CAVO Ep. 79: How Leaders Can Build a Transparent and Inclusive Remote Work Environment

In this episode, Melody Rawlings, Director of CAVO, welcomes Nadia Harris, founder of Remoteworkadvocate.com and CAVO Visiting Virtual Expert to discuss strategies both leaders and workers can implement to promote transparency and inclusiveness in the remote workplace.

Transcript

Melody Rawlings
0:01 
Welcome to the Center for the Advancement of virtual organizations podcast how leaders can build a transparent and inclusive environment. I'm Melody Rowling's director of Cabo. And today I'm joined by Nadia Harris, founder of remote work advocate.com, the keynote speaker and global expert of remote and hybrid work. She was named among the top 15 remote work advocates ranking prepared by all American speakers, the British analytical report, who's who in remote working, she was also named as a global remote innovator of 2022 by remote. Now, he is also our first quarter visiting Virtual expert. Today, we're going to discuss what leaders can do to build a climate of transparency, and inclusivity in remote work. Welcome, Nadia. And thank you for taking the time to come and have a chat with me.

Nadia Harris
0:51 
Hello, thank you very much. I'm really honored to be part of this podcast and anything I can do to share how remote working workplace flexibility impacts better well being diversity inclusivity it's my mission to help people and companies be ready to embrace the era of flexible working because it's about time, what can I say?

Melody Rawlings
1:19 
Oh, that's awesome. And I'm super excited to jump into our conversation. But before we do, would you tell us about yourself to get started?

Nadia Harris
1:27 
Absolutely. So my personal story with remote working flexible working starts in 2015. When I moved to Europe from the States, and I kept my work my job, I kept my job in the States when I was working in Europe, which I thought would never be possible. But they said well, we don't really see a problem with that. I was a translator and interpreter at that time. And that kind of broadened my horizons. Knowing that well. Today's world is becoming borderless. And then since that time, I have also started my career in human resources, talent acquisition working with companies in a borderless manner. Again, when it wasn't even popular, back then, helping people to get hired from all around the world. Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, Africa, even, and that showed me how important it is, in today's world to give these people opportunities to be able to work for great employers with no strings attached back then, oh, that was about relocation, right? work visas, work permits. And I thought, you know, some companies were open to that. And some said, No, you have to organize on your own. Or if you live in a certain country, or if you come from this cultural background, we won't hire you. Those were statements that were very painful for me because I thought that everyone deserves a chance, you know, no matter who they are, and where they come from, what their background is, in what circumstances in what countries they were born. And then with time working with companies based on that. Not to forget that actually, I'm also a lawyer. So now I also do remote working from a legal perspective. I have decided to found remote work advocate that come in 2018, Get out of the shadows, and be like, Okay, I really know what I stand for. And my story I think shows me that we should look at everything related to remote working flexible working from a holistic perspective, not just the fact that we can work from home. And so remote work. advocate.com is a place for both companies and individuals to learn how to embrace the era of flexible working, when it comes to both the legal perspective, the toolkit, communication, collaboration processes, and broadening horizons that we are a global village. And it's about time to make that happen. Also in the workplace. That's awesome.

Melody Rawlings
3:59 
And I am very much a huge remote work advocate. So love to hear all of that. And you know, we read and hear a lot about diversity and inclusion, as well as transparency in a physical environment. And we're hearing more about it in the remote work setting. But But how is it different in remote work?

Nadia Harris
4:17 
Yeah, it's much different because first, let's talk maybe about transparency. So I think one of the issues that we're dealing with today is the fact that within the past few years, companies were forced to allow people literally the word or allow is irrelevant here allow people to work from home with no processes, no scalability, no mindset, shifting programs, nothing. And that was an emergency setup. So we do have many opinions and actually those opinions prevail that makes everybody happy that it helps people it helps people Ball in so many aspects and that some companies even report increased productivity, that's all fine. But the problem is that we don't really have a framework to track this to measure this at this stage. So, but at the same time, there are companies who already have been doing this for a very long time. And they have these processes in place to people are trained, the leaders are trained as well to do a great job when it comes to tracking progress, tracking, productivity, tracking, well being employee experience everything. So I think this, this aspect of transparency in remote working environments is basically split at all the time. For some businesses, there's still a lot to do to make sure that it actually becomes it becomes very scalable and transparent process. And it becomes a business strategy, not an emergency solution, not just a perk. And in terms of inclusivity. Here, again, that's the same star we saw, we do see companies that say yes, we can relate to remote working and inclusivity being a super powerful capital. And that's the way it's supposed to be. However, there are still companies that will say, well, people are allowed to work from home occasionally because they want to do this. But there is no direct link with inclusivity. And that's a shame. And I strongly believe that this will keep changing. So that remote working and building an inclusive environment, those will be two elements that always go together.

