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Welcome to our first podcast episode of 2021, and happy new year to you wherever and whenever you are listening - from Virtual Not Distant in London (http://virtualnotdistant.com). Today we reflect further on culture in organisations, and bring you a great interview someone whose job revolves around this critical issue. 04.47 Stella Huang, head of Talent and Culture in Shield GEO Pilar spoke with Stella Huang in December 2020, Shield GEO take their retreats very seriously as a globally distributed organisation, and shifting them online during the throes of 2020 was a highly tactical endeavour. Being unable to do that the following year, they still wanted to connect people the best way they could, switching from a one-off annual get together to a regular cadence of monthly hour-long events. Please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/culture-virtual-retreats for full shownotes. 28.09 Getting clear on organisational culture Ensuring that human element of connectedness is at the heart of the new ‘Podcasting for Connection’ offering from Virtual Not Distant, which focuses on how we relate to and value one another outside of and around the work, which helps and supports the work we do together. Pilar will be developing this theme through 2021, and working with organisations to focus on culture across boundaries as the future of work evolves. Please do share your thoughts with her and help us create the content and services you need, to support you through this pivotal and important time for all remote and hybrid organisations.

This episode first went out in October 2019, as episode 212. We don't want this aspect of remote work to get lost amidst the pandemic forced remote work from home conversation.  Our guests include Chris Slemp, Mandy Garner, Nacho Rodriguez, Lorraine Charles and Laurel Farrer.  For full show notes visit https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/remote-social-change

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London. In the final recording of the year, Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss take a longer perspective on the recent transformational shifts in remote work - while being mindful of all that 2020 has taught us. We discuss: 03.34 Serendipitous encounters (listener question from our LinkedIn page) (see also episode 211 on planned spontaneity) 14.06 Designing for the interactions we want to see  Why You Need a Head of Remote Work.  Embracing a flexible workplace 25.20 A ‘work from anywhere’ future? Should employers let staff work remotely from abroad during lockdown? Google Asks Workers Who Went Abroad for Covid to Return. Time to re-energise - workingmums.co.uk  GitLab: work where you want, when you want For full shownotes please see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/beyond-wfh-remote-spirit, and learn about the range of services and support that Virtual Not Distant can offer you as you and your team go 'beyond wfh' into 2021.

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London. Today's imterview features Robert (Bob) Glazer who previously joined us 2 years ago back in episode 179,  CEO of global partner marketing agency Acceleration Partners and author and podcaster Robert’s company is fully remote and has always valued flexibility, long before the upheavals of 2020, so is glad to see the legitimising of the remote-first approach for agencies. Robert’s Friday Forward email newsletter helps reflect and disseminate Acceleration Partners’ values and vision, bringing these to a wider audience nowadays, and also modelling a culture of learning, ownership, and growth and improvement. Do connect via his website http://robertglazer.com/, and check out the Friday Forward book too. Don’t forget to share your own thoughts about culture, identity, and team cohesion in the online space, and do look out for our new service to help you deepen your own team’s connection and relationships - podcasting for connection. For full shownotes see https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/virtual-organisation-culture, and learn more about what Virtual Not Distant has to offer.

In the final episode of the mini-series How the World of Work and our Attitudes to Work are Changing, Pilar talks to Dr. Chris Mullen, Executive Director of The Workforce Institute at UKG, about their recent research into employees' concerns "for the workplace of today and tomorrow." You can read a summary of the study here:  https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200915005303/en/Physical-Safety-Psychological-Security-Job-Stability-Employees-Worldwide-Share-Top-COVID-19-Concerns-for-the-Workplace-of-Today-and-Tomorrow And to connect with guest Chris Mullen, you can follow him on Twitter, https://twitter.com/chrismmullen or connect on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismmullen/  We'd love to hear your comments through our contact form on https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us   

