How to Be a Good Remote Worker
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How can you be a good remote worker? With holiday travel coming up (where you may end up working remotely), and New Year reflections coming up (“going remote” might be one of your goals for 2019), I thought we'd discuss. Some notes from previous reader discussions on how to be a good remote worker:
- Explain your strategies for success. Particularly if you're making a formal proposal to do remote work, you may need to answer two big questions up front for your boss: “What's in it for me?” and “How will I know you're still doing good work?” Answers here might relate to your own situation (for example, if you were going to quit otherwise), a vastly reduced commute (giving you more time to devote to clients!), closer proximity to clients, or more availability for trips to visit clients in other cities. As for the “good work” — you might offer a weekly status report emailed every week, tracking your own metrics, or more.
- Understand that you may have to work on “home office time,” particularly for phone calls. As one reader noted previously, “Since I'm in a different time zone, I’m very flexible about times calls are scheduled, even if it sucks for me. I've done more 5:00 a.m. calls than I can count, and had one four-month stint with a standing 4 a.m. call six days a week when the client was in a time zone eight hours ahead of mine.”
- Have a standing call with your boss to review projects, at least in the beginning. The formal structure may be helpful for him or her to ease the transition.
- Pick up the phone instead of email. It's more effective for maintaining relationships and easier to avoid misunderstandings.
- When you're in the office, work the room. When you are at the office or at a company function, circulate and talk to everyone. Schedule lunches, happy hours, and just walk around to make the most of face time at the office.
- Toot your own horn. To make up for reduced visibility at work, you may need to set humility aside and be your own cheerleader! Metrics are also great — if you can keep track of the numbers of anything (hours billed, clients handled, words written, whatever with numbers!) then do so in a clear format for your boss.
Further reading:
- Mistakes to Avoid When Working From Home [CorporetteMoms]
- 5 Traits Remote Employees Must Have [Inc.]
- The Skills You Should Have to Be a Successful Remote Worker [Lifehacker]
- How Tips for Success as a Remote Worker [Acquia]
- Characteristics of a Great Remote Employees [Hubstaff]
Pictured: Shutterstock / Dean Drobot.
1. Get your work done. Primary concern with remote work is that people are doing things like reading bl*gs and not working. Remote workers who miss deadlines don’t survive longer than the HR documentation phase (6 months to a year, two if it’s under a bad manager).
2. Join whatever organizations in and outside your company you can (women’s, mentorship, professional, niche experts etc) and participate in internal and external chat/meet groups to get your name seen. It’s so much harder to network as remote.
3. You really need a boss who has your back. No remote work relationship is successful without trust and name exposure to leadership from your superior. This is why it’s always recommended you build trust first, then ask to WFH.
4. If you’re working after work, schedule your emails. No one wants your emails at 11:59pm where they will never be seen since they’ll be marked as yesterday’s. Please do everyone a solid have them sent at a reasonable morning time in a common time zone. Super early/late emails also make you look like you have poor time management skills. I don’t want you to work for me if you cannot get your work done during the actual work day.
5. As an extension of above, a deadline of X date means by EOD in my time zone. If you got your work in by 11:59pm, you missed the deadline by 6 hours. The only exception is same-day assigned work.
6. Make good use of whatever chat features are available at your office. Real time interaction is important for me to understand how you approach your work, and for you to understand how I make decisions (and hopefully extrapolate and start suggesting the appropriate decision to me along with your question). It also usually has a status light telling me you’re at your desk. You’ll be surprised how many remote workers are simply not at their desks during the work day.
I like this list except I disagree with the timing emails thing. I’ve heard mixed reactions about this. I’m working every waking hour of the day lately it seems so if I’m sending an email it’s just because it’s one of the 10000 things I need to remove from my to do list. I hope and assume my coworkers don’t feel they’re expected to respond immediately. I wouldn’t.
Same, I agree with everything except the email thing. One of the things I make sure to do as a work from home person is be MUCH more available than I’d probably be if I worked in the office, so if that means responding in the middle of the night or 5am, I’m doing it. I’ve been telecommuting for 3 years, with a promotion & maternity leave to show for it.
The OP makes a lot of good points. The most important one is to make sure you do NOT just dog it from home, or wherever “remote” may be. I see so many guys at the Starbucks or at Whole Foods with their Ipads or MacBooks, but they are not working hard, but instead are just lookeing at us when we walk by with our cappuchino’s. I know that one guy spilled coffee on his lap when he saw me lean forward to put my coffee down b/c he was stareing at my boobies. I do NOT do this intentionally, but men just LOVE to stare at me and this often results in accidents like that. If you are not at your office, make sure to overbill from those remote locations so that your manageing partner won’t think you are just there to be seen, and oooooogled. That is why I am ahead of my billeings this year! YAY!!!!
#6 is WAY too micromanaging UNLESS you’re noticing a performance issue or lack of availability, in which case that is the real problem. I will often go “idle” when working in the office because I’m at a meeting, on the phone, reading a hard copy document, or heaven forbid stepping out for lunch or a quick errand.
Agreed. If I have a ten-page report to edit, I’m not going to sit there wiggling the mouse to make sure Skype stays green for Big Brother.
4. I wouldn’t be as worried about time management as I would about someone’s balance if I saw an email come through in the middle of the night.
5. A deadline of X date means that specific timing needs to be determined up front. I work with global clients spanning US, EU, and APAC time zones. EOB in my time zone is not the governing one unless it was agreed upon previously.
6. IM status light stalking is for micro-managers. I don’t know your field, but in mine, there is some flexibility during the day as long as client needs and deliverables are met. I may have a doctor’s appointment that runs over or a trip to the mechanic that was supposed to be a quick in-and-out but there was a delay. As long as I don’t miss a meeting or a deadline (and as long as I have my mobile on me), there’s no problem. I work my buns off in general, so if I occasionally miss two hours during normal business hours, the world will not end.
Thank you! Regarding the topic also advise read this article: http://eltoma-recruitment.com/2018/11/26/do-genuine-work-from-home-jobs-exist-guide-to-avoid-being-scammed/ What do you think of its message?
Hi, recently I’ve come across an interesting article regarding the topic: http://eltoma-recruitment.com/2018/11/26/do-genuine-work-from-home-jobs-exist-guide-to-avoid-being-scammed/ Will be very grateful to hear what you think about it.