Insights from our portfolio: 5 reasons to offer remote work and 5 recommendations to keep in mind NuCom Group Follow Mar 2 · 5 min read by Sonja Bürger Whilst still in the early days of broad-scale remote work, it is becoming more and more apparent that not only employees, but also companies can profit from remote work at scale. Already before Covid-19 remote work has become increasingly prevalent.[1] This trend has been fast-forwarded, and prominent companies like Twitter and Facebook have taken up a stance clearly in favor of remote work — we are in 2020, new work is now. Time to reflect. From a company’s perspective, remote work can be immensely powerful: 1. As immediate effect, we see increased productivity as a benefit of remote work. This effect could be verified in multiple surveys and exchanges within our portfolio, but also by research (a Stanford study suggests 13–22% productivity increase[2] based on fewer breaks and sick days and a quieter and more convenient working environment). In addition, there are some more strategic benefits of remote work: 2. Think of the increased talent pool you can access. Geographic locations becomes less important, not only nationally, but also internationally (thinking of Europe). One of our portfolio companies operates a developer location in Spain to benefit from highly relevant but (in Germany) scarce skill sets. This is not outsourcing or traditional offshoring, this is working together as a team of equals. Working in this setup has always consisted of periods apart and periods of physical presence. Independence from geographic location also comes as an advantage to companies headquartered outside major cities. 3. Think of another talent pool, that is inadequately tapped: People working part time.[3] Time lost in travel and daily commuting is a huge issue for part-timers. Remote work increases efficiency and productivity of working hours and enables equal participation. Additionally, the flawed logic of using ‘time spend in office’ as proxy for achievement cannot be used anymore. In a remote setting output (=results) comes into focus — sometimes with surprising results for managers. 4. Cost savings can also be a benefit of remote work. Facebook as a prominent example has offered their staff the opportunity to work from home on a permanent basis. When choosing to relocate, salaries are adjusted according to living costs. Lower office rent and lower associated costs (cleaning, canteen, snacks etc.) may also add to the effect. 5. The option to work remotely increases employee satisfaction[2] as there are obvious benefits for employees — an increased flexibility in schedules, flexibility regarding location, no time lost in daily commuting, and overall getting things done more efficiently. Happier employees tend to contribute more and to stay longer with their employer — despite other opportunities. There are, however, some challenges regarding remote work, as our internal surveys and discussions revealed. A fundamental requirement to successful remote work is of course an adequate infrastructure (collaboration tools, fast W-LAN access, remote space to work). In addition, three major challenges need to be addressed based on our experience: Communication needs to be ensured, both from leadership to teams, as well as within teams Team spirit may suffer in absence of physical presence and needs special attention Work-life may become an imbalance; in an internal poll of one of our portfolio companies 60% of employees reported longer working hours in remote work settings and 56% of employees reported difficulties in separating work and leisure time. This observation is backed by findings from scientific studies[1]and should be taken seriously. Burn-out proves to be a material threat to companies whose most valuable resources are human. These challenges of remote work should be addressed head-on: 1. Weekly team check-ins and regular all-hands check-ins to ensure communication of relevant news and to strengthen team spirit; in place at the majority of our portfolio companies. The optimal frequency of all-hands check-ins is likely to be dependent on company size. Even for larger companies, all-hands meetings are much easier to organize remotely, whilst being more direct at the same time, so that leadership communication can benefit from going remote. 2. Informal check-ins (e.g. virtual coffee dates) and team challenges (e.g. “topic of the week”) contribute to better team spirit and ease communication. 3. Use of video as opposed to pure audio [4] to facilitate communication. Guidelines should be defined for mixed office-/remote meetings, e.g. ‘Always video’, meaning video of all participants needs to be in place even if 80% of participants are physically present in one room. 4. Options to meet in person on an as-needed basis. Occasional in-person meetings generally lift the team spirit and facilitate communication — and should be part of a well-functioning remote setting[1]. Some employees (anonymously) reported feelings of loneliness/unavailability of calm working space at home and expressed the wish for a regular physical office option. The needs of this group should be addressed. Regular polls regarding employee work preferences prove to be a helpful tool to monitor this need. 5. Guidelines re. work-life balance: A relatively new concept in digital working environments, where the tendency has generally been to increasingly blend work and private life. One of our portfolio companies e.g. put in place guidelines defining core meeting hours and agreed on respecting their own new set of Slack symbols regarding ‘reachability’. As in many cases, leading by example seems to be key to foster implementation. To fully benefit from remote work, adequate solutions need to be defined to mitigate the imminent challenges. We are then in a position to profit from remote work at scale and welcome the new work reality of 2020 — and beyond. 1 Also see: “Set Up Remote Workers to Thrive” MITSloan Management Review https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264844669_Set_Up_Remote_Workers_to_Thrive 2 “Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(1) · March 2013, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18871 3 Disclaimer: Adequate child care has to be ensured in remote work settings as well as in office settings. Working and looking after/schooling children at the same time never really works, whether in a remote or office setting. 4 “Video helps remote work: speakers who need to negotiate common ground benefit from seeing each other”, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 1999 (!), https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/302979.303067 Newwork Covid 19 Remote Work Nucom Case Study 1 NuCom Group Insights NuCom Group is a strategic growth partner for digital consumer internet companies and a joint company of ProSiebenSat.1 Group and General Atlantic. More From Medium WHAT DOES AN EVENT PLANNER BRING TO THE TABLE? Shashank Sharma Attorney Katy Goshtasbi: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Attorney Authority Magazine in Authority Magazine HOW TO GET A JOB IN ADVERTISING. 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