Over the past several years, hiring practices have seen a growing shift toward remote working and the utilization of gig workers. Meanwhile, the traditional 9-to-5 routine is increasingly seen as a bygone product of the industrial age.
More employers are seeing the advantages in cost savings, efficiency and flexibility afforded to them by shifting the workforce to a remote / in-office mix, and rotating in gig workers to fill critical gaps in their talent pools.
Remote Work is The New Normal
The continued effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have accelerated these remote working trends. Particularly in the remote work space, employers are being forced to minimize the traditional office model for the health and safety of their people. Now that we are several months into this new model of working, studies are emerging that show the positive effects this has had on worker efficiency and satisfaction.
In a recent survey from GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com, 73 percent of people said they are very successfully working from home. Plus, 70 percent of managers say they were satisfied in the work product of their teams. And it’s not just a feeling of people performing as well at home. A vast majority of workers surveyed (80 percent) want to work from home at least some of the time moving forward.
But what does it mean to be remote work friendly? What are the real implications of a shift to remote work as a business owner or as an employee?
At AppJobs, we are a remote work first environment with team members, including managers, scattered throughout the world in 3 offices in Stockholm, Katowice, and Karachi and at least 10 employees working remotely in various locations. That presents a unique set of advantages and challenges. So we sat down with Alok Alström, co-founder of AppJobs, to talk a bit about the organization’s relationship with this remote first culture and what impact that has had.
Interview with Appjobs CEO
When establishing AppJobs, did you always intend for it to be a remote-first company?
– Not explicitly “remote first,” but I was aware of many of the strengths that can be derived from a remote friendly setup from my time at Uber and through previous startups I had been involved in. So it was intentional to build it into at least a “remote friendly” company.
What do you believe the benefits of remote work are?
– I believe that the benefits of a remote work setup are mostly indirect. For instance, we see improved documentation, since communication must be done via email text or messengers.
At the same time, this has improved the effectiveness of our communications, since the friction of communicating is higher. People then think through what they want to communicate more thoroughly.
Plus, the increased documentation and sharing of data via cloud has helped to improve redundancy and reduce lost work, as well as improve collaboration.
In some ways, it has also helped to democratize some work environments. In a typical office setting, you can sometimes have what I call an A and B team.
The A team has a closer relationship with the manager and sees more career opportunities as a result. In a remote environment, with people physically separated, that dynamic is typically reduced.
What are the disadvantages of remote work?
– It’s definitely more difficult to build a coherent culture in your company. You miss the socializing that builds those bonds and shapes the way you approach business.
And without those social bonds, it’s much harder to build trust between colleagues. People find it easier to become irritated by an individual that they don’t really see — it’s kind of similar to the road rage effect.
Also, while communication effectiveness improves, I see that the actual efficiency of communication suffers.
What tools do you use day-to-day that aid in remote work?
– Most importantly, our philosophy is that we are free to start using whatever tool we like as long as it’s not too expensive and it’s cloud based. This means that we try out a lot of tools, but only some really stick. The ones that have stuck so far are Google suite, Slack, Trello and Zoom.
Do you believe it is important for the company to remain social or connected although it is spread out?
– Yes. It’s even more important in order to overcome some of the disadvantages of remote work.
How do you accomplish this?
– I think this mostly happens spontaneously through the use of emojis and memes in Slack. We used to reinforce the social aspects through all-team outings, but that’s become difficult with Covid-19.
However, we are trying to build more of a “virtual office” setup through a tool called Teemyco. It’s in early development, and we haven’t been super successful yet. We will keep investing in it, though.
Interview with Appjobs team members working remotely
We also wanted to see how some of our AppJobs colleagues were handling remote work during Covid-19 every day. Below is the lightly edited conversation with Izaskun, Chuk and Rodrigo.
So, to start things off, where do you all live right now?
Izaskun: I live in Vitoria-Gasteiz, a town in the North of Spain. The pandemic caught me here and I plan to stay here until this situation is a little bit more controlled. Otherwise, I am in constant move.
Chuk: I live in Enugu, a town in South Eastern Nigeria. Enugu is notable for its hilly landscapes and red sand.
Rodrigo: I live in Asunción, the capital city of Paraguay.
Quite the global crowd! Ok, what kind of time difference are you dealing with compared to your colleagues?
Izaskun: There is no time difference with AppJobs, I only have one work colleague that is in a different time zone, so everything is pretty easy.
Rodrigo: I’m 6 hours behind most of my colleagues, my time zone being GMT-4.
Chuk: There is a one-hour difference when Daylight Saving Time starts in Western Europe. The other part of the year, there is no difference.
So, what is your current role at AppJobs?
