At Concord, working remotely has presented some challenges, but also many victories. The pandemic has completely shifted the way we operate in our new workplaces: our homes. Productivity, adaptability, and success are not necessarily harder to obtain but require more attention and discipline to establish at home. Our company saw an immediate uptick in productivity right after the workforce went remote, but we noticed a gradual decline – as the pandemic drags on, what worked for our team initially no longer fits. Maybe the key to working remotely is reframing our expectations and norms to fit our current reality. I’ve broken down some key ways that helped us adapt without losing the culture that makes our company tick. COMMUNICATION OVERLOAD & FLATTENING THE HIERARCHY Communication overload is definitely real. By the second week of remote work, we had conference calls, emails, IMs, Teams, Slack, Zoom, Hangouts, WebEx, and a plethora of other apps to stay in touch. We were pinging each other on every known communication tool under the sun… and not really getting anything more
accomplished than usual. Arguably, we were less efficient, because we had to share information in multiple areas – just in case anyone missed it. We decided to eliminate redundant tools from the day-to-day fold. Microsoft Teams and Slack have been the most efficient for our organization. Teams is keeping us connected for recurring meetings and virtual happy hours amongst co-workers, while Slack has provided organized channels for our consultants to collaboratively connect, share files, and socialize in real-time across clients and geographies. The reality is, remote work enables more opportunities to engage with broader swaths of the company. Virtual presence has flattened the hierarchy. I feel like I’m now in touch with more people and more threads of activity. I can contribute to many more tasks in minor ways. Working remotely has widened my range of impact in the workplace and widened the range of ideas coming from different areas of our team. While on some level this may be an illusion, I actually feel more connected to both my team and the work we’re doing now than I did before.
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Maybe the key to working remotely is reframing our expectations and norms to fi t our current reality.
– Florin Ibrani Concord CEO
Maintaining the Momentum | 21
Concord employees enjoying happy hour in 2019.
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