The Remote Working Blueprint

Whilst some people swear they remote worked before it was cool, this is commonly new to a large portion of the world. Therefore, humanity are currently evolving this concept and creating the blueprint for this. With that in mind, we should remain conscious that if we aren’t careful about how this gets brought into the world, we will lose the opportunity to evolve working culture in the way it needs to be done. Business still needs to thrive but humans need to be, well, human!

For the remote working advocates of the world, the facts speak for themselves. Remote working is the future and it opens up countless opportunities for international collaboration.

Personally, I’ve been advocating this for years. Surprisingly, when I lived in Australia, I saw that they were very open to remote working, relaxed in fact. By 2015, it seemed that Sydney was very much on the way to achieving work-life balance by incorporating remote work. It worked well -literally and figuratively. After my time there, I felt confident that work-life balance could be achieved through flexible working.

Saying that, remote working definitely comes with its challenges (its own unique set if digital-nomading too like me) and it does involve a proactive, organised mindset. It also requires businesses to be open and inquisitive about learning how to carry this out well.

This is widely a new concept for everyone as the generation above us just didn’t really get it. It’s confusing for them to be like hang on. Let me get this straight, you work from home, but home is home! What!?

Understandably, no one would encourage remote working to us as we were growing up. Alternatively, we were taught a weird formula to a happy life that, I frankly felt uncomfortable with from a young age.

Technology wasn't really a thing for me until around 13 years old. I think that is around the time that I got my first phone, a house brick-sized Orange mobile phone. I didn’t really know what to do with it. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone did.

Back then, we were raised in a school system that trained us to be obedient workers and it still very much does now. We sit in our seats, raise our hands to speak, register to move around a building, and even ask for permission to pee when nature has called.

Like a lot of other aspects of the world we live in, we need to aim to progress remote working to help adapt the current workaholism sort of social norm, expectation, or culture... however you’d like to describe it. It’s gotta go!

Humans need fulfillment and the good news is that change is possible! As 2020 drama unraveled, people suddenly woke up to the absurdity of the working world. A peaceful revolution in worldwide working culture could definitely aid a lot of good outcomes for the world I think. Even with many people trapped in the matrix, there is hope. You can actually try and create a life around the circus if you want.

This issue can be analysed from a variety of different perspectives. For the sake of the organisation of this article, I’ve broken this down into positives and challenges for 3 main areas affected -business, employees, and the world.

Business

Positives:

Remote work is an opportunity to bring a variety of skills, intellect, education, and culture together in one co-creating space AKA your business. A realm where anything is achievable and with diversity at its all-time high, what is possible is immeasurable. Businesses have the opportunity to leverage different characteristics and norms to excel their projects.

And honestly, businesses save money by embracing remote work. With employees working from home, companies save countless money on overhead costs including rent, utilities, technology, paper, coffee, and even stationary! Not only that, if you hire remote employees across time zones, you can keep your business going 24/7. It would cost a fortune to do that physically!

Challenges:

During the pandemic, we were all thrown into this new way of working and a lot of us learned how to do this on the go whilst managing the underlying shake-up of feelings bout the world. I understand that it was, and still can be tough to keep workers engaged, motivated, and focused in a remote environment.

Running a remote company is an art for sure with businesses still learning how to do this well. That is completely logical and we shouldn't shy away from it. Like other obstacles in life, strategies can be found to fix them.

Hiring the right staff to begin with is also a challenge for businesses in the new remote world. Attracting, identifying, securing, implementing, and retaining top talent will be the difference between success and failure I think. Some companies, able to hire talent, find keeping them is the issue! It is different for everyone!

Employees

Positives:

Flexible working means that remote workers can individualise their working schedule. As a result, they can plan their work around other priorities in their life. This in turn creates higher job satisfaction as working feels more relaxed.

Eradicating long commutes and office chit-chat is a weight off remote worker's minds. Instead, gaining time back to spend with friends & family, exercising or investing in a hobby, and even doing the mundane but necessary life tasks. Being able to get little things done like the laundry within a work day may sound a little pathetic, but it changes a lot. Weekends then remain free for recharging, instead of being eaten away by the dull but necessary adulting! This means they can bring their best-rejuvenated self to work. Besides, less burnout and overwhelm = less time off. It’s win-win for everyone!

Challenges:

There’s no doubt that we’ve all seen those perfectly edited photos of people with their laptop on the beach loving the remote working life. But let’s be real, that ain’t it! Remote working definitely is less glamorous than that, well definitely for me anyway... and I love it this way!

As well as the obvious challenges of assuring sufficient wifi and quiet space, remote workers have actually been facing more complex issues.

Workers have mentioned challenges surrounding boundaries and confusion knowing when they are actually at work - because we all have phones now so when is it ok for a manager to just message them and expect an instant reply? I have also heard stories of businesses wanting to haggle so low with rates because someone is choosing to live in a “cheaper country” despite the fact that someone has a vast amount of good experience. Companies often want to flaunt remote as the selling point but are just trying to save money. I find that rather gross.

Finding a job with a fair company can be a struggle for remote workers but definitely not impossible. As this idea strengthens, there are more exciting remote opportunities developing.

The World

Positives:

Working remotely offers an opportunity for humans to take better care of themselves, their time, and their energy. Taking 20 minutes after your morning meeting for a quick yoga stretch or rearranging your schedule to make time for the gym are perks that come with working from home. I think this could promote a happier, healthier work culture.

Remote work also opens up work opportunities to a lot more people worldwide too!

This could change the world for the better. More opportunities for people all over the world, international flexible living, and human working. Goodbye to the days of long commutes, relentless micro-management, and no work-life balance. Whilst remote working could change this, I do think it needs to be established and executed early in a healthy, fair, and professional way.

Challenges:

I’m just going to throw this out there. We could all turn into robots!

The AI era is here. Robots and machines are being built every day to do weird stuff. Robot military dogs, tech-powered waiters in restaurants, and babies being created using AI to tailor their characteristics. Before long, a lot of our everyday activities will be taken care of by machines. Whilst this could be very cool, I feel cautious that this will get so quickly engrained into us that it may not cause the best outcomes for humans. If executed effectively, if we can build robots to carry out all tasks that no one actually wants to do but are necessary to help the world go around, I’m keen. I love to imagine a future world where we focus on the arts, health, living life, and community.

No, but seriously, as a worldwide community, we must find the healthy balance between being human whilst embracing and leveraging technology. As I said, we are creating the blueprint for this right now!

Awareness is the start of improving any issue.

There needs to be a balance on both sides for this to work!

We can definitely be certain that remote working is definitely not going away, or slowing down. Amongst other things, I think the solution can be found somewhere in managing and paying workers fairly and well, hiring good staff in the first place, solid communication, and leveraging technology to make processes more efficient.

During employment, businesses could think: If someone is happy, healthy, and producing results doing with their efforts, is that enough? Does work need to be this unsustainably stressful rat race? We have the opportunity for powerful change right now which could halt the mental health pandemic, and reduce stress levels in the digital working culture.

Unfortunately, this like any other free commodity is open to being spoiled. Let’s not do that. Please, thank you. People may abuse it on both sides and that is the annoying thing. “There’s always some that spoil it for everyone, eh!” Noooo, let’s not!

Firstly, let’s get the foundation strong. Mutual respect, integrity, and compassion can solidify this movement for the positive. So let's start there?