More employees are being asked — or forced — to return to their desks after months of working from home. But the surging delta variant of COVID-19 is giving employers second thoughts about how much time workers should spend in the office — or whether they should be there at all. Big technology companies, for example, are taking no chances. Recently Twitter TWTR, -2.76% shuttered its newly reopened San Francisco and New York offices while Alphabet’s Google GOOGL, -0.38% and Facebook FB, +0.
In this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Pozen offers tips on how to thrive when working remotely by following established performance building habits and tools that can bring satisfaction to you and your boss. Start by seeing yourself now as an independent contractor, a “business of one,” and bring the office to you.
MarketWatch: With greater autonomy comes greater responsibility. Home-based employees must still deliver when it’s even easier to be distracted. A major focus of “Remote Inc.” centers on “success metrics” — performance expectations that managers and workers agree on. Why are these benchmarks even more important for workers who are not in the office?
Second, once you have the success metrics then the boss doesn’t have to micromanage. She knows what’s going to be expected; people will deliver or they won’t. MarketWatch: Responsibility goes hand-in-hand with accountability, which is a second major theme of the book that you call “the business of one.” Being able to do your job without coming into the office is a significant benefit that should not be taken for granted.
Pozen: The company has to support employees working remotely. That’s why we say in the book and I strongly believe in this: in remote situations managers have to be much more proactive. Initially, we saw lots of people complaining during the pandemic that they were working 24/7 because they didn’t know what the expectations were for them. They felt they were on call all the time.
MarketWatch: Too often managers believe that more messages and meetings with the team are better, and in fact double-down on this when employees aren’t in the office. How can employees respond effectively? Pozen: I believe that most organizations will go hybrid. People will go back to the office even for a few days a week or one week a month. To be an effective team player you have to see people in person from time to time. And you’ve got to have a good team leader.