Almost overnight, COVID-19 turned the future of work into the current way we work. That is companies operating as distributed (remote) organizations. Although many businesses will likely return to traditional offices once it’s safe for employees to congregate again, it may not be business as usual.
More changes will likely come as businesses regroup and the economy adjusts to the pandemic’s disruption. Getting businesses sprinting forward may be difficult at first, but many will adapt faster than in pre-COVID-19 times. Because business leaders will incorporate newly gained distributed workforce learnings to help teams work faster, enhance innovation, and respond quickly to change. Put another way, businesses will become more agile.
It takes more than employees working remotely
Agility is the new business currency, according to a KPMG survey of CEOs. Before the health crisis, two out of three CEOs believed agility is critical for success. Recent events demonstrate this truth as businesses scramble to operate as 100% remote companies, pull in external talent to handle unprecedented surges in demand, and develop new services within days to meet customer needs.
What we observed over 20 years of helping companies transform their talent sourcing, and what current events underscore, is that a business can’t optimize its agility without fast access to skills or the ability to ramp up and down quickly. Both require a remote or distributed workforce.
Utilize a hybrid approach
Our Community team learned the importance of a distributed workforce firsthand. When Upwork relaunched in 2015, our marketplace exploded—and so did the volume of questions, forum discussions, and support issues. Other internal teams, including Creative and Engineering, were successfully building hybrid teams to handle increased workloads, so the Community team decided to give it a try. In a hybrid team, employees focus on core work, the strategic part of their role that makes them experts at what they do. And independent talent handles peripheral work, such as repeatable or highly specialized work.
Through the Upwork platform, our 4-person Community team quickly found the experienced talent they needed to double in size. By leveraging remote professionals, the team reduced support tickets by 36% and saved an estimated $1.3M in service costs.
From our internal experience, and that of our clients, two of the many benefits a distributed workforce provides are that businesses can raise productivity and quickly respond to changing needs. When Nasdaq’s head of social media, Anna Gonzalez, was tasked to build out a complex video strategy, Gonzalez didn’t have the resources in-house. So, she created hybrid teams where her lean social team develops the creative vision independent professionals are contracted to execute the work.
Their distributed strategy allows them to scale teams up and down in different locations as needed, access specialized skills quickly, and consistently produce quality work as budgets change per project. The hybrid team arrangement works so well, that Gonzalez’s team generates millions of impressions per client IPO, produces 80-100 Facebook Live shows monthly, and they produce an Emmy Award-winning Facebook Watch program.
3 steps toward building a remote strategy for the long haul
Adopting a distributed workforce model is a journey that involves shifting processes, and just as important—mindsets. This begins by learning new tools, laying a foundation through experimentation, then building upon that success as you scale. To create a lasting distributed strategy that optimizes the effectiveness of all talent, begin with these three steps.
1. Foster a distributed mindset
Success with a distributed model may (and often does) start gradually with a single team or initiative. But true agility happens when all functions are on board and actively seeking ways to improve their effectiveness by working with independent professionals. And when a business adjusts its processes to align with a distributed workforce model.
2. Create an agile workforce
Instead of thinking of the roles needed to get work done, think of the skills needed. View talent as modular experts who move in and out of project teams for as long as their skills are required. These modular experts should include employees and external talent, who may collaborate in hybrid teams to meet the specific project needs.
3. Assemble teams to drive effectiveness
Instead of reaching for independent talent to plug a hole, reach for talent to fill the right (most strategic) skills gaps. So, you can place talent to perform work that makes the highest business sense. For example, if a VP of finance must spend hours analyzing data and creating a presentation for an upcoming meeting, an agile-focused company would contract a data analyst to crunch the numbers and a Powerpoint specialist to design presentation slides. This would free the VPs time to focus on work only they can do.
Maintaining control during unpredictable times
In the next few months, agility will likely become a top priority for business leaders, if it isn’t already. Before recent events, change was already happening at a breakneck pace. And chances are, the pace will speed up as uncertainty prevails.
But you can maintain control and remain growth-focused throughout the rollercoaster ride. You can do this by building a distributed strategy that empowers your team with fast access to the skills they need. So they can anticipate, respond to, and adapt quickly to new challenges.
Creating a distributed strategy takes time, but you’re probably like other business leaders who must figure it out now. To help you shorten the learning curve, we created two free resources that can help your current teams run smoothly now and show how to build greater agility that will last the long run.
- Managing Remote Teams. This course by Udacity and Upwork is a great start for any organization new to working with a distributed workforce. It gives you practical advice on how to build a culture that embraces remote workers and provides hands-on tips for managing your remote workforce effectively.
- How to Build and Expand a Flexible Talent Program. If you worked with remote teams in the past and want to leverage the workforce further, this guide provides a framework to expand remote talent usage. It’s based on years of analyzing best practices from successful companies. You’ll see how to efficiently gain internal support, measure progress to see what’s working and what isn’t, and scale remote talent usage to meet your business goals.
