Tag: Remote Work

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News You Can Use: 3/25/2020


Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

  • Silicon Valley Was First to Send Workers Home. It’s Been Messy.

    In recent days, software developers sent home by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook have complained of slow download speeds and mounting confusion over still-evolving new internal rules about what work they are allowed to perform, staffers say. Some workers can’t access crucial internal systems from home due to strict security policies meant to fend off outsiders—which now includes off-site employees.

    Alphabet Inc.’s Google was overrun with requests after it told its 119,000 employees to put in for “work from home” kits of monitors, cables and other technological must-haves, employees say. Facing a backlog and no certain date of delivery, many San Francisco employees came in over the weekend, despite requests from Google to avoid doing so, and hauled home desktop equipment and personal effects like family photos back with them.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-was-first-to-send-workers-home-its-been-messy-11584190800

  • Farts, cats, naked bodies: People are failing hilariously at working from home

    Work culture will need to adjust to the new normal, in which toddlers and flatulent dogs are our coworkers. It inevitably will. But until then, here are some of the worst work-from-home fails we’ve seen in the past week. They prove that, however rough your work-from-home experience has been, it could have been a lot worse.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90478967/farts-cats-naked-bodies-people-are-failing-hilariously-at-working-from-home

  • Your Company Culture Isn’t an Office, It’s the People
  • At Schools Closed for Coronavirus, Online Work Won’t Count

    Schools are expected to advance students to the next grade, come fall, even with all the months of missed coursework, though many administrators say they haven’t addressed it yet. Teachers already dread what they call “the summer slide,” or information children lose over summer vacation, and schools haven’t yet said how curricula in the fall may need to be adjusted to make up missed work.

    In Washington state, where schools are closed statewide until at least April 24, the Education Department has warned against using online learning that isn’t equitable. At least one district in Bothell, Wash., halted the online model it had rolled out to students to address equity issues. Now, the Northshore School District superintendent said, in a letter to families this week, the district has launched a resource page online for families to keep students moving forward. This week, students are being encouraged to create projects that could be useful in relation to the current health situation, such as building a hand-sanitizer dispenser. A petition to restore online learning had over 11,000 signatures on Thursday.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-closed-for-coronavirus-online-work-wont-count-11584643049

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News You Can Use: 3/18/2020


Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash

  • The Gig Economy Is a Public Health Risk

    While most of Silicon Valley’s white-collar workers are working from home and the masses are being asked to self-isolate, Uber and Lyft drivers, Grubhub and Seamless delivery drivers, and Instacart shoppers continue to work. After weeks of silence and rolling out policies designed to convince customers to continue using their platforms (“contactless deliveries!”), several companies including Uber, have just rolled out two-weeks of paid sick leave, but even these policies feel dystopian, their subtext being: Keep working until you get the deadly pandemic with an unknown death rate. Then you can self-isolate (without health insurance) and hope you don’t die.

    It’s easy to focus on the gig economy’s lackluster response during the pandemic, but this problem has been years in the making.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74qw9/the-gig-economy-is-a-public-health-risk-coronavirus-covid19

  • ‘Everyone is so worried about their job they’re not doing the work’: Confessions of an agency exec

    Do you think this will hurt agencies long-term?
    It is going to be another thing that will hurt them. My sense is that 2020 is going to be a really tough year for agencies. Everyone is nervous about their jobs. Working at an agency is like Lord of the Flies right now. Everyone is so worried about their job they’re not doing the work.

    So people were already scared about their jobs but they’re even more nervous now due to coronavirus?
    Yes. People [have been] so scared about their jobs that they’re willing to throw people under the bus to make sure they have a paycheck coming in every two weeks. It’s becoming a very caustic environment, which is affecting business as a whole because they are not performing at their best. Trust is lacking in leadership. People will want to defend themselves, their paycheck and their family. It’s a critical issue for the industry as a whole.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/everyone-worried-job-theyre-not-work-confessions-agency-exec/

  • Why fighting the coronavirus depends on you
  • Working Remotely Requires Cultural Change, Executives Say

    “The first step [to going remote] is understanding that not every physical process needs an equal virtual process. For example, not every in-person meeting translates to a virtual meeting,” he said.

    CIOs are primed to serve to lead the transition, he said.

    ”This is a giant opportunity for CIOs to make companies more efficient. If you can get a company to the point where people are equally effective when they’re working from home, you give your team members a lot more freedom and you create a lot more opportunities,” Mr. Sijbrandij said.

    “Making the jump from the cube to the home or working off site—there are cultural accelerators that come into play. There needs to be some mentoring and modeling and acceptance,” said Wayne Kurtzman, research director at International Data Corp.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-remotely-requires-cultural-change-executives-say-11584053615

  • How to help your remote workers feel involved

    In meetings, make sure that all participants are, well, participating. Some people, especially those who are not used to working remotely, may at first be uncomfortable in video conferences, and so they may hang back.

