Imagine - You work from home, for a remote company, and your CEO asks if he can drop-in to work with you for one day. 

What instant emotions do you feel? Surprise? Excitement? Nervousness? 

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Oh wait, did I mention that you are the newest employee at the organization? 

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This happened to me with a week’s notice. I know what many of you are thinking, “wow, a whole day with the CEO, how nerve wracking,” or “that leader is going above and beyond to check on his employees.” And yes, both of those things are true. Would some additional mental preparation have been nice? Sure. But I can't help but feel incredibly grateful to my CEO for not only making the cross-country trip, but his willingness to invest in his people and work with me on the problems that would be much harder to solve working asynchronously and oftentimes in isolation.   

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As a fully remote company with team members who span the nation, we have the opportunity to bring our laptops wherever we want and ability to structure our work day around our families, peak performance windows, and mid-day dentist appointments. This flexibility has given our team members the chance at a better work from home life balance.

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A study done by Mckinsey & Company^[1] found that 87% of employees who were offered remote work took the opportunity. The study also showed that a flexible work environment is a top motivating factor for finding a new job. At Sagely, this means we are navigating team members in different time zones, communicating asynchronously, with few opportunities to work in person with each other. Although Sagely hosts quarterly offsite retreats for the team to get together to work on strategy and build relationships, it’s the time in between, where work is getting done remotely that its crucial to be intentional about collaborating. 

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A study^[2] done with over 61,000 Microsoft employees found that remote workers have become more siloed in how they communicate, engaged in fewer real-time conversations, and spent less time in meetings. Despite the potential implications for a decrease in productivity and innovation, more and more people want to work remotely and see it as a pivotal component to their workplace well-being. 

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Simply put, remote work is here to stay. 

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So how can individual team members take advantage of this opportunity offered by some employers, while also recognizing the limitations and potential negative effects that working in isolation from others can have? This societal shift does not come without its potential pitfalls. It’s important to note that lack of motivation and boundaries, social connection, and burnout are factors that can impact work fatigue. Considering that we spend a third of our lives at work, it’s important to cultivate, up to our own ability, the workspaces and conditions that contribute to our well-being. Here are a few tips that will help you thrive in the workplace as you navigate the real effects of working remotely (remote-first leaders, take note too!). 

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1. Relationships are the number one way to boost your well-being

“One of the key factors that make for happier, healthier workers is how connected people feel with their colleagues,” says Dr. Robert Waldinger,^[3] professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development,^[4] one of the longest running studies on what makes humans thrive.

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Take these two scenarios as an example: 

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Scenario 1: You join a meeting, it’s silent on Zoom (or platform of your choice), and most of the team members have their video off,, and those who have kept their video on are clearly distracted; looking at their phones or working on a project. The team lead joins five minutes late and immediately dives into the work. 

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Scenario 2: You join a meeting, a number of the team has joined slightly early with their cameras on. Your colleague asks about your weekend. You get into a conversation about running and half marathon training. As your colleagues continue to join in on the call they are listening to this conversation and often join into the conversation. The meeting starts a few minutes late but you transition easily to work even though the team meeting lead was late.  

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Tap into your curiosity and ask individuals how they are doing or what’s new in their world. Take the first five minutes of the conversation to focus on the relationships you have with your colleagues before diving into the work. While the “small talk” might seem frivolous at first, the connections you are making with your colleagues and learning more about their interests, lives, and purpose will create a greater understanding of who they are as individuals and give you both a micro-connection dose of oxytocin (a chemical in the brain) that is essential for social bonding. With shared interests or insights, these short small conversations could lead to deeper relationships in the future. 

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It’s not possible for this interpersonal work to rest solely on the shoulders of individual team members to forge and create bonds with others. Leaders (both titled and cultural) have influence and the ability to create a culture in which warmth, connection, and gratitude are standard vice aspirational. One way Sagely’s leaders cultivate this culture of social connection is by discussing the wins of the team. This can be done through a variety of formats (weekly updates, slack channel, team meetings) but the importance rests in how the wins are shared. Leaders acknowledge the work of individuals and encourage other team members to call out and appreciate wins - at work or home! One of our team members recently competed in her first Olympic weightlifting competition and achieved a personal best. Not only did most of us watch the live stream, but we celebrated her win at our weekly standup. Team members feel seen, leading to a happier and more engaged workplace. 

