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[00:00:05] So there's no point going for a remote job if you don't have the skills to back it up and excel . we think that, oh, the only difference between a remote job and an in person job is I don't have to go into the office.
[00:00:14] That is, that is wrong. So not true doesn't matter what role you're doing I can guarantee that 99% of the skills you need to do remote are probably not being exercised when you're doing it in person
[00:00:24] And what ends up happening is performance ends up dropping.
[00:00:26] The third one, no doubt, hands down, probably, especially in the age of AI, