“Work from Anywhere”: 3 Crucial Considerations

Exploring a “Work From Anywhere” plan? Make sure you’re considering both the opportunities as well as the responsibilities…

 

If your inbox is like mine, it’s full of “DO YOU HAVE YOUR REOPENING PLAN READY” messages that I think went to everyone with TA or HR or “People” somewhere in their LinkedIn profile (I try not to open them, but I think they’re mostly selling, like… massive quantities of hand sanitizer?).

 

I don’t know what your reopening plans look like, and perhaps more importantly, I don’t know what our reopening plans look like, either. That’s because we possibly may not ever “reopen” (and if  we do… it’ll definitely be different than before).

 

And now with companies like Spotify and Salesforce announcing “Work From Anywhere” policies over the past weeks… it’s definitely a new frontier.

 

This moment comes with real opportunities – and responsibilities – to get this right. I keep thinking back to one of the really important conversations we had at the RAC last month, “The Intersection of Remote Work and DEI.”

 

With the flattening of geography, companies are less constrained than ever by the diversity of one (or a few) metro areas – they can find great, diverse talent wherever that talent is.

 

There is an opportunity to rebuild hiring and work culture with DEI – and empathy – at the forefront, but it has to be intentional. That means:

• The candidate experience: building – and examining – a hiring process that brings diversity into the organization (measuring the impact of everything from the tech used to bring candidates in to the evaluation criteria being used by the organization).

 

• Time to connect: providing psychological safety and the space for people to have human interactions that transcend the transactional nature of a simple video call… creating dedicated time and resources for people to interact and collaborate.

 

• Inclusivity is key: being mindful of privilege and accessibility when it comes to remote work. This means building practices that are inclusive for any number of scenarios. From multiple generations under one roof to slow internet speed to folks that may not be comfortable on camera (Katrina  Kibben recently wrote an incredible piece on this).

 

Make sure to check out the conversation between Micole Garatti (Fairygodboss), Kay Fabella (Inclusion in Progress), Rocki Howard (SmartRecruiters), and Kimberly Jones (Kelton Legend + UC Irvine) – their insights are absolutely fantastic.

 

We think these are really important challenges, and present an incredible chance to make hiring better. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hosting a series of conversations on Clubhouse (and possibly a few other platforms) about how organizations can adapt to remote work, especially with DEI in mind.

 

This was excerpted from the 2-19-2021 RAC Newsletter. Sign Up for the Newsletter here.