    Don’t force people to appear on camera if they don’t want to. While video meetings tend to work better when you feel as though you are talking to a real person, if a participant feels awkward being on camera (or is worried about how messy their house is), then they’re going to spend the meeting too distracted to pay full attention to the matters at hand.

    If you or your employees decide to hold a virtual get-together, Twitch gaming session, video watch party, or other social event, make sure everyone in the company is aware of it and invited. Of course, you can have separate events for teams within the company, but it’s not a good idea to further isolate employees whose jobs may not usually involve working with others.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21178312/remote-work-worker-videoconference-slack-chat-connected

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News You Can Use: 3/11/2020

  • How to work during a pandemic

    If these events, or others like them, are seriously affecting your productivity or the ability of your company to function, maybe you should think about that a bit. What are you unable to do — specifically? What’s stopping you — specifically?

    Do you rely too much on face-to-face communications and find yourself unable to explain concepts in writing? Has your team abandoned Slack for anything productive? Are your press releases and email pitches limp? When you’re forced to fall back from your strengths, you necessarily encounter your own weaknesses.

    This is an opportunity to take a good look at what you and your company are and aren’t good at when it comes to communication and productivity. In fact, it’s more than an opportunity — you’re going to be slapped in the face with these shortcomings whether you like it or not. Whether you make something out of it or not is up to you.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/how-to-work-during-a-pandemic/

  • How To Succeed At Working From Home

    Get organized. Maintaining balance is one of the most difficult aspects of working at home, because the work is always right there staring you in the face, Hanna says. “To keep you on track (and not working too much or too little), organization will be key. Get organized by creating filing systems, schedules and to-do lists.”

    Have a set work space. Kanarek suggests you designate a specific place for a home office–and store all work-related files, reference materials and supplies there. Try not to make it near a bed or a TV, Spence adds. Taylor says that you should ensure that your office space emulates that of a true work environment.

    Plan your day. This will help you minimize your distractions and maximize your true productive times, Spence says. “For example, many people eat a small breakfast on their way to the office, but when at home, you may be tempted to have a bigger breakfast which may slow you down for your early morning meeting. Or you may normally get off at 5 pm, but the kids come home at 4 pm, so you may need a shorter lunch so you can get all of your work done.”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/08/16/how-to-succeed-at-working-from-home/#4e4e7cad281d

  • Stop Managing Your Remote Workers As If They Work Onsite
  • Personal Essay: Coronavirus Lockdown Is A ‘Living Hell’

    The younger generations, born after 1995 and in the 2000s, have good impressions about the Chinese system, putting the nation before all because they have been living in an era of prosperity and have yet to experience adversity.

    The things that happened during this outbreak have greatly surprised those kids. For example, a young man scolded others on Weibo in the early days of the outbreak. He accused them of spreading rumors and argued that if we don’t trust the government, there is nothing we can trust. Later, he said, when a member of his family was infected with the coronavirus but was unable to get treatment in the overcrowded hospital, he cursed and called for help.

    When Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who first reported a mysterious SARS-like illness, died of the disease himself, a student commented on the Internet: “It was just the virus that killed him, so we should focus on the epidemics.” But then the student’s dormitory was appropriated for quarantine patients — and he was shocked and dismayed.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/03/809965742/personal-essay-from-wuhan-living-in-hell

  • Working From Home Because of Coronavirus? These Are Your Tech Fixes

    I cannot possibly be productive without my second, third or 53rd monitor.

    Obvious solution: Buy a monitor for home. Check out The Wirecutter’s suggestions. I bought a $150 Asus monitor nearly five years ago and we’re still very happy together. Dongle alert #2: You’ll likely need one to hook up to a newer USB-C laptop.

    Not-as-obvious solution: Use an iPad. Sure, it’s a smaller display, but I find it great for putting up a messaging window or an important website I frequently need—especially since it’s a wireless connection. If you have a Mac running the latest MacOS Catalina and an iPad with iOS 13 you have a feature called Sidecar. This allows you to wirelessly use your iPad as your Mac’s second monitor. Fire up the Sidecar app on your Mac and it’s real easy to set up. (Detailed instructions from Apple found here.)

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-from-home-because-of-coronavirus-these-are-your-tech-fixes-11583326423

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News You Can Use: 4/3/2019

  • How Better Communication Skills Can Make You a Better Leader

    You might stray away from being assertive, in fear that it’ll come off as confrontational — trust us when we say they’re not one and the same. Part of being assertive is the ability to confidently stand behind your words and offer up a much-needed sense of direction or action plan.

