The wellbeing of remote workers and distributed teams is finally being taken seriously, and new research from Nuffield Health has recently explored the implications in a landmark UK literature review entitled “The effects of remote working on stress, wellbeing and productivity”.
The research examines the complex intersecting worlds of flexible work, remote work, and partly flexible/office-optional work through the lens of employer responsibilities and benefits, and the effects on the remote workers (who in this case are mostly employees rather than freelancers), and faced the issue of defining terms in the first place amid an increasingly diverse range of set-ups. Importantly, the research acknowledged that there are challenges with both implementing and ongoing effectiveness of remote working, which require good planning and management on all sides to make it work well.
The online office
But what struck me on reading the report was how little attention it paid to the digital workspace and its evolving role in addressing the three elements of concern (stress, wellbeing and productivity). The issue of ‘modern technology’ was dealt with by the seemingly-dated reference to how “The use of computers, especially laptops,tablets, smart phones, Skype and social media has been transformative. It is almost impossible to imagine business today without this network.”
Thereafter all the discussion of mental health, stress, work-life balance and so on, took place outside of the context of the communication and collaboration matrix which underpins remote and colocated work today, and is fundamental to meeting the interaction needs of the digital workforce, wherever they are sitting. Because not only does the digital workspace enable effective visible teamwork and collaboration, it facilitates the social interaction and connection between colleagues and associates working together from different locations.
Visible teamwork
The right choice of UC and collaboration tools is make or break for any remote team, but the research doesn’t seem to address this, nor the fact that most remote working takes place in the context of a team or organisation. We spoke to remote collaboration expert, Pilar Orti, Director of London-based consultancy, Virtual, Not Distant:
“Your communication and collaboration tools are where you make your workflow visible, and ensure that you provide for both deliberate communication and planned spontaneity, in and around the work itself.
“This ecosystem goes way beyond emails and face-to-face meetings, and can help team members to remember that they’re not working on their own. When we work with managers, we encourage them to design an ecosystem to meet communication, cultural and connection needs”
While technology changes, the things people need to be motivated, psychologically safe, engaged and productive at work are fundamentals of human nature, and pretty consistent. To be able to take advantage of all that remote and flexible working has to offer, we need to foster the self-management and self-reliance skills, along with the communication and technical aptitude, to use the amazing tools we have available today. Meanwhile as the world of UC and related services continues to evolve into the 2020s, we’ll surely see ever more creative ways for the interpersonal needs of location-independent teams to be met, wherever and however they work together.