This is the second of three episode of the mini-series, "How the World of Work (and our attitudes to work) are Changing". Today, Pilar talks to Andrew Saunders about the research carried out in September 2020 the exclusive survey carried out by Management Today on what leaders really think about the return to the workplace: Will Hybrid Working Ever Work? You can connect with Andrew via Linkedin or Twitter. You can download the report here: https://cached.offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/NewsAttachments/OTM/Will-Hybrid-Working-Ever-Work-Mangement-Today-special-report-2020.pdf

The first episode in our three-part series on how the the world of work and our attitudes to work are changing. Today, Pilar talks to Katerina Bohle Carbonell about the results of the Remote Working during COVID-19: Ireland’s National Survey, phase II. This work was carried out with the support of the Whitaker Institute, NUI Galway and the Western Development Commission. Katerina is one of the four authors.  You can check out the survey here: http://whitakerinstitute.ie/project/remote-working-during-covid-19-irelands-national-survey/ And to connect with Katerina:  https://netnigma.com/ Subscribe to her newsletter: https://netnigma.substack.com/ Connect on Twitter with her: https://twitter.com/katerinabohlec  

This bonus episode is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London, and it continues the conversation between Pilar Orti and Tim Burgess of Shield GEO, looking at what’s been happening in both companies and the events they’ve been involved with.  Pilar took part in the IAF conference, which was a week-long single track event, taking place online for the first time.  Very different was Agile Tour London  - also run on Zoom, but with the community conversation centred on Slack.  Finally, Pilar has just attended Repeople, which used to be the NomadCity event in person in Gran Canaria. Also Shield GEO have run events online for their own distributed team, instead of their usual face-to-face retreats. Dividing their 17 regions into 3 blocs by timezone, they had fun online with trivia and so on, but also dived deeply into cultural exploration and learning from each other about each other’s locally lived experiences.  Pilar has run webinars recently on Visible Teamwork, and learned from participants that even when people know the theory, providing a framework and vocabulary for the interactions which support the theory is what makes all the difference.  If you enjoyed these conversations with Tim Burgess, do follow him on Twitter, and take a look at the special series on connection and disconnection in remote work that we produced in partnership with ShieldGEO nearly a year ago - when the world was a different place, but the issues were strangely evergreen.  

We have a special guest for today’s What’s Going On episode, as Tim Burgess from Shield GEO joins Pilar Orti from Virtual Not Distant, while Maya is away. Recording on the 6th November 2020, heres:' 5.32 What's going on  Home vs Office This article The commuters who don't want to return to the office illustrates how women in particular feel less rushed and time pressured, when they don’t have to travel to work outside the home.  Business Insider Australia point out that Dutch civil servants now get $2 a day to cover coffee and toilet paper while remote working — and you should ask your boss for the same, a financial institution says. This is now law in parts of Europe, with new law in Spain to ensure boundaries, and this from Switzerland: Companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home.   21.50 Research into future of work Great to see work from anywhere entering the academic discourse with featured articles in Harvard Business Review from Prithwiraj Choudhury, and we love the uptake of this particular turn of phrase.  Helen Jewell shared this article with Pilar at the IAF conference, about sign language for the Deaf community on video conferencing - a good reminder of the lost nuances for all when we translate a 3d face to face experience into a 2d one on-screen. 36.41 Surviving 2020 This article Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated relates intrinsic motivation to the way we’re working through a crisis now, a valuable lens for understanding employee behaviour and wellbeing. Another recent paper Tim found goes deeper still, EXPRESS: Interpersonal connectivity work: Being there with and for geographically distant others - Ella Hafermalz, Kai Riemer, which explores the impact of telemedicine (another huge focus for remote collaboration 2020, that has much to teach us all).  So that’s What’s Going On, and do join us tomorrow for the events and company news section of this conversation.  