Melody Rawlings
6:45 
It's really interesting, what you're what you're sharing, because I have heard from people, different people that something to watch out for in, for example, team meetings is just someone who normally contributes to who, for some, whatever reason, becomes very quiet and is not contributing. And that's just something that leaders need to watch out for. So what I'm hearing you say to is just the intentionality that leaders need to have in establishing a process and strategies for how they are going to practice inclusivity and transparency in remote work. And you know, I recently read an article that inclusion is actually improved in a remote work climate. What are your thoughts on that?

Nadia Harris
7:29 
Oh, I am absolutely convinced that this is the case you see. Previously, what I think we've all experienced, at least most people all around the world is a physical workspace, where in most cases, I will dare to speak it out loud now is that we pretend to be someone that we're really not. Okay. So we have a mask to wear every day to adjust to some kind of pattern. And that starts the very moment we opened the front door. Okay. So it was either a uniform dress code, right? Even if we don't feel that way, we can't look the way we want to look. Okay, we can say the things we want to say, because that's maybe not correct. Maybe someone will judge us, maybe someone will say something against us, maybe we shouldn't. And we always were taught to fit in. And that's always the way it's been, since the very moment when we were born, right? Because the society has prepared a path for us that we're supposed to go, especially if we know that we want to succeed, we know what we are not allowed to do. And what we should do. And everything that doesn't go according to these rules is already seen as weird. So now, if we have remote working environments, and if they are introduced properly, in companies, and also an amazing example are remote for US companies is that people don't have to compromise their desired lifestyle, whatever that is, what they believe in and who they really are. Because what matters most is the great work that they're doing right, the results and how they feel how they're able to develop themselves personally and professionally. And also who they really are outside of work. They can dedicate much more time to what is important to them. And also if everything is set up in a very transparent way, it helps us create a bias free environment, right? Where everyone we understand that everyone is completely different that people may have different I don't know problems, different challenges, different beliefs sometimes right when it comes to life, work, life, everything, but in the end of the day, also from a leadership perspective, we understand that we are all different and As we contribute towards something great together, we know why we are here. We know why we work together. So I think we still have a long way to go from this perspective so that companies understand that remote working is not just the fact that we are changing the location. But it's time to break up with all those one size fits all policies, because I strongly believe that the future of work is people centric, you know,

Melody Rawlings
10:30 
totally agree with that, that it is and should be people centric. And I'm sure that many if not all of those who work remotely could point to the challenges that you've kind of alluded to, with both transparency and inclusion in remote work. But what are some of the most common challenges that you hear?

Nadia Harris
10:47 
So there are many challenges? Not that there are only challenges? Don't get me wrong, but the challenges are all kinds of biases. Okay. So one of the biggest ones that I see today, and that is everywhere, both in remote working environments, hybrid environments, it's proximity bias, right. And this is a huge threat to pretty much everyone and also primarily to the workers. So proximity bias is this kind of let me like, explain briefly for everyone who maybe is not familiar with it. So proximity bias means that I believe in what I see. And I automatically there to judge that what I see is through, it's easy, very easy for me, right? So what happens here is that when we don't see each other on a daily basis in the remote work environment, then we try to look for substitutions of it to really feed our AI will they have three feed our bias, this kind of bias this proximity bias? So we will be trying to see whether people's calendars are full, that means they're busy, they're working, because we used to see them sitting right at their desk. So now we're looking for substitution, which is the calendar, right? We will be in some companies do that. Yeah, what I was saying we will be that means some companies actually really have mouse tracking software to see to track the number of the mouse moves, right. And that creates a really ultra not transparent environment today, because it doesn't track whatever is important, but it's trying to replicate something that we know from the past. So any other things related to this bias to proximity bias is if we know someone better, or if we occasionally get to see someone, we tend to favor these people, those that we don't see, we are not able to relate to their performance to whatever they do. But we just have this assumption in our head that we know because we've seen We've met we've spoken right. And it's it's not easy to overcome this just like that. Because, you know, again, referring to the past, then I'm sure many people know these, these patterns and behaviors that who's first in the office and who stays the longest is the hard worker, right. And today when we talk particularly about inclusivity, it's not a rat race, it's not a competition. It's not tracking presenteeism, right? It's tracking performance and understanding embracing that people may have different working patterns, that people need to take a break during the day. And that's fine. Right? I think a huge issue that's going on right now, especially in the United States is time theft, right? There's so many articles right now online about how remote work contributes to time theft, which I think is absolutely ridiculous, because the idea of time theft is to not to have someone clock in and clock out for you in a factory, right? But how can you punish someone who is a designer, for example, right? A graphic designer, but they just did a great job. So they finished quicker, right? So those are these things that don't give us enough transparency. And definitely what we need to work on is different methods and different frameworks to make sure that even though we don't see each other, it's not bias that feeds us, but it's actually a process that is super transparent and gives opportunities for everyone to show how great they really are.

