Location Curaçao looks a lot more appealing in a job posting. But how do you arrange remote working in a team where colleagues work at different times? Columnist Hidde de Vries has his own experience.
Much of my book Work Smart Play Smart I wrote during lockdown in Curaçao. While my family was sleeping, I gave in to my jet lag. At 3:30 in the morning, I installed myself on our balcony overlooking the Salt Pans, and began typing.
By early afternoon, I was done with it and joined the others, on the beach. There I found not only my family, but also legions of "home workers" with the same daily rhythm: up early in the morning, and to the beach in the afternoon.
Digital nomads
Since last year, Curaçao has made it easier for digital nomads to experience the benefits of working from Curaçao. For a fee of 535 Antillean guilders (about 265 euros), you will receive a visa that allows you to stay on the island for six months.
An ideal solution as long as you can get out digitally (and get up early ;). But it can also help make you more popular as an employer. At least this way you tackle the discussion about hybrid working.
My period of remote working got me thinking. What do you need to consider when working remotely? Especially if you have a team to manage? And what can we learn from companies like GitLab and Zapier where remote working has been used successfully for years?
Remote work rhythms and routines
When colleagues are working in different places, there is a chance that everyone will work according to their own rhythms. This asynchronous working can be very rewarding, but it also brings challenges. It is therefore good to find a balance and build in strong routines.
An extreme example is space travel. MT/Sprout wrote about this before, following a study that appeared on MIT Sloan Business Review. Astronauts sometimes experience as many as 16 sunrises in 24 hours, which makes it very difficult to experience a biorhythm. This is solved by means of artificial "Zeitgebers.
Zeitgebers are external conditions to which our biological rhythms tune. Think sunlight, food and temperature, but they also include social interactions and physical activity.
For astronauts, deliberate activities are planned to provide them with a rhythm. On long missions, intermediate goals are inserted and milestones properly celebrated to stay in tune with each other and the mission.
Balance between synchronous and asynchronous working
Of course, it is not desirable to expect colleagues working in a different time zone to get up at four in the morning every week to attend a daily stand-up. It's all about striking the right balance between synchronous and asynchronous working.
Create a rhythm for collaborative work that works for everyone, building in enough flexibility. Determine what part of the day to work in sync for such things as meetings, phone calls, consultations and rush jobs. For the remaining hours of the day, employees can arrange their time freely.
Remote working: weekly team call impossible
Such a system is not feasible at every organization. Nadia Vatalidis, working in GitLab's People Operations team, explains in the Harvard Business Review That with team members in Manila, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Raleigh and Boulder, it is virtually impossible to schedule a weekly team call.
To enable this fully asynchronous working, GitLab encourages early sharing of new ideas so that there is not too much waiting for each other. Zapier does something similar and uses dedicated Slack channels to solve problems together using an asynchronous method.
Proper use of available technology
Synchronous or asynchronous, a key consideration in remote working is "the right tech for the task," a proper use of available technology. This is also how scientists Sharon Hill and Kathryn Bartol state in their article on communication in virtual teams.
More freedom requires clear rules
The more complex the task, the closer the technology should be to personal communication. If someone needs to read something, don't send it via Whatsapp. Then chances are that someone will forget. E-mail is more convenient for disseminating information or retrieving data.
Being clear about intentions and expectations
But, be very conscious of the tone you set in your e-mail. No matter how hard you try to express positivity, the message via e-mail is usually taken more neutral than intended. As evidenced by American research. This is due to the lack of essential cues such as facial expression or voice use.
How do you handle that? Review your email again before sending it out to make sure you have the right tone. Rather something too positive, or even with emojis, so you at least avoid a negative tone.
What to do if your message is indeed meant to be negative, such as to give constructive feedback? Then wait for a time when you can speak to the other person face-to-face.
In addition, find a way to highlight important information in your e-mail, make the action points clear and break down different requests so it is clear what you expect from the other person.
Creating trust remotely
In teams where trust is high, people are more engaged, less stressed, more energetic and performance is higher. But how do you create trust in a team that doesn't see each other much, if at all, in real life?
In remote teams, trust is created by the way a task is worked together, according to research. Good communication is essential. The challenge is that researchers also stress the importance of responding quickly. Which can be challenging in situations of asynchronous working.
Therefore, make sure you have watertight agreements. Agree which technology will be used for which purpose, how important information will be emphasized in e-mails, how you will keep each other informed about timelines, which deadline applies for answering e-mails and within which time frames you can count on a quick response. A nice example of such agreements can be found in the communication guide of the company Basecamp.
Remote working: the adaptor wins
Most important seems to be that managers lead by example and are willing to adapt to new situations. As long as managers support a system of synchronous and asynchronous working, continue to connect and work remotely themselves (occasionally), there is a great foundation for a corporate culture that can withstand all external challenges.
So again, this shows that if you want to offer more freedom, clear rules are essential. That doesn't happen automatically, but it pays off. Place of employment Curaçao looks a lot more attractive on the vacancies.
