Remote: 11 Strategies to Get Work Done Outside the Office

As you probably know, the team at The Unstuck Group works remotely. We don’t have a central office space. We do that on purpose for several reasons, but primarily because it allows us to include talented people on the team from all over the country. My teammates live in Arizona, California, North Carolina, South Carolina and various communities in Georgia.

Because that’s how our team operates, I was very interested in the new book by Jason Fried, co-founder and President of 37signals, and David Heinemeier Hansson. The book is called Remote: Office Not Required. You guessed it–it’s all about teams that work without going to the office.

Based on my reading, here are…

11 Strategies to Get Work Done Outside the Office

1. We don’t have to gather in the same place or at the same time to be effective. “Not only do we not have to be in the same spot to work together, we also don’t have to work at the same time to work together.”
2. The less often we meet, the more we will appreciate in-person meetings. “By rationing in-person meetings, their stature is elevated to that of a rare treat. They become something to be savored, something special.”
3. It’s possible that we are more productive when we are away from the office than when we are at the office. “Coming into the office just means that people have to put on pants. There’s no guarantee of productivity.”
4. If we feel like we have to watch people work to get them to work, we’ve hired the wrong people. “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager.”
5. If your boss doesn’t trust you, find a new boss. “The bottom line is that you shouldn’t hire people you don’t trust, or work for bosses who don’t trust you.”
6. Keeping people focused and productive begins with helping people find fulfillment. “The number one counter to distractions is interesting, fulfilling work.”
7. We need to hold our team accountable for getting things done rather than just showing up to the office. “If working remotely is such an obvious good thing that everyone would want it, why shouldn’t we let everyone do it?”
8. Constantly being in meetings prevents us from getting work done. “We believe that these staples of work life—meetings and managers—are actually the greatest causes of work not getting done at the office.”
9. Frequently reporting what we’re doing prevents us from getting work done. “Constantly asking people what they’re working on prevents them from actually doing the work they’re describing.”
10. If we’re going to hire people to work remotely, they have to be good writers. “In hiring for remote-working positions, managers should be ruthless in filtering out poor writers.”
11. We should give people real-world, test-drive projects before we hire them to do real-world, long-term jobs. “The best way we’ve found to accurately judge work is to hire the person to do a little work before we take the plunge and hire them to do a lot of work.”

What’s your experience? Have you found working remotely helps your team get more done? If so, what are some strategies you’ve implemented to improve productivity? If not, what are the barriers you weren’t able to overcome?

Photo Credit: Stewf via Compfight cc