Today we’re delighted to be speaking to Theresa Sigillito Hollema, about her new book Virtual Teams Across Cultures: Create Successful Teams Around The World, in discussion with Pilar Orti from Virtual Not Distant Ltd. Theresa is a cultural consultant and team coach with Interact Global, working with virtual teams spanning cultures and borders, for many years. Pilar and Theresa discuss cultural competence, the intersection of cultural difference and remote team dynamics, team belonging, and diversity and inclusion, in this interesting conversation - please see full shownotes on our website, and keep up with Theresa on Twitter and LinkedIn for more information about her work and her writing.  Also, do check out our earlier episodes exploring some of the concepts covered in the episode, which are summarised and linked in a single big blog post here.

Welcome to episode 250 - a nice milestone to celebrate, so we even altered our usual running order to make this round number an occasion for Pilar and Maya to record together, and discuss what’s going on in the world of remote work right now in October 2020, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd in London. Don’t forget you can receive our valuable guide to leading through visible teamwork, just by signing up for our newsletter.  For now, let’s take a look at ‘What’s Going On’... Hybrid workspaces and practices Beware the office politics of hybrid workplaces, we’ll have to see how this emerges and unfolds - and see who really has a chance to make a choice.  This New York Times article picked up on tensions in some big tech companies in this article: Parents Got More Time Off. Then the Backlash Started. The evolution of remote work Eva Rimbau shared this OECD study: Productivity gains from teleworking in the post COVID-19 era: How can public policies make it happen?, demonstrating large organisation understanding of remote working’s risks and rewards.  According to Fast Company, Gitlab are quite exemplary when it comes to this stuff - Extremely transparent and incredibly remote Gitlab’s radical vision for the future of work is a good read. Looking to the remote future... Maya found this article which might be the salvation of Spain’s struggling tourist industry - Log on, chill out: holiday resorts lure remote workers to fill gap left by tourists.  Whereas back in the UK, Bosses are doing weird things to get people back in the office, according to Wired.  Leadership thoughts Thanks for this ‘comfort reading’ share Chris Coladonato, Seven Ways to Rally Your Remote Team in Confusing Times - some gems here in this nice fluffy listicle, also surprisingly touchy-feely for Inc. The traits of good remote leaders · Intense Minimalism shared by Valentina Thorner on Linkedin is also a great read, including very up-to-date research. Random tech changes which make remote better Pilar is very impressed with Word online (in Office 365) now transcribes dictation. Amazing how this tech is evolving - do take a look! Also, did you know you can record the pronunciation of your name, in your LinkedIn profile? So now if you want to hear the difference between Pilar’s name in English and Spanish, go and have a listen.   Virtual Not Distant announcements: Speaking of LinkedIn, a great conversation emerged here about asynchronous communication - do take a look this thread full of some amazing ideas from our fabulous remote community. Pilar was featured in this recent Washington Post article How to work remotely through time-zone changes, also focusing on asynchronous communication - this time from the perspective of US nationals who had ended up remote working from afar - once again great to see this stuff reaching the mainstream conversation. Maya’s new book “Out of the Office”, first in the Healthy Happy Homeworking series, is about to publish! So please sign up for presale discount notification, and news of forthcoming releases. Please do share it with any friends particularly if they are struggling with any aspects of working from home.

