Rethinking a Distributed Workforce for the Creative Field
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- Based on an extensive survey I did two months ago, 47% of you who allow WFH to some degree are having significant second thoughts about it. Combine that with 18% of you who are dead-set against it, that leaves 35% of you are are "generally thrilled" with the experience you're having. I surveyed 612 principals with a 4% margin of error. That's more negative than I imagined: two-thirds of you don't think highly of the practice.
- The Agency Management Institute people did a survey, too, which was even more revealing. Only 8% of firms are "all remote, all the time"; 19% don't allow it at all; and the remaining 73% allow it occasionally, to varying degrees.
- It's also a highly divisive topic among principals/leadership, in and outside the creative field. Some large, notable firms are banning it entirely (IBM, Yahoo) while others are embracing it completely (Automattic). There are too many smaller creative firms who ban WFH completely to begin listing them, but some have gone on record publicly to discuss it, like redpepper or Connelly Partners.
Creating An Effective WFH/RW Policy
I've been gathering these and testing them for quite some time. I'm pretty comfortable that they will help with some useful guardrails for crafting your own policy:- When a new employee is hired to any role where they will be gone from the HQ most of the time, try to have them at the office for 2-3 weeks at the outset, staying in an apartment or long-term hotel at your expenses. Their family obligations might make this difficult, but do what you can. They need to look in the eyes of the other people, slowly weave a fabric of trust underneath the personal exchanges, develop some inside jokes, etc. Then have them come back to the HQ on a fixed, regular basis. Not some hopeful policy that is seldom implemented, but a fairly strict one. Something like one week every two or three months.
- I would be hesitant to be the first firm that someone works for remotely. Neither of you has any idea how it'll work out.
- When an on-site employee wants to switch to a remote status (to follow a spouse or care for a family member or just a lifestyle change), and that employee wants to continue working for you, it has about an even chance of working out for at least a couple of years. At the risky end of the spectrum, they simply keep collecting a paycheck until they realize how lonely they are and start looking for work in their new city and the next thing you know they are gone. And you're probably relieved. At the other end, you have a key employee who is an integral part of the firm and continues to be indefinitely.
- Some positions lend themselves to a remote status more than others. A more natural fit includes new business, copywriting, coding, and research. There are three areas that are problematic, though: managing people, managing projects, and managing clients.
- Your bylaws should automatically trigger a buyout clause if a partner moves away from HQ—unless it's to start another office in another city with a bunch of employees, by mutual agreement. Otherwise you will always end up with misaligned workloads and resentment. And even then that's seldom a good plan.
- Start every remote arrangement on a trial basis, after which you reserve the right to continue it semi-permanently or reverse it. You might lose the employee in that instance, but so be it.
- If everybody is remote and you all come together at regular intervals, get together on a Monday or Friday and not in the middle of the week or your team will slowly begin to have a lot of undeclared long weekends.
- We know about the upsides of remote working arrangements for employees. The downsides are primarily three, and it's smart to be upfront about these. First, that team member's career path is going to stall. Whether that's right or wrong is kind of beside the point—it will stall. Second, the pace of innovation will probably slow. There's just less water cooler conversations and all the good things that emerge from those. Third, there will be some small or even significant degree of isolation, which in turn can lead to misunderstandings. Great culture overcome this, mostly, but it's still a factor.
- You'll have a wider pool of potential employees to choose from since you can now hire people who wouldn't need to move.
- Employees, in general, will be happy and grateful for the opportunity you trust them with.
- There can be fewer distractions (or more, depending on the home situation).
- Less stress because of commutes.