•  I started my Career back in the 2000’s at a large Consulting firm in Paris. At that time I was assigned to Clients full time and fully onsite. My Clients all had their headquarters locally in Paris or around Paris. The IT systems I worked on were hosted by the Clients directly and not accessible remotely and as a junior Consultant I very often needed help from my more experienced colleagues. All the people I worked with on a daily basis were in the same Client’s office. I suffered through the “normal” 1 and ½ hour daily commute for years. At that time, remote working was never even an option.
  
  
• I first started working partly remote a few years later after moving into a more senior position. My Clients were still local but I was expected to work on multiple projects at the same time, guiding my more junior colleagues. I soon noticed that every though I was only working part time for each client, they all expected me to be onsite but at the same time they also expected me to be available for them every day. This sort of “forced” me to consider at least some remote working which was a huge novelty in France at the time. It was also the time where IT systems were starting to move to the Cloud and remote working actually became an option. To increase my flexibility for each Client, I ended up blocking some regular visits to each of them and the rest of the time started working remotely. Making the Clients understand I was working partly remote was really difficult at that time but they soon noticed that I was actually much more productive and available for them that way and that it became a win-win situation.
  
  
• In 2013 I moved to a US HRIS provider. This provider had a local office in Paris but most of the colleagues I interacted with on a daily basis were located elsewhere and in various time zones – in the UK (my Manager was in the UK), in Germany, in India, in the US. I was always working on multiple projects and while some of clients were local, most of them were in various European countries. 
  
  
• This is when I became a full time remote worker. Going to the Paris Office had little value for me as my interactions with the other Paris employees were limited. And while I did go onsite to Clients for some key milestones such as Project Kick-offs, the rest of my work was done remotely.
  After a few years, the company closed off its Paris office and I took this opportunity to move out of Paris completely. I continued to work remotely from my new living place. I ended up managing a team of 6 people – all remote workers. 
  
  
• If I look back, initially I was sort of “forced” into remote work at a time in France where this was completely new the reason being this was the only way I could consistently deliver on my Client’s expectations. And I certainly don’t regret it – I learned what tools I needed to use and I learned how to make remote working as efficient as possible. Today I love remote work, I can live where I want to live, I have no commute, I can organize my own work, I am so much more efficient then when I was stuck in an open space. I can interact with my colleagues and clients throughout the world efficiently. No amount of money would bring me back to “standard” full onsite work.
  
  
• My personal experience confirms that remote definitely works – I have been managed by a remote manager, I have myself managed a team of 6 people – all working remotely and from different locations, and I have been delivering HRIS projects successfully for the past 7 years with 90-100% remote work on each project. And if anyone has any doubts about the success of remote working, my manager, my team, my colleagues and especially my Clients can confirm. 

·         For a number of jobs, remote is by definition impossible.

o   If you are a factory worker and rely on heavy equipment that is only available in your workplace, obviously you cannot work remotely. If you are a shopkeeper, you’ll need to spend most of your time in your shop with your customers.

o   Remote work is basically more suited for “knowledge jobs” than for other types of jobs

      è Conclusion - remote working in only suited to specific types of jobs. From now on we will concentrate only on the jobs I have experience with, i.e, project-related IT jobs (of course there are a number of other jobs which work perfectly fine remotely but not having any specific experience with them, I don’t feel I can speak about them)

·         Even for IT Project jobs, there might be serious impediments to remote working

o   A number of IT systems are still hosted internally and might not be available remotely (even though with secure remote VPN accesses, this has become less of an issue in the past years)

o   For some very security minded companies/organizations, no data may leave the premises. In these situations, there is no choice but to work onsite

·         Furthermore some people will not thrive with remote working 

o   Junior employees/beginners/Trainees will often find remote work more difficult to manage. When you are learning the basics of your job, it will be much easier to have someone more experienced around to guide you and answer any questions you might have

o   Remote work is better suited for more experienced and autonomous workers who are used to figuring things out by themselves

o   Some people will prefer onsite working to remote working

§  Some people will find it difficult to concentrate on their work at home – they might be tempted by personal distractions, be forced to work in a place where they aren’t comfortable/might be dangerous or be hindered by noise or distracted by young children