Virtual not Distant Ltd brings you a fascinating episode today, exploring the role of employers in the future of work, and how remote work fits in to this -  with two very different interviews and points of view. Firstly, on the 8th October we have a webinar about sustainable asynchronous communications, in association with regular podcast guest Richard Mackinnon at Work Life Psych - classic webinar style, you can listen in passively, or join in the chat conversation of course. And on the 27th October, when Pilar will be talking about adopting Visible Teamwork in your team through asynchronous communication - to help you put it all into practice. 8.06 Erica McMannes, Instant Teams Erica McMannes and Liz Rodewald put Instant Teams together four years ago, to meet the employment needs of military spouses, for flexible location-independent work opportunities. They knew there were companies who needed the dedication and skills that this underserved cohort could bring to that need, so they created the service specifically to bring these two parties together. They’re industry-agnostic, building remote teams for any industry, focusing on admin, marketing, and customer success teams. They create long-term employment relationships, and have their own software system which helps them scale and build teams fast, carefully vetting and matching their educated and experienced candidates with the right firms, using trusted tools. Art Kleiner, author and consultant Art Kleiner is the co-author of The Wise Advocate: The Inner Voice of Strategic Leadership, author of The Age of Heretics and Former editor in chief of the magazine strategy+business. He and Pilar recorded this conversation nearly a year ago! BUT it follows on nicely from the interview with Erica, because it builds upon the question of how we build careers, and specifically what enterprises have to offer employees, as opposed to contractors? So these laws and structures have shaped how we work together at a high level - but right now, everything is in flux, even more so than when Art and Pilar had this conversation in 2019! Check out Episode 244 if you like more of these ‘big questions’, because while they may not have clear answers, they have great potential to make you think.  What will the enterprise of tomorrow look like, and how will those who do the work within it relate to it - economically, legally, and personally?  

WLP248 Emotional Intelligence in Remote Teams Today's episode explores the fascinating subject of emotional intelligence in remote teams, and is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd - with the help of Rowena Hennigan, and Sandra Thompson, from Rise in Emotiona Intelligence  ( also on LinkedIn) timestamps: 7.30 Emotional intelligence defined 18.24 Highly emotional intelligent teams 40.10 Developing Team EI  

Welcome to our monthly What’s Going On round-up, brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd. Today we discuss tech, the future of the office, the future of life and housing and work life balance, and an upcoming event. 3.29  Tech AI-Driven Accountability,  https://tldv.io/  “too long, didn’t view”, 12.20 The future of the office  UK office demand 'shifting to the suburbs' amid Covid-19 crisis,   The age of the office is over – the future lies in Britain's commuter towns | Simon Jenkins   MGM Resorts Rolls Out Ultimate Work-From-Vegas Package At Bellagio And ARIA 23.06 Work-life balance and boundaries Building Work-Life Boundaries in the WFH Era -  Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce - 37.15 Back to tech - well, email anyway, and a cool event: The Basecamp/Rework team built a new email app Hey,   Built to Last – Audio Conference for Brand Builders.   46.09 What’s going in the Virtual Not Distant community Rowena Hennigan (see episodes 215 and 244) and Sandra Thompson have set up RISE Emotional Intelligence - Brian Rhea has written The Manager’s Guide to Engaging Remote Employees, about engaging remote workers - do have a look, it’s really in depth and comprehensive. Lisette Sutherland’s Work Together Anywhere book is now in Japanese  Pilar has a workshop on planned spontaneity on the 3rd of September with Next Stage Radicals,  Pilar was also a recent guest on their own podcast, so that’s well worth a listen. The Visible Teamwork Guide will be published *very* soon - so do look out for that, more news asap, and the full book will follow. And finally, Pilar has a new newsletter to subscribe to, ‘Think, Write, Converse’ - sign up on her site, for a glimpse into Pilar’s mind!  

Today’s episode from London-based consultancy Virtual Not Distant is about asynchronous communication - for more on this subject check out episode 234, and also this podcast from My Pocket Psych - because being able to communicate flexibly across time and space without snagging people up in endless calls is so critical to successful online collaboration, as we discuss today with two fantastic guests. 5.02 Gonçalo Silva, CTO at Doist Gonçalo joins us from Portugal, where he works as the CTO of Doist (creators of apps like Todoist and Twist), a fully remote, global, and bootstrapped organisation of 13 years, where they walk their talk and make tools which work for their own communication needs in the first instance. They have grown slowly and carefully, expanding over 34 countries, to a team of now comprising nearly 80 people.  Gonçalo role-models the organisation’s core values through his day-to-day interactions, and working toward incremental improvements - self-reflecting, and sharing and making sure his actions are congruent with his values and intentions to provide an example for the rest of the team. Do check out the Doist Blog, and keep up with Gonçalo on Twitter.   43.30 Justin Mitchell, Yac Our next guest is the founder of a tool called Yac, and Justin explains this as voice messaging for teams - something which works because we’re so used to voice messaging in the consumer space. You can learn more by connecting with Yac and Justin personally on Twitter, to keep the asynchronous conversation going. And of course they have a podcast, which they record live and share on Youtube: Remote Voices.    