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2. Protect your time 

When was the last time you sat and thought without a single distraction? No email notifications, not a ping signaling a direct message from a colleague, not mindlessly scrolling social media. Creating time blocks on your calendar to allow yourself the opportunity for deep thinking can take many forms, but consider a few techniques that will set you up for success. 

• Go for a walk, sit outside with just your thoughts and a notebook. See what you can create after 20 minutes of silent generation. 
• Set your working hours on your calendar and schedule block-out times for deep-thinking work. When scheduling meetings with others, respect the block-out times of others, and if a meeting must happen, give them options instead of blindly scheduling. Companies also must ritualize this practice to truly unlock its power. 
• Set meetings for 45 minutes to give yourself a 15-minute buffer to take a break, digest, and context switch. Back-to-back meetings can result in a buildup of stress. Read more here: Context Switching: Strategies to Minimize Distractions and Keep Your Focus

Holding yourself to these time blocks might seem counterintuitive to productivity, but over time, these blocks on your schedule anchor you to work that moves the needle instead of just ticking off the boxes of your to-do list. Additionally, the transparency of your calendar (the doctor appointments, scheduled lunch hour, dedicated outside time) creates a culture that normalizes the reality that your work and your home life are, inevitably, blended. 

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3. Ritualize your day

For better or for worse, there used to be a natural separation between the work day and home when individuals worked in an office. This physical separation (time in the car or the subway) served as a subtle ritual that signaled to our brains when it was time to think about work or home. In remote working environments, it’s especially important to build in rituals to signal to our brains that it’s time to shut off from the work day. Here are a few actions you can take to start building the habit.  

• Start your day with a “top priority hour.” Spend time structuring your day and identifying what you need most to thrive. Sometimes it’s going to be working on a project, finishing off the to-do list, or simply getting some movement in so you are the best version of yourself to others. 
• If working in a shared space like a kitchen or living room, simply close your laptop and push it to one side of the kitchen table to signal that the day is done. One of our team members puts his laptop away in the bookcase so it’s not staring at him while he’s enjoying dinner.
• Start and end your day with movement! Start your day with a workout and end your day with a walk outside. Pair this walk with another person or with a phone call and discuss your day (remember that oxytocin hit from the shared experience?). 

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The beauty of our brains is that it matters less what the ritual is and more the habit itself to signal to our brain the separation points in the day. Identify what the ritual might look like for you and what physical cues your brain needs to maintain boundary management for your life. 

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4. Budget in travel

So your CEO may not have the ability to make the trip to work 1:1 with you like mine did to help you solve all of your big problems and meet your need for social connection (but they should!). However, all-remote companies must dedicate some funds for the team to travel. 

• Give the team the ability to decide if they need to get together for a few days to work through a problem in person. 
• If possible, provide individual teams with a travel budget to support in-person collaboration.
• Encourage the engineers to do a mini-hackathon together. 
• Add a day to work together around a conference a few folks are attending. 
• Plan a few company-wide offsites throughout the year. Read more here: How to Plan a Company Retreat

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The more agency every team member has over their schedule and budget, the more they will build these rituals and relationships essential to thriving in a remote environment. 

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Quick guide

To maximize your experience and boost your well-being in a remote work environment, here is a quick list for you to try today! 

1. Focus on your relationships with your colleagues - the best way to feel connected to your job is to engage with those around you. Tap into your curiosity and take a few moments in every conversation to ask questions and get to know the other person. 
2. Create transparency in your calendar and block off times for deep thinking work, allowing a greater chance at being proactive instead of reactive. 
3. Create rituals and habits that signal to your brain the start and end of a work day. 
4. Travel to see your team. Whether 1:1 or in small groups, dedicate time and money for in-person interactions.

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^[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/real-estate/our-insights/americans-are-embracing-flexible-work-and-they-want-more-of-it

^[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4

^[3] http://www.robertwaldinger.com/

^[4] https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/

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