§  Other people require the face-to-face connection with their colleagues to be happy. While remote working definitely doesn’t mean working on your own and not talking to people (on the contrary it’s critical to stay connected, on projects I found that there are always some people I speak to several times a day even if it is via a remote tool), it is true that part of the workplace socializing will not be available to them

è Conclusion - for remote working to work, people need to want to work remote and have the right profile for it

·         Strongly hierarchical companies will find it difficult to encourage remote work

o   I have seen over the years a number of managers saying “but I won’t know what my team is doing”? In my experience, in France, a lot of workers will stay long hours in the office even if they have actually finished everything they need to do and are just browsing the Internet. The reason being is that it’s simply not done to leave early. At my first company, one of the managers would systematically say “are you taking your afternoon off?” to any junior consultant who left before 6 pm. While in this particular case it was a joke, it illustrates perfectly the culture of “doing long hours onsite even if they are not actually needed”. With remote working, the types of managers encouraging this culture will feel that they are losing control. In order to move past this, they will need to accept to move towards a culture where remote workers are judged on their results. Not every manager can do this.

o   It’s important to note that while some remote workers might try and abuse the system, the huge majority won’t and all studies actually show that remote workers work more and are more efficient than office workers – see next section for more details. And any remote worker abusing the system will be easily identified - they simply will not achieve results.

è Conclusion: for remote working to work, companies must have a culture that encourages it. The management style must be result-oriented rather than rely on strict direct control and on the number of hours of physical presence. 

·         Another challenge to remote working might be strong time zone differences.

o   Remote working will only work if people cooperate and speak together and for this to happen they need to be have some common work time.

o   In my experience for Project work, a time difference of up to 4 hours works without any major issues. In a normal 8-hour work day, that means you have 4 hours of “common” time for all group work and 4 hours for individual work. Group work must of course be organized efficiently to ensure that nobody is wasting their time during their individual hours.

o   Over 4 hours time difference becomes complex to manage. While it is feasible (I have managed a project where I was in France, one of my team members in the UK and most of the client team in Singapore – with a total of 8 hours difference between the UK and Singapore), team members will need to be more flexible with their working hours – for example the team “behind” starting early one day a week and the team “in front” working late one day a week.

·         Despite its huge advantages and the constant improvement of remote tools, some tasks still work better face to face. I have provided some examples below; these will of course vary depending on the type of job.  

o   Examples linked to IT projects specific work

§  Onsite kick-off - my experience is that an initial onsite kick-off often allows a great start to the project. It will give the project team members an opportunity to meet one another, get to know one another, agree on the project objectives, on how it will be managed, when project meetings will happen and so on. It is of course possible to manage a kick-off remotely (I have done it multiple times myself) but an onsite kick-off usually pays off.

§  Training – while training can be done remotely, it is easier and more efficient to have everyone in the same room and alternate between the trainer presenting functionality and the participants working on exercises with the trainer guiding them and answering their questions. Training can definitely be done remotely, but if it is it needs to be done differently – see next paragraph for some advice.

§  User Acceptance Testing if there is some (if the project is an Agile Project then normally testing is usually done as part of sprint and there is no specific User Acceptance Testing period) – if several team members are doing the user acceptance, it is often easier to get them all in the same room, with an expert available to guide them, answer their questions and immediately look into any specific issues. 

o   Other examples

§  Brainstorming sessions – it is easier to “throw around ideas” and discuss them when everyone is together, with the support of a paperboard/whiteboard.

·        Security may be an issue – remote workers will have access to confidential data at their home, they may sometimes be working on their personal devices which might be less secure/more subject to hacking.
        

·        No "coffee-machine conversations" and limited socializing with your colleagues – in companies and on projects a lot actually happens around the coffee machines. Colleagues catching up with one another and sharing information, informal one-on-ones… 

·         Companies have been forced to find solutions for remote working even when their employees actually go to the office but employees in different offices need to work together on a regular basis

o   The increasing Globalization means that companies require solutions for more International cooperation

o   Nowadays, teams are more and more dispersed with people working in different buildings/offices/cities or even countries

o   Within companies, Matrix organizations have favored cross-functional communication and cross-functional work/project teams has become common

è These solutions can be reused for remote workers.

