Remote Work Maturity: how to evolve to Smart Work.
Remote Work and Smart Work are two of the most used words in the wake of the Covid19 Pandemics. I have written before that the current scenario is forcing us into one of the largest technology adoption experiments ever, and this definitely has an impact on the way we work. However, I also think it is necessary to clarify that for many organisations this is simply a “transfer of activities” at home. A forced choice, not always supported by an equal change in Culture, Leadership and Organisational Attributes.
With more companies announcing extended (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, ) or permanent remote working policies (Twitter, Square, Nationwide), despite still some skepticism on the sustainability of the model, we need to interrogate ourselves on how do we get a productive model that includes Remote Working and is remote working really working all the time?
Note: This article has been updated from its original.
– May 19, added model by Ricardo Troiano. Few spelling corrections.
With this forced relocation of Work at home for many, there’s been a lot of chatter about Smart Work. Let’s clarify. If you’re at home but you’re simply doing mostly zoom meetings and answering emails incessantly, you are most probably doing Remote Work. For sure a starting point, but there is a difference with true Smart Work.
A lot can be learnt from how Chinese firms have been able to exploit the need and have now embedded Remote Working practices. However, also in these cases, many have halted to some initial Remote Working practices.
The difference, despite subtle, is key especially in how Work might change in the future. Benedict Evans has explained this brilliantly when he asks are you really ‘just as productive’ at home?
“Well, it depends what you’re trying to do. if the job is ‘forming a human connection’ or ‘empathy’, then a video call might not be the right approach, and we may go back to coffee. If the job is to exchange information or update a project status, then video might be fine. But you could also ask whether it needs to be a call either – is that really the job you’re trying to do? Sometimes an in-person meeting is a human connection and video might or might not convey that well, but sometimes video is skeuomorphism and both calls and meetings are a way to use unstructured data to transmit structure. So, should the meeting go to a call, or should it go from synchronous to asynchronous (i.e. Slack, Teams, or even email), or should it go to some more structured data form? […] How much clerical work gets automated into structure and how much time does that create for those in-person meetings where the actual in-person meeting is the point?” (emphasis is mine).
To better understand this perspective, there are two maturity models that can help facilitate the understanding of what really Smart Work is. The first was created in 2017 by Joel Gascoigne, the founder of Buffer, whereas the second comes from a recent piece by Matt Mullenweg from Automattic.
Joel Gascoigne, the founder of Buffer, has also provided an interesting view in an article published in 2017, partly overlapping with Matt’s model, but looking more at the organisational maturity and the way work is done.
The best way to truly understand the difference is to look at a maturity model of how companies can really rely upon remote working technology. Matt Mullenweg has provided his view in a recent podcast interview, where he linked the maturity level to the Level of Autonomy given to employees.
Inspired by the self-driving cars levels of autonomy, this model has five levels:
Smart Work, therefore, kicks in at Level 3 and only fully blooms at Level 4. Matt links his idea to the Book of Daniel Pink Drive. He effectively states that Mastery and Purpose can be matched in an office environment, but true Autonomy needs smart-work to be achieved.
The two matrix above provide an insightful tool to assess how an organisation should develop and mature to exploit Remote Working to the largest extent. But there is another question that pops out: is remote working always a productive alternative? As many organisations will probably revert to a mixed or hybrid model, how do you chose when its best to stay remote and when to go to work? (The choice could be individual but also organisational).
An excellent and simple choice matrix has been developed by Ricardo Troiano, Global Head of Change at Syngenta.
The matrix he introduces is very intuitive, based on two axis: How to get it done and How involved is the task. Interesting to notice, however, the the same author reflects on the fact that in the post-covid world, there has been a general acceptance that also a lot of work that requires collaboration can be done remotely.
Probably the view above could be therefore modified to reflect a new reality, where “Simple” task that require collaboration can be done at Home.
Technology availability will also heavily influence the way the work gets done. Of course this matrix solely applies to work that does not require interactions to be executed (like a customer service associate would).
As I reasoned more on the suggested matrix, I felt it was missing a couple of elements. Not only, as the author himself said, there needed to be a review because of what Covid19 had brought. But we needed to better qualify the task and the work that needed to be done. In Figure 4 below you can find the resulting (more complex) matrix, which adds to the elements already identified by Troiano two more dimensions: Type of Collaboration, essentially answering the question does the task require synchronous collaboration? And Level of Creativity. For simplicity, I have listed them still on a four box.
The choice is usually easy to make, except when a Task that is simple, might still require synchronous collaboration. The example used by Troiano (co-design a meeting agenda) is perfect to illustrate the difference. How often did it happen to plan a meeting that involved many stakeholders, where the co-design was in itself an act of problem-solving to support everybody? That is the case where an in-presence meeting might be more effective.
I’ve added a zone in the matrix that I called needs serendipity. These are highly creative tasks that are not fully defined (typically a problem that we are still shaping). Here is where the value of serendipitous collaboration is more visible, and in-presence relationship is almost vital. Question is: how often is this really required?
Note that all four dimensions are influenced by Culture, Leadership and the Technological Maturity we have mentioned above.
The two models introduced jointly express the key components of what is needed to truly attain Smart Work. Organisational Set-up (which includes appropriate Technology tools), a new definition of what “work” means for the organisation, a progressive focus on the concept of Autonomy, and the related leadership and management evolution.
In Figure 5 you can see a further maturity model elaborated by Flexibility.co.uk, which focuses on the concept of flexibility. I find this model interesting because it looks at all the components that are needed to move from one step to the other. Not just enabling technologies, but different behaviours define a truly Smart Work.
The key virtues of true Smart Work can be summarised as follows:
Not an easy task to achieve on all fronts.
Are you ready to start your journey towards Smart Working?
Cover Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
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Very interesting perspective: but how can such a maturity be achieved? What should the role of HR be? What can we do to get the conversation starting?