Melody Rawlings
14:57 
While mouse tracking software are so many of these things that you mentioned, does the opposite of building trust? Oh, my goodness, it destroys trust if there was any to begin with. And you know, where there's no trust? How can you have a productive work environment? And we were taking the perspective in this podcast from from a leader approach. So what about co workers, like if you're a member of virtual team, what can individual people do to create a transparent environment and also promote inclusivity among their team?

Nadia Harris
15:35 
Let me tell you an example a real life example that I have faced. So today, more than ever, we are also dealing with multicultural environments, and this happens all around the world. So again, in the office model, people would come in, and most of the people, they would adjust to a pre designed working framework environment, like I've just mentioned, here, when we are remote, there, again, is so much space left for bias, even when it comes to communication. So let me give you an example here, and then I will directly respond to the question that you've asked. So let's take a look at communication. For example. When I work with people from the UK, who are super known for their small talk, then people from other cultures don't know what that is. So sometimes they rush into saying things directly to them. And then those people, for example, those people from the UK, those workers, they feel insulted, like, how can you be there? How can you do that? You're rude, you know. So I think the most important element is for environments and also for teams to understand what the stories are of individuals, because as I've said, Today, it's not us fitting into a process, but building a process that gives people the opportunity to thrive to deliver to be the best versions of themselves, understanding that they're all different, right? So the more individuals talk about it and build this trust and transparency, they say, Okay, this is who I am, this is what I stand for. This is where I come from, this is my background, there are great practices to do this in a remote environment. Like for example, one of them is a lunch and learn where I say, okay, every week or every two weeks, one team member shares their story, if they're from a different country, maybe they there's something important that they want to share about their cultural background, for example, or an important cause that they advocate for, right, let's not let's just don't forget that. When we talk about an inclusive environment, companies should strongly embrace hiring people with disabilities, right? Because that's how remote working helps. So how to create awareness how to make sure that we all understand that it's not our perspective that matters most. But we have to understand why other people make certain decisions speak a certain way, there's a really, really great and really interesting thing to check out in detail, if any one of our listeners is is interested. It's all about developing emotional intelligence. And there is a really, really great model that I personally, that I personally use, and it's called David rocks scarf model. So it basically shows us individuals, and also the leadership, why people behave a certain way, what type of person are they really? And why is the way that they express themselves in a certain way? Why is that right? We will be able to judge and say, oh, this person is rude, oh, why did they say this, right? But trying to understand the why and giving ourselves extra credit, that we are not playing a game here, there is no mask, we're being ourselves. So we just have to understand that.

Melody Rawlings
19:15 
I love that. And that is so important. And if people would just take a step back and realize that and put that into practice would be so great, and just bring remote work to a much better I think working level. So you've alluded to these, you've infused these throughout our conversation, but could you just share some recap maybe and or whatever you would like to share but some strategies that both remote co workers and leaders might implement to promote transparency and inclusivity.

Nadia Harris
19:50 
So the first thing and that's maybe a no brainer, but whatever you want to do if the company's leadership And top executives don't understand and they're not with you don't even try because it's going to be a failure. I know those are strong words. But I've tried this sometimes in the past. And if this core part of the company doesn't understand where we're going, then we will go nowhere. Okay? Why? Because there are a few elements. The first one is leading by example. Okay. You can't comment people around and tell them what to do and say, Yeah, we have great statistics. When it comes to transparency. Inclusivity, you know, and we've done a survey, we've done this poll survey, people said, they're happy, whatever, let's just move on. It's just forget the topic. This is not in our agenda. This is not a priority, because we scored here in here, right? No, it's all about leading by example of who you are, right? It's all about setting up strategic goals, business goals related to these two things that you've just mentioned. Also, not just looking at the statistics, but asking people a very simple question. Do you feel that you belong? Okay? Do you feel that you belong here, what we're not willing to do is a situation when people will just, you know, agree, nod to everything and be like, Okay, I just have to do my job, I just have to do it. No. Do you feel that you belong here? You know, it's also part of creating a great company culture, some say, you can't build a great company culture in a remote environment? Yes, you can. If everyone's aligned on the values on the mission and vision, understanding that we're all different, and that everyone feels that they belong to that vision of the company, right? So definitely another thing is, how do we make sure from a leadership perspective and from the people's perspective, that we try to get as bias free as possible. So being bias free, refers to, from an operational perspective, to a very important element, which is documenting, documenting, and once again, documenting, there's so much software available out there, that helps us express what we've done in terms of our work. It helps us to even have great feedback conversations, the leadership with the workers, right? Okay, what have you done? Show me well, here, it's documented this and this on time like that? Well, let's talk about quality, right, I think a great model to be super transparent for me, is the desk feedback framework, which I always use and highly recommend for all remote teams. And this refers both to a relationship like worker to worker, team leader to team member and the other way around, because it focuses on the fact that desk, the desk feedback framework, so desk is, stands for describe Express situation, right in consequence. So we always refer to a specific situation, we say what happened? What's the context? How it makes us feel? What are the consequences of that? So we create awareness. It's not just about from a leadership perspective, saying, Oh, you did this wrong, whatever, you know, no, no, it's creating this mutual understanding, do I understand how I can do better? How does it affect others? How does it make others feel? So if we have every process and everything that we do documented, and we use a framework of feedback framework like that, then we're being super transparent, because it not only refers to the facts, but it also has an emotional touch, right. And I think that anything that we can possibly think of, to start eliminating proximity bias. Speaking about it out loud, asking the people from very easy from a very easy stand, I mean, easy standpoint, what I'm willing to say, there's a very easy thing to implement right away. It's the start, stop, continue, practice. Do it with your team once in a while, I don't know, every month or recorder, just sit down. And you can either do it at an anonymous way. Or you can just, you know, sit together and have a conversation. What do you think works? Well, what you don't think works? Well, what do you think should stop? What do you think you should start doing? We're all part of a big global change. And you can only learn things by doing and by getting better. So if a company has implemented something, it doesn't mean that this needs to stay like this forever. We're learning we're changing. So I strongly recommend implementing this start, stop, continue practice to make sure We get better every day as individuals and as a team.

Melody Rawlings
25:04 
Love those strategies. Those are great. I was taking notes as you were, as you were describing each one of them. And when you're talking about survey employees, I'm thinking to maybe initially, it would be a good idea to let them respond anonymously, just in case there was some, some or one that might not would feel comfortable sharing their names, at least, to begin the conversation.

Nadia Harris
25:26 
Absolutely, absolutely. 100%, you know, and we can't expect from people to suddenly we have to build trust, too, right? So if, when people see that they're being heard, even if the survey is anonymous, amazing, but if this change will start happening after their feedback, and they see it's really, it's really getting bigger, then they will want to speak more and also be part of it. Oh, and one more thing not to forget, I think I in between the lines, I've said that? Well, don't forget the people always include them. You can't build a strategy like this without the people appears yet.

Melody Rawlings
26:05 
Exactly. Oh, for sure. People need to feel needed, they need their voices need to be heard. And, and they need to know that their ideas and perspectives count. So totally agree. And and as a remote work expert, I would love to hear your thoughts on. And you've alluded to this, but could maybe you could just kind of summarize for for us how remote work is evolving. What's next?

Nadia Harris 26:30 
Well, for me, remote work isn't just the fact that we can work from home. For me, remote work is almost a synonym for the word opportunity. Because it gives opportunities to everyone, and, and everything.

Melody Rawlings
So I love that.

Nadia Harris
26:51 
Perfect, thank you. So it gives opportunities to a business to grow, to expand, to have a great cause behind right behind the business. It gives opportunities to everyone to work anywhere. And anyhow, what was breaking my heart for so many years, and I said it in the very beginning of this conversation is that people are generally privileged based on where they were born and who they are, and based on their financial resources. And I think this is wrong, okay. Because today, we have the tools to stop making this happen. Not even mention that. From a company standpoint, if we look at profit perspective, if we look at having a diverse environment, there are great statistics from the Boston Consulting Group that show us how people in a diverse environment contribute to the company's revenue when it comes to their creativity. Okay, so this is the business perspective. But from the people's perspective, I don't think it should be that way that if you work in a big city, your employer allows you to work from home twice a week. And that's it. And that's all we're talking about remote work here. Right. And that's it. Okay, that's the huge milestone. No, unfortunately, it's not that easy, because it gets much better. So let's look at it from a holistic perspective. How can we make sure that we can hire people from other countries? It's possible today with employers of records, right? So no one can tell me it's not possible? How can we make sure that we implement more and more workstation policies, so temporary work abroad policies, not just for the fact that someone wants to work on the repository, okay, on the beach, it's actually quite difficult to do that with all the sand around. I've tried many times. But it's all about people that maybe live in a certain place, but they want to go to their home country, look at the United States, and at all the vacation days that people have, sometimes, sometimes people get none. Maybe they deserve to go back to their roots and spend some time with their family that they normally are not able to see that often. Right? Thanks to those flexible policies, like workstations, people will be able to do this right. Also, giving people the opportunity to have more work life balance to move out of big cities were actually there is a really interesting survey and that was conducted in London, and it took a few years. It shows directly how traffic fumes relate to lung cancer. Right? So and it's it's a, it's a very terrible and concerning statistic, right? This is this is really concerning data. So it's not about allowing people to spend some time in their apartment twice a week but saying okay, if we go flexible if we implement a flexible working policy, if we go remote, or if we start embracing hybrid working You can live elsewhere, you can move away, that's fine. Okay, you can be close to the nature. I think that the time when work equals a rat race and having a great career meant spending 16 hours in a building and feeling privileged because it's 11 o'clock at night, and I haven't returned home and I'm wearing a suit, those days are gone. But it takes time. So that is my prediction, if I could be a fortune teller for a minute.

Melody Rawlings
30:34 
Well, we certainly appreciate that perspective and coming from someone with your expertise and background, it's just really a great perspective to consider as we move forward with remote work. And it's just amazing to me, that we are where we are, in a way because I've been working remotely since the early 2000s. So while we have a long way to go, I'm just I'm still so happy that we do have this option for people to work from home or from wherever. But I would like to see it expanded as you described and more accepted, and to have greater transparency and inclusivity in remote work. So we definitely, as you said, have a long way to go. But but hopefully we're making progress and getting there. So Nadia, it's just been a pleasure chatting with you. And I've learned so much about transparency and inclusion in we're in remote work. Are there any closing thoughts you would like to leave us with? And also how can our listeners connect with you?

Nadia Harris
31:38 
Oh, thank you. pleasure was all mine is all mine still always. Yes, I would say think about remote work as a big opportunity to make the world a better place. Okay, because today we tackled a super important topic, trust transparency inclusivity. But it's all about it's also all about helping our environment contributing to people's well being focusing on what really matters, right? And using all the digital tools to help us work rather than make us robots. Right. So yeah, exactly. And where to find me. Well, my online home is my website, remote work advocate.com and Nadia Harris on LinkedIn, you will definitely find a really active over there. That's my second social media home. I mean, I'm not obsessed or anything, but if you want to go there, but if you want to connect pleasure is all mine. And I believe that only together we have the power to make it work. That's all I want to say.

Melody Rawlings
32:50  
Powerful words, powerful words. So this has been a great conversation with Nadia Harris, founder of remote work advocate.com And our cavo first quarter visiting Virtual expert. Thank you for joining us in support of the Center for the Advancement of virtual organizations. Nadia, we greatly appreciate your insights. I know our listeners will benefit from your expertise. Thank you.