·         Technology changes have been instrumental in favoring remote work,

o   The move to Cloud of IT systems which are available from everywhere vs on-premise/in-house hosted solutions which are only available from the office

o   Highly secure remote VPN Accesses

o   New or very much improved tools -  for example

§  High Speed Internet

§  High quality VOIP

§  Instant Messaging

§  Screen Sharing

§  Online Recordings of Meetings

§  Video

§  Groups  / Ideas / Networking 

§  Document sharing and versioning tools

§  Electronic Signatures

§  …

·         More and more employees are actively requesting remote work for reasons that will be developed in the next section

·         Remote work is becoming a differentiator to attract top-talent 

·         Remote workers can concentrate much more easily.

o   It’s close to impossible to focus in an open space - who hasn’t become crazy in the middle of the huge office open space trying to concentrate with your colleagues on the phone a couple of meters next to you?

o   You aren’t bothered all the time. Yes, of course, when you work remotely you will constantly be receiving e-mails, chat messages and calls – but you don’t need to interrupt what you are doing and answer these immediately. You can learn how to manage these efficiently by applying a few simple rules. But if you’re in the office you cannot ignore a ringing phone or a colleague who walks over to speak to you, even if you absolutely need to finish a critical piece of work.

·         Remote workers are more efficient

o   First of all – no commute. This is probably one of the major perks for remote workers.

o   We have seen that remote workers can concentrate better on what they are doing. More concentration means more efficiency.

o   Remote workers waste much less time at home than in the Office. A lot of Office workers feel “forced” to take breaks every time their colleagues take one. Remotely you can manage your own breaks. You don’t need to spend an hour and a half on lunch if you don’t want to (of course this depends strongly on the country culture but is still very typical in French companies)

·         Remote workers are happier, remote working makes their life easier

o   No time wasted in commute

o   Most of the time they are more comfortable at home than in the office

o   Within certain constraints (for example client calls on a project) they have much more flexibility to manage their own time and personal activities. Going to the doctor’s, shopping or picking up their children at school becomes so much easier.

o   Remote workers are less stressed and also do not have the pressure of people looking over their shoulder constantly.  

o   Remote workers do not feel they systematically need to go to the events organized by their employers (afterworks…). While obviously a significant part of the employees appreciate them, not everyone wants to spend their evenings socializing with their colleagues.

o   This reality is confirmed by most studies – for example in its State of Remote Work survey, social media management company Buffer found that 99 percent of remote workers would like to continue working remotely at least part of the time for the rest of their careers, and 95 percent would recommend it to others.

·         Happier workers means that:

o   They are more likely to go the extra mile, for example to accept to join an early call with the India development team ; a late call with the US west coast or to exceptionally work  on weekends for a production cutover on an IT project

o   The company will reduce attrition - a Stanford study of a 16,000-employee Chinese travel agency found that remote work increased employee satisfaction and helped halve the agency’s previous employee attrition rates

·        Surprisingly enough, all studies show that remote workers actually work more, they work different but longer hours, they tend to work even when sick (without infecting their colleagues) and the absence rate of remote workers is globally lower than for office workers

·         Remote working saves significant costs

o   Remote working costs companies much less than having a dedicated workspace for the worker

o   This is even more true of project work – especially international projects, where flights, hotel, tax and mealcosts can quickly become prohibitive. I once worked for a client who organized a global project kick-off and flew in around 40 people from around the world. The total costs of the kick-off organization was around 100K€. Obviously not every company can afford this.

·         Remote working is better adapted to Globalization

o   International team work often means team members sitting in different locations/countries - If you want to get things done across these types of teams, people need to work together remotely. You cannot fly people in every time they need to work together. 

o   Remote working makes time zone differences less of an issue. If you are located on one continent and need to speak regularly to teams on a different continent, you will find it easier to make it work if you’re working from home. If you’re working from home, you can usually fairly easily organize to take an early or a late call. This is much more complicated when you’re in an office from 9am to 6pm.

o   Matrix organizations promote cross-functional coordination. Having remote teams working together will therefore improves coordination between the different departments.

·       Companies with remote workers are better set up for any periods of turmoil. For example, the Coronavirus issue is pushing companies to ask their workers to work remotely.
The companies that are already organized to encourage remote working will be more efficient than companies who have no experience with remote working. More globally, employees will obviously have less risk of falling ill when working from home than when working in an open space. Remote working companies will also be less affected by issues like public transportation being on strike (a real and regular issue in France), petrol supply issues and so on.