WLP245 What We Can All Learn from What's Going On Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd: There’s a massive scam hiding behind Google’s search results - here’s an interesting story, proving perhaps that human ingenuity still beats out the algorithms, Meanwhile, big corporations have their eyes on a flexible future, and we’re seeing new practice emerge from around the world: Fujitsu Embarks towards 'New Normal', Redefining Working Styles for its Japan Offices: Compare this to our podcasting buddy Robert Kropp’s reflection on the remote transition at Siemans - another powerful reminder of just what a big deal it is, to transition to remote at this global scale, and a fascinating comment thread to dig into on this LinkedIn post. Meanwhile closer to home at Essex County Council they have also been reflecting on recent changes and done some primary research: Digital remote working - research findings - Service Transformation, and produced this transparent and insightful report. This depressing article from the Guardian about 'the quiet grinding loneliness of working from home' made Maya groan (especially when people kept tagging her in it), but it’s good to be reminded how hard this has all been for so many people - even when journalists conflate living through a terrifying pandemic and all the impact that has on people’s mental health, with the effect of working from home.  Some serious multi-modal findings here from the big budget of Microsoft in The future of work—the good, the challenging & the unknown, we always love good solid evidence, and now we have the data. And a big report from the EU, Regulations to address work–life balance in digital flexible working arrangements, takes a deep dry dive into the legal frameworks including the Work–Life Balance Directive (EU/2019/1158), adopted in June 2019 and due to be implemented by Member States within a three-year period.   50:56 And in the Virtual Not Distant world: Maya reflected on the recent episode (241) about trust, to talk about trusting the system and the work, as well as the people.  A quick shout out to Lorraine Charles who joined us in episode 212 whose refugee training programme has a partnership with a new French NGO -  CHAMS to partner with Na'amal and UNHCR to provide skills for remote work - Jordan. Maya is working on a new book series called Healthy Happy Homeworking, with volume one coming soon (join the mailing list for pre-order opportunities).  Hello to Nikhil Vimal - thanks for sharing our podcast, and all that you learned from it, we love it when we spot things like this, and the feedback as well as the ego boost is invaluable. Pilar is running an event on the 3rd September with Next Stage Radicals, on ‘planned spontaneity’ - so sign up to workshop this concept here (it’s going to very spontaneous). The question of transcripts does keep bubbling up - would you like to see a full transcript of this episode, instead of or in addition to Maya’s summarising show notes? Let us know! A quick hello to our new team member Becky Boyd who Boldly, who is helping with some backend stuff and admin, also our LinkedIn page - so say hi to Becky if you spot her there! And last of all Pilar found our website strapline quoted here, on Virtual facilitation and training for remote teams – FUTOUR - we love these little echoes, from the from around the world of remote collaboration. 

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London; please check out https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/questions-education-perception for full shownotes and detailed information. In today’s episode we bringing you two interesting guests dig in to some of the big questions about remote work and the future of work.  03:51 Robert Kropp: How education needs to evolve for the future of work Robert joined us in Episode 230, when he and Rowena Hennigan introduced us to Remote Work Tree, and we’ve enjoyed his articles before in our What’s Going On segments (you can enjoy them all on his blog at Allwork.)  20:50 John O’Duinn: Physical proximity and employment status John joined us last month on Episode 240 to talk about how Vermont is incentivising remote workers.  He also wrote this really interesting article, Physical Proximity vs Employment Status. Please note: this show returns to its previous fortnightly schedule from now on. Make sure you follow us and subscribe in your favourite podcast player, so you don't miss any episodes.