Chuk: I am a Software Developer. Right now, I work specifically as a Frontend Developer with the Member Value team building web and mobile products for our members
Rodrigo: I’m a DevOps engineer. My work consists of enabling and supporting developers by automating their workflow as much as I can. It’s a great position where I get to connect many dots together and have an holistic view of the whole development process. I also work on keeping our internal services (servers) up and running.
Izaskun: I am a Search Engine Optimizer working in the member growth team, and I am focused on bringing growth to European and LATAM countries.
What tools / software do you use on a daily basis as a remote worker?
Chuk: Slack for communication. We had a short stab at Discord. It was cool, because then I could put more voices behind the names I saw. Jira, GitHub, Zoom, and Google Drive are also daily tools.
Izaskun: I use Slack and Zoom to communicate with everyone, and we use Trello as a management tool. Of course, Google Drive is a must, too.
Rodrigo: As Izaskun and Chuck already mentioned the common tools we use to talk to each other, I’m going to focus on what I personally use to organize my work, thoughts and notes.
On my Mac, I use OneNote for keeping track of my work. I write to myself so I can remember a few months later exactly what I did to accomplish something. I treat this software as my second brain where I dump all work-related information that I can’t keep in my head for very long.
I use 2Do for my personal task management software. Also, I rely on Focus to force myself to work without distractions when I need to stay in the flow. I keep track of my working hours with software called Timing, which I use to monitor my productivity each month. For actual work, I mostly live inside Tmux running a bunch of terminal sessions. Most of my workflow is around text-based console applications.
What are the benefits of working remotely?
Izaskun: Not having to commute is the most obvious one, but there are a number of others. For instance, you don’t need to eat out everyday and you’re able to enjoy your own cooked food. You can decide where you work from each day – even if you want to choose a different country every month. Plus, you’re able to focus more on your tasks, and you can spend more time with your loved ones.
Rodrigo: Remote work is all about freedom. Before working remotely, my life was designed around my workplace. Commuting to work, being in an office for more than eight hours each day, and not having as much free time for myself after leaving the office, I felt like I was living to work. This mentality went away completely when I joined AppJobs. Now, for the first time, I feel like I can design my life as I see fit. That means traveling more often, exercising more, enjoying my days, being closer to my friends and family, all while being the most productive I’ve ever been.
Chuk: One of the great benefits of working remotely is the flexibility it affords. This year, I have worked from four different states in my country. Working has not prevented me from visiting different places and enjoying them.
I have lived in Nigeria’s largest city for quite a while. It is densely populated. Lagos has a population of about 22 million people. This naturally leads to a couple of things like heavy traffic. Working remotely has removed the need to commute. I believe that these few hours that I save by not commuting are advantages for my job, because I am in a better frame of mind when I start my day.
AppJobs in particular has a very flexible culture. There is a culture of openness that is central to my desire to want to remain here. Because of this, I can basically work at any time that I believe is most suitable. This is done bearing my teammates in mind. There are occasions I have worked at night, because I had pressing matters to handle in the afternoon. Working remotely has ensured that my work-life balance has not suffered in any way.
Chuk: I guess the biggest challenge remote workers face is the lack of human contact. Many times, you’re by yourself, staring at your computer screen. This lack of social interaction can be a problem because humans are social animals. Being able to take a break from work and do other things will help solve this though.
Without proper communication tools, remote workers may also feel left behind. This is because you can’t just walk up to a teammate to say something to them. Using communication tools that fit the team you’re working with can go a long way in remedying this.
Izaskun: Like Chuk hinted at, remote work is not for everyone. If you are a social animal that needs to be around people the whole time, or even if you find it difficult to organize your working hours, then this might not be for you. You need to be able to separate your work life from your personal life and be strict with that.
In my experience, before the pandemic, I saw no cons or challenges to remote work at all. However, during the “old normal,” I used to travel every one and a half or two months to visit my team members in Sweden, Poland or any other place. These gatherings were the time to reconnect again with all of them, to really delve deep into that one topic you always wanted to talk about or simply talking about personal stuff that brought you closer and closer and would translate into closer work.
Now that trips have been put on hold, I miss those human interactions that allow you to talk about those other things that are not work related, that a virtual coffee can try to replace, but not entirely.
Rodrigo: I personally haven’t encountered many challenges myself. To enjoy working full-time remotely I believe you have to be wired in a certain way like Izaskun mentioned. A big part of that is related to your personality. Introversion + remote work seems to go hand in hand for me. Some people might feel lonely, or need that office vibe to feel they are “at work.” Being driven is another one. When working remotely, you are your own boss. It’s up to you to control yourself which for example means to not overwork and avoid distractions.