·      Remote working facilitates multi-project work. For example if you are a consultant/project manager working on 5 different projects (let say each of them using 20% of your time), the reality of project work means that it’s impossible to simply carve out a day each work for each client as work will need to happen each day on each project and your clients will expect you to be available for them at least a bit every day. The only way this can work if by working remotely.

·       Remote working is better for the environment – no commute, no travel, less pollution. While still marginal in the employer’s decision to move to remote working today, improved carbon footprint for companies will hopefully become a significant driver in increasing remote working in the future. 

·       Not every job is suited for remote work – make sure that your remote workers work in jobs that can be done remotely

·       Not everyone is suited to remote work - make sure you choose the right people as your remote workers and that they actually want to work remotely

·       Security rules – make sure you have security rules defined around the working environment of your remote workers, around data protection, usage of personal devices…

·       Make sure you have a company culture that encourages remote working. Make sure your managers are comfortable with a result-oriented management style and know how to evaluate remote workers. Encourage them to build trust with their remote employees.

·       Encourage your remote employees to find a workaround to the “Coffee Machine discussions”. Remote workers won’t actually take coffee together but they should be speaking regularly to one another and sharing information.

·       Remote work should not always be done in the same way as onsite work. Adapt your work to the remote situation. For example - In my experience you will “lose” most participants in any remote meeting that lasts more than 2 hours. So split your meetings into manageable timeframes. A day of onsite training including training and exercises can become remotely something like

o   Day 1 - 2 hours - training on half of the material. Give exercises to the participants to test out what they have learned that day before the next session.

o   Day 2 – 2 hours - Answer questions from the participants on their exercises. Continue training on second half of the material. Give them exercises on the second half

o   Day 3 – Final hour to answer the questions on the second half and wrap-up the training

·     Make sure your organization takes into account Timezone differences. Set up your meetings at times that work for everyone  

·      Make sure communication is happening correctly with your remote employees – both top-down and bottom-up. Regular remote teams meetings are absolutely necessary to share information with remote workers.

·      Make sure your remote workers and non-remote workers who will need to interact with them have access to the right technology so this communication can happen.

·      Remember that remote working does not necessarily mean 100% Remote

o   Blended working is often an excellent option. Agree with your remote employees what type of work should be done onsite and the frequency of onsite presence

·      Lack of “Socializing” with colleagues might affect your remote workers

o   For the employees who feel the need to it, offer them the possibility to work partly in local co-working areas

o   Make sure onsite meetings where remote workers can meet their team members are organized from time to me

o   Have regular “remote” team meetings

• In the past 10 to 15 years, due to major changes in the work environment such as Globalization and Technology improvements, remote working has moved from being something marginal to a “must have” for more and more employees/companies. 
  
  
• While remote working is not an option for everyone, if applied to the right job and the right employees it becomes a win-win for everyone. For the workers who save time, can organize their own work, feel less stressed, can concentrate better and feel more efficient, and are overall much happier ; for employers who save significant costs, benefit from more engaged employees, who actually work more, are far more efficient and less absent. Companies organized for remote working are also better adapted to every increasing Globalization and better prepared for potential periods of turmoil, such as managing the Coronovirus.  And of course remote working is better for our global environment, since reducing commute and professional travel significantly could make a significant contribution towards reducing our carbon footprint. 
  
  
• That being said, remote working comes with its share of challenges and remote employers cannot simply copy/paste their current way of working to remote working. They will need to making sure that remote workers have access to the right technology, that remote workers stay connected with one another and with the non-remote teams, they will need to find a workaround to the “coffee machine conversations”, to ensure security is maintained by remote workers and of course to make sure that the company accepts and promotes remote working, in particular by building trust between remote and non-remote employees and getting managers onboard with a result-oriented management style. 
  
  
• Remote working often means working differently and finding solutions to these challenges will be critical to implement a successful remote working environment. Efficient and proven solutions exist to address these challenges. 
  
  
• As remote working is becoming more and more a key differentiator in attracting top talents, companies who fall behind might find themselves hard pressed in the coming years.