Bob thinks I’m painting the fence

Another remote working anecdote….

Work as an activity not a location, is something I have said so often, for so many years, I can’t even remember if I coined the phrase myself or stole it from someone. I have spent more than a decade advocating the benefits of remote working and, of course, implementing the technology requirements to facilitate a more flexible working environment.

I hope to touch on many of the major myths surrounding the working from home debate. There will of course be plenty of references to technology along the way but please don’t let that put you off reading them… At best I hope to create a few paradigm shifts, at minimum, I’m just hoping I get a few colleagues bringing themselves up to speed on tech and how we think about collaboration at distance….

 

BOB….
Bob and I work side by side. We work in the professional services sector and all our information is now saved in the cloud, we can even work on the same document at the same time. Bob and I have had many conversations about “working from home” he even uses the air quotes when we do. I fully understand his skepticism and have even agreed with him from time to time.

My boss approached me with the new Working From Home initiative and asked if I would like to try it out. I agreed and planned my work around it. Most colleagues and the senior management were all in favour of the initiative and dedicated time to changing their own working habits to facilitate this. They understood that if I am in another location then they have to effectively operate as remote workers too.

It was a great success to me, my family, my ability to get more done in less time and many more benefits that I hadn’t even thought of at first. This was achieved with only two days a week working remotely.

Unfortunately my working relationship with Bob deteriorated. Regardless of well-defined metrics the company had in place showing an increase in my productivity, Bob often mentioned to colleagues that I was “probably at home painting the fence”. A job I had mentioned needed doing about 10 months ago now and was done, with family help, quite a while back.  Bob wouldn’t use the web cam as he said it was intrusive, felt instant messaging was a waste of time and refused even to conference people into meetings “you’re either here or you’re out” he would say.

I was at a loss and surprised to find this was common. The owners and senior management of the company were actively encouraging flexible remote working practises, affording me a great deal of trust and yet it was my peers who were the most at odds with the situation.

Finally, after seeing an email from Bob telling other colleagues that I didn’t work on Tuesdays or Thursdays I had to approach Bob and start a frank dialogue about remote working.  Over time he came around to the idea and eventually tried it out himself. 12 years later I still try and incorporate some form of remote/flexible working into my career. The series of blogs to follow will address some of the useful practises I have employed to make remote working a success. Have you had many “Bob-like” experiences, how did you deal with them?