Working Remotely, Part 1: Collaboration and Communication
Today’s blog post is written by Shasti Walsh, Associate Product Manager, PatronManager.
How do you work together when you’re far apart?
Stats consistently show that remote work is on the rise, and in demand. For example, back in 2016, a Gallup poll found that 37% of employees were willing to change jobs if it meant they could choose where they work from; and 43% of employees worked at least part of their time remotely. Studies on remote work consistently show productivity gains, higher job satisfaction, and improved employee retention. Combined with a strong diversity and inclusion policy (and hiring practices to support it), embracing the remote work trend could also make your organization more accessible to people with a wide range of experiences and cultures.
As technology improves and we move towards a work economy that supports more geographically distributed teams, it’s important to figure out how to work together when you don’t share a physical space! With products like PatronManager and other systems that live in the cloud, theoretically, this is easy. But it’s about more than just technology.
My colleague Christina and I have worked together at PatronManager for years, first as members of a tight-knit support team, later as managers on that team, and now as peers on separate teams. During that time, we’ve collaborated closely (despite only meeting in person a few times) and managed folks who were spread out all across the country, and even some abroad. We’re so passionate about the topic that we recently co-presented a session called “Working Outside the Box: Building and Supporting Diverse Remote Teams” at the Nonprofit Technology Conference along with Vee Bell, Director of Board Governance at Teach For America.
In this post, I’ll go through a few of the concepts we’ve found to be particularly important, and in part 2 of this series, Christina will share some specific strategies to help implement these concepts seamlessly.Read the Article