    Fact is, everyone possesses knowledge — but what makes individuals stand out as leaders is their ability to communicate that unique information. And beyond just relaying that information, figuring out a way to inspire and motivate others.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331323

  • Apple still has a lot to prove with its new subscription services

    The best answer I can come up with is this: Apple has a huge effect on technology and culture, and Apple is trying to tell a new story about what it is and what it makes. You should care because the story Apple tells us and tells itself has real effects on the products it makes and its effect on culture.

    So yes, Apple makes subscription services now. But if the whole story is just “Apple can make more money now that iPhone sales have plateaued,” then none of this really matters or changes anything.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282776/apple-tv-news-plus-subscription-services-announcement-keynote-cost-bundle

  • Shh! Keep Your Big Goals to Yourself.

    Some experts argue that praise before accomplishment can actually prevent us from reaching our goals. In 2009, researcher Peter Gollwitzer asked the question, “Are scientists more likely to write papers if they tell colleagues about their intentions or if they keep their intentions to themselves?”

    After completing a series of studies, Gollwitzer and his team found that when people set a goal that’s closely tied to their identity and share their intentions with others, they’re less likely to achieve that goal. In converse example, telling friends that you’re going to start taking vitamins likely won’t affect your follow-through. That’s because vitamins probably aren’t deeply tied to your personal identity.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329168

  • Move over, WeWork. This Belize beachside coworking space is the dream

    While all coworking spaces claim their business is “more than a workspace” and their unique design and the various perks they offer “set them apart,” the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) may actually be right. The bungalow is situated over the brilliantly blue water on Tobacco Caye. The coworking space has an open-concept layout to help coworkers feel right at home and make collaboration easy. There are standing desks, a wellness center, executive parking, a VIP boardroom, and, of course, Wi-Fi and a killer view.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90327084/move-over-wework-this-belize-beachside-co-working-space-is-the-dream

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/28/2018

  • Facebook asks users: should we allow men to ask teenagers for images?

    On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. “There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook,” one question began. “In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.”

    The options available to respondents ranged from “this content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be able to see it” to “this content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it”.
    **
    In neither survey question did Facebook allow users to indicate that law enforcement or child protection should be involved in the situation: the strictest option allowed involved turning to the social network as arbiter.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/facebook-men-children-sexual-images
    I called out Facebook on SourceCast 106 for “outsourcing” policy to users instead of doing it themselves. This survey is even worse. Facebook needs to decide what kind of community it wants to be. Users will come and go as a result. Also – Facebook should not be trying to attract children and teens, so this line of question is problematic on a whole other level.

  • For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned.

    On social networks, every news story comes to you predigested. People don’t just post stories — they post their takes on stories, often quoting key parts of a story to underscore how it proves them right, so readers are never required to delve into the story to come up with their own view.

    There’s nothing wrong with getting lots of shades of opinion. And reading just the paper can be a lonely experience; there were many times I felt in the dark about what the online hordes thought about the news.

    Still, the prominence of commentary over news online and on cable news feels backward, and dangerously so. It is exactly our fealty to the crowd — to what other people are saying about the news, rather than the news itself — that makes us susceptible to misinformation.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/technology/two-months-news-newspapers.html

  • What Happens In One Lifetime?
  • Another new survey underscores that skilled workers can pretty much live wherever they want

    According to feedback from more than 1,005 workforce hiring decision-makers conducted on Upwork’s behalf by the company Inavaro, skilled workers can pretty much live wherever they want and employers will come to them. The reason: companies say they are struggling to find talent, with the average position open for 36 days and some engineering jobs vacant for up to 45 days.

    In fact, though the majority of organizations surveyed — 57 percent — don’t support a work-from-home policy, those that do say they’ve become increasingly inclusive of people who work outside the office, and five times as many hiring managers expect more of their team to work remotely in the next decade than expect less. Put simply, they say the most skilled person for the job outweighs that person’s ability to work in the same location as the rest of the team.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/09/another-new-survey-underscores-that-skilled-workers-can-pretty-much-live-wherever-they-want/?ncid=rss

  • United Airlines’ Bonus Lottery Was Doomed to Fail. Don’t Make the Same Mistake With Your Team.

    If you want to know what your employers need or want, try asking them what they’d change about the culture of your workplace. I doubt the answer will be, “We need a Ping-Pong table” or, “I’d love to have my name picked out of a hat for a bonus” but instead, “I don’t understand what I need to do to get promoted or a raise,” “I’d love to be able to attend a conference to learn more about our industry” or, “I would love a mentor who could help guide me.”

    If your employees want to play the lottery, they have that option outside of work. Adults don’t want to play games at work, and United Arilines found that out the hard way. We don’t need toys; we want job satisfaction. And most importantly, employees want predictability.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/309984

Photo: Joshua Earle