So my first question for Gemma is gemma, you wrote a book two years ago about flexible Working. What's changed in the last couple of years? And I'd also like to ask your thoughts on what you think is the biggest misunderstanding that HR professional models have when it comes to remote workers and enabling them. What's the biggest misunderstanding? Thank you. Bye
Gemma Dale
@hrgem · 3:06
To the second part of your question, around misconceptions, around remote work, I think that is very much around ideas about what you need to go into the office for. And there are still some pretty hard wired beliefs around. Certain things need to be done in an office, and you can sort of insert the cliche of your choice, but we need to go into an office to collaborate. We need to go into an office to maintain its culture
Mark Brooks
@ProlificWisdom · 3:37
I'm probably quite unemployable but I do miss going into an office, I do miss that establishing effect and that's why I run conferences, I run little conferences so that I can meet the people that I'm working with and meet new prospective clients and that's how I get my dose of in person every three months or so. The kind of a minimum effective dose, would you say? What would be that minimum effective dose for maintaining culture and establishing culture with new people on the team?
Gemma Dale
@hrgem · 4:30
And some research indicates that actually coming together for those very, very early meetings, maybe a new team forming, for example, is really important. So you get together, you do the relationship stuff, you get to know each other, and then it's much easier to switch into remote work or asynchronous work because you've got the relationship already
Mark Brooks
@ProlificWisdom · 5:00
And one of the things that seems to be missing, that I've observed over the years that I've had a hard time with is presence. One tool I really like is so coco socococom. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but there's a few tools like this, but this is an older one. They do a really nice job allowing you to see when people are working and know when you can interrupt them, do a quick video call, talk to them very quickly
Gemma Dale
@hrgem · 4:39
How much time should we spend in the office? How many days a week? And I think that's the wrong question. I think that's fundamentally the wrong question. And I think that when we do that, we're thinking too small. Actually, for the most part, we should be thinking bigger. We should be thinking about how we fundamentally redesign work so that it supports well being and it supports individuals goals