BONUS | Working Remotely? | Jordan Hirsch - Tips for Working Remotely from an Experienced Remote Worker

Jordan's Resources:


"So you're suddenly working remotely"
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/so-youre-suddenly-working-remotely-jordan-hirsch/

MURAL's "suddenly remote" webinar series recap:
https://blog.mural.co/suddenly-remote-recap

Phase2's WFH "How-to" Packet:
https://phase2.gitbook.io/phase2-remote-work-playbook/




FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)


Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch
Roshong and knowing there is a lot more going on outside the
accounting and finance world. We would like to align with Ima CEO
Jeff Thompson's message and extend our heartfelt support to
everyone facing the implications of the worldwide Coronavirus
outbreak. Today we would like to share a timely bonus episode as
IMA continues to support the profession with a variety of
professional development resources. As many of our listeners are
now faced with remote work and distant learning. My cohost Adam
had a conversation with Jordan Hirsch to give our listeners some
suggestions for working remotely. Jordan is the director of
innovation at phase two a digital experience agency with a strong
remote culture. He has over a decade of experience working from
home and share some real practical tips for those who may not be
as accustomed to working outside of the office. If you find
yourself handling your business in what feels like a new,
slightly uncomfortable work environment, listen to this
conversation to help you adjust and get the most out of it. 


 


Adam: (01:15)


So Jordan, as we see with the recent events concerning the Corona
virus, many people have been thrust into working from home
suddenly. I know you've been a remote employee for a while now,
so could you describe what it was like for you when you were
first getting started? 


 


Jordan: (01:28)


Sure. I would say also that I feel for everybody who's getting
thrust into it now because it is definitely really different from
working in an office, especially if that's what you're used to.
When I first started it was, it was kind of weird at first, my
very first job out of college way back in 1999, I had an office
job and I was allowed to work from home one day a week in that
job. And that one day for a while I sort of saw it as my like get
everything at home done day. I would, uh, you know, I'd vacuum
the apartment, I would do a bunch of chores. I tried to get my
work done ahead of time the rest of the week, so I didn't
actually have to do much that day. And then over time, as I had
other jobs and I started sort of do it more and more, it occurred
to me, I started to realize that I actually needed that time to
do work and I had to learn how to actually do my job at home. And
I was working in tech at the time. So the mechanics of doing the
work weren't that bad. I learned how to, you know, which files I
would need to bring home from me, uh, to be able to work on my
home machine, how to access all the network things that I needed
from my job at home. How to sort of minimize the things I would
need from the office. But probably the hardest part was learning
how to apply some structure to myself to not see it as, you know,
fun time or time when I could sort of get things done at home.
But how to actually be at work at home was the biggest
adjustment. So learning how to really have the discipline to sort
of structure my time by myself and how to have that structure
while I was, you know, literally all alone in the apartment was,
was probably the steepest learning curve for me. 


 


Adam: (03:04)


So if there was one thing, there were a couple of things that you
could have told yourself back then when you first started working
at home, what would that be? 


 


Jordan: (03:11)


Probably just because you can do all your household stuff in the
middle of the day and then do all your work at night. It doesn't
always mean it's really a good idea. That worked. Okay. Sometimes
when I was doing development work and I was a bit more working on
my own. But if you're working with part of a team that can be
really disruptive. So I wish that I had known at the beginning to
start practicing giving myself some structure so that work time
is for work and home time is for home. So kind of resisting that
urge to get things done. You know on the, on the household front
during the day. Now that so many household chores are online, you
can do them in the office too. And so it's not that big of a
difference. But you know, if I do decide like I've been at my
desk too long, I have a break between meetings, I'm going to go,
you know, go for a walk, go for a bike ride, vacuum the
apartment, go do something else. Also having the discipline to
make that time up later cause eventually it will catch up with
you. Something else I would say I would have liked to know then
is the idea of over communicating with everybody else at work,
especially if you're new to it and if your team is new to it, it
can take awhile to build up trust. Over-communicating helps
people know where to find you, when to find you, how to find you,
what you're doing. If you're busy, all the things that they could
probably tell just by poking ahead and you know, at your desk or
at your cubicle. But they can't do that now. So if someone
reaches out to you and they don't hear back, they don't know. If
you haven't set things up correctly, they don't know, you know,
are you in a meeting? Are you going for a walk? Are you watching
the Simpsons on your couch? You know, what's going on? Why can't
I find Jordan? And those things can start to eat away at trust a
little bit. So I'd say probably the thing that I would've liked
to know also in addition to structuring my time is how to engage
in those trust-building behaviors. 


 


Adam: (05:00)


So speaking of like trust-building behaviors, you know, there's
probably a lot of team leaders who are suddenly the leaders of
virtual teams. You know, can we keep talking on that? Where we'd
like on keeping the culture and the teamwork alive, even though
everybody's in different locations? Like, what advice would you
give to them? 


 


Jordan: (05:17)


Oh, absolutely. The first thing I would say is if your team is
moving to video calls, turn your cameras on. That's a really
seemingly simple thing and it's also something that people get
really uncomfortable with. We don't mind sitting at a table, you
know, in a conference room full of our coworkers where everybody
can see us. But turning on a camera feels like a really different
step. There's definitely a mental barrier there to being on
camera that people just aren't used to. When you turn your
cameras on, it humanizes you for everybody and it humanizes
everybody else on the call too so that you can all still look
each other in the eyes, quote unquote. It's not exactly the same,
but at least you are able to see each other and that goes a long
way towards kind of remembering that like we're all together,
we're all at work, we're all on the same team. These are the
people I work with every day. I'd say also to make sure that
you're making time for your culture. It's something now that
you're going to have to schedule culture used to be able to
happen, you know, in the break room and the kitchen stopping by
someone's desk to say hi, just seeing someone in the hallway on
the way...