the loop with regards to what I've been up to.”
With increased individual flexibility, since we're all working at the same time less, it's important to go above and beyond in letting people know when we are around.
Calendar updates
If you're working remotely or from home, you should put a calendar event indicating where you are working from for all the time you are out of the office.
Extended remote work
If you're planning to work remotely for more than 3 consecutive days, or you're planning to work remotely from a place that's not your home (i.e. from a partner's home in a different city), you'll need to follow these additional guidelines. Even more than standard remote work, working remotely for an extended period of time is a privilege , it will require a large amount of extra work from you to make sure that the team is effective with you working remotely.
In order for an employee to work remotely for an extended period of time, they should have demonstrated in the past that they are effective working remotely and upholding their quality of work. If that's not the case, the manager can and should veto the option.
Schedule
Give the team heads up
You should give everyone on the team as much notice as possible, but at least 3 days. This will ensure everyone can plan their meetings and work accordingly.
Always take the following steps to let the team know:
- Post in #office with a @channel tag so everyone sees the notification
- Communicate verbally with the people you work closest with
- Update your calendar to mark which days you are working remotely
Meeting: Proper setup for meeting
Meetings start on time
If you're leading a meeting, it's your responsibility to start the meeting on time. If you're attending a meeting, you are responsible for showing up on time.
Meetings happen in regular hours
All team members should make themselves available for face-to-face meetings between 10:30am - 1:00p, as long as they are scheduled at least 24 hours in advance. If a meeting needs to happen outside of these hours, the meeting organizer should scheduled it a week in advance.
Meetings should have a video option If you're hosting a meeting with a remote worker invited, it's your responsibility to provide a video link before the meeting starts for them to join.
If you're attending a meeting remotely, you should join the video call before a meeting starts. It's your responsibility to ensure this is possible , this means being in a quiet place with a fast internet connection before the meeting starts. Calling into a meeting via phone or from a public place is unacceptable.
For some meetings, voice calls will be sufficient - this decision is up to the meeting organizer when they create the meeting.
Manager retrospectives
Loss of the privilege
Having the flexibility to work remotely is a privilege. If an employee's unable to uphold the responsibilities that go along with that privilege, their manager should work with them through their 1:1s and dedicated retrospectives to resolve the issue. If the employe cannot resolve the issue, their manager can revoke the privilege.
Regular 1:1s
If an employee works remotely, they should make the topic of their remote work a regular part of weekly 1:1s.
This is a time where employees can voice concerns about constraints that are limiting their ability to work effectively: this could be concerns about structures inside of the company that limit their flexibility, concerns about how the way other teammates work, or anything else that might affect how they work. It's also a time where managers should give concrete feedback on whether an employee is upholding their responsibilities when they are working remotely.