Another solo show from Virtual Not Distant Managing Director Pilar Orti, completing an unofficial miniseries around the concept of visible teamwork. Please see full shownotes for this and all our podcast episodes at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts. Visible teamwork is a set of practices which include using technology to make our work and ourselves manifest in our remote teams - staying connected, as well as collaborating. So we need to understand what drive us to do our work in the first place: our motivations, for being part of a team and working toward common goals. Deci and Ryan’s definition of intrinsic motivation comes from the positive position that we all want to do our best, in work and in life, but the environment gets in the way of that. It follows that we should assume positive intent in others too, so that’s a good place to start. They define the components of intrinsic motivation as autonomy, competence, and relatedness (see also Daniel Pink’s ‘Drive’ too, though he uses mastery and purpose instead of competence and relatedness). 5.23 Autonomy Having a choice of where to work from feeds autonomy, so it’s easy to conclude that ‘remote = better’.  But right now external circumstances may constrain that, as may the structures of large organisations trying to change the way they move forward in a safe and hybrid way. Choosing how and when to do the work matters too, and even who we do it with - so creating choice wherever we can will help people feel more autonomous. 10:18 Competence Both doing our job well and learning to improve, are important here - so asynchronous, flexible communication supports this, promoting deep work without disruption.    14.23 Relatedness We need to relate to people, the work, and its purpose - and this reminds us how much we need to stay connected to the whole organisation and the bigger picture, as well as our immediate team and work.  ____ To find out more, and put the concepts of visible teamwork to work in your team through our bespoke coaching and facilitation, then make sure you contact us. And look out for our forthcoming ‘podcasting for connection’ service, to help you strengthen those connections, wherever you are and whatever work you’re doing.

Welcome to our regular news round-up episode, that has become a monthly feature in the light of such fast-moving change in the world of remote work. In these episodes, Pilar and Maya discuss a selection of recent news items, announcements, and publications, which reflect the way issues and policies are unfolding. This conversation was recorded on 30th June 2020, please see full shownotes at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/WGO-July-2020 Productivity monitoring: Considerations for HR, from compliance to culture More and more companies are resorting to ‘employee monitoring solutions’, to manage their remote workforce. . Our favourite quote: “Surveillance is not a replacement for leadership”.  However, in We Work Harder When We Know Someone’s Watching, HBR reminds us that external accountability definitely can make us more productive. Spain is introducing new legislation around ‘teletrabajo’ -   El Pais has been discussing it, and the Future for Work institute have published research Teresa Douglas shared this article on LinkedIn about performance review: 4 Different Approaches Companies Are Taking to Performance Reviews This Year. And in the UK, Only 13% of UK working parents want to go back to ‘the old normal’ . Slack has a brand new emoji pack to help with remote work, and Slack Connect (here’s a round-up of announcement articles from Angel List).  Listener and community news Shout out to Chris Coladonato, for joining the conversation about task interdependence and visible teamwork, reminding us how much there is to unpick there… Essential listening, episode 239 - if you work with other people in any way, do check it out. Thanks Andy Brogan for sharing it too. The IAF England and Wales chapter are planning an online conference at the end of OCtober, so do take a look at that.Annual Conference 2020 - the Power and Practice of Facilitation Over on LinkedIn, Diego Von Söhsten has been looking at Lessons Learned From Our Early Adopters in Their Forced Shift to Remote Work - interesting perspective on Agile and remote, so well worth checking out this concise read. Sharath Jeevan is developing a short LinkedIn series on re-igniting inner-drive in our working lives.  Maya has been attending (online) some sessions at the Future of Work summit…  You can buy access to sessions you have missed here.

In today's episode, we look at the link between trust and visible teamwork. She covers: -Propensity to trust -What makes up trust -The difference between cognitive and affective trust (and why building trust is not just done through social interactions) -Do we need trust in remote teams? - Can visible teamwork damage trust? For more detailed show notes, go to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/trust-remote-teams-visible-teamwork