Six Ways to Show Value While Working Remotely

With the events of the last year many of us corporate professionals were required to transition to working remotely. And while working from home we are being asked to supervise teams remotely all while demonstrating to our bosses that we are delivering desired business results. Sounds easy? It may not be.

Let me be super open with you and tell you that while the idea of working in pajamas from our living room couch sounds enticing, working from home is not always easy. It does require extra effort and proactive strategies to stay productive and focused. Working remotely brings up different types of challenges for many workers, the biggest one is organizational obscurity and the potential loss of a job as a result. As I career coach with more than 20 years of experience interacting with people who work remotely, I want to share with you six ways to be successful while working remotely. My hope is that this advice will help you navigate the politics and hidden traps involved in not being physically present in an office.

This past weekend I had some time to reflect on my experiences in the business world. I realized that I have worked with remote workers and bosses most of my corporate career. In addition to direct reports who worked in my office, I have managed remote workers based in London, New Zealand, Denmark, Austin and New York. I have also been the remote worker, having my boss sit in other locations such as Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Silicon Valley or Fargo, North Dakota. Net, I have seen people do great remote work, and others, including myself in several occasions in my career, not taking full control of the situation and paying a high price for that.

There are other articles that focus on the best apps or collaboration platforms to use for remote work, the technical aspects of working remotely, tips about how to set up your desktop and video camera, or how to prevent your kids and pets from running in the background of your video conference. This article is about the strategies to effectively deal with the organizational and political challenges of working remotely and to help you succeed in your career as companies shift to having more remote workers.

Here are my six ways to show value while working remotely:

1.      Get clear on how your boss measures your productivity – It is not about how you see your own productivity, it is all about how your boss defines and measures your productivity. Stop for a minute and think about how your boss will measure your productivity and results while not actually seeing you in the office every day. Now as a remote worker what metric or signal will your boss use to determine whether you are producing the right output and outcomes? For example, years ago I had a boss sitting in Washington D.C. In our regular phone check-in, she told me: “Jose, I know you are doing good work because every day I look at the number of marketing assets that you create and post on the internal share.” I had no idea she was tracking my activity on our internal share drive. In some roles, productivity is easy to track: revenue, number of deals closed, cases managed, etc. In other roles, it may not be as easy to show results. In case of doubt, talk to your manager and ask the following question: “I want to make sure that I do a great job working remote, what is the best way for me to show my value?” Once you know that, be laser-focused on delivering the success and productivity metrics your boss requests, so you are showing value to your manager

2.      Stay “top of mind” by overcommunicating – In remote work situations, “out of sight, out of mind” can easily happen. As a remote worker, staying “top of mind” to your boss and key stakeholders is your responsibility. I know this is hard for independent thinkers and introverts who prefer to do their own thing, but it is a prerequisite for remote worker success. Have a plan and a goal. For example, your goal may be to send, publish or share one item with your boss every two days. That way he or she will have no choice but to remember that you are doing good work. I also recommend overcommunicating. By this I mean that in case of doubt, share the information, send the email, post to your Slack or Microsoft Teams app, give an update, or the simplest one: ask a question. Tell people what you will be doing, then tell them as you do it, and then tell them what you did. Some co-workers may not love it, but your most important audience, your boss, will be up-to-date on what you are doing and the positive impact it has on the business.

3.      Have an omnichannel approach to your communications – In marketing circles, the word omnichannel means that outreach and conversations with prospects or customers can happen in various communication channels. In this context, it means that you will want to establish communication with your boss, co-workers and key stakeholders via not one, but many different communication channels, including email, text messaging, phone calls, Skype, Zoom, Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and collaboration apps and platforms. The last thing I want someone in my team to do is to take a reactive approach and say: “I am working from home, I will reply to email.” I want to know that people are being proactive, working hard to do a good job and delivering tangible results. One of the best ways to prove this is by generating communication and sharing information. You will want to establish a consistent communication flow with your boss and other key stakeholders. Reach out to others, schedule meetings, call people, text others, give updates on apps, post a document and ask others to collaborate online. Show that you are driven and proactive by communicating.

4.      Have a recurring one-on-one meeting with your boss every week - Your 1:1 with your manager is your weekly opportunity to show how you are doing in your work. This is the time for you to show what you have accomplished and prove your results. Again, you want to avoid the “out of sight, out of mind” trap. By having a weekly 1:1 meeting with your boss, where you go over your prioritized list of projects and initiatives status, share your wins, your challenges and where your boss can help remove obstacles, is critical to your success. Just like you own your career, you need to own this meeting (scheduling, agenda, pre-read materials). Remember that if your manager does not do a 1:1 meeting with you, the person who ends up losing is you, the subordinate. The meeting can be just via phone or via video conferencing. 

5.      Be vocal in your virtual meetings or conference calls – For teams to continue driving the business forward and delivering positive results, they need to continue doing their regular team and project meetings virtually. As we move into more conference and video calls, it is easy for people to sit back and just listen. This can create a trap for some workers where they could assume they are doing the work just by attending the meeting. If you attended the meeting, but did not say anything during the meeting, you are falling behind. I recommend you establish a rule of at least one participation action per meeting. In every call or video conference that you attend, you need to say or contribute at least one thing. If you don’t have anything to say, then ask a clarifying question. Your boss and other participants will see that you are interested in the discussion. Even better, take on a project and present something in a future conference call. Your boss and others will see you as a leader and as someone who has initiative and gets things done.

6.      Share and market your results by adopting a “publish or perish” approach – As we move into a remote workforce, we will face the same fate as Ivy League college professors who have the “publish or perish” challenge, meaning they must share or publish their research work, otherwise they fall behind professionally. The same principle applies to the corporate world. The top performers not only deliver tangible results but also they market their accomplishments. This is hard for humble people, or those who are more introverted. Our career coaching work has revealed women and people of color struggle to market themselves because they do not want to appear arrogant. Set yourself a goal of sharing something you did or celebrate a project success once every two weeks. Share your results via a variety of collaboration and communication tools. Extra tip: make sure your boss’s boss sees your accomplishments. This will help you at performance review time. Net, every day you will want to prove the value of the work you are doing.

So that’s it. Professionals who envision how to show up the right way as a remote worker will reap the rewards of career progression and promotions. I hope these strategies to effectively deal with the organizational and political challenges of working remotely will help you succeed in our new remote working reality. I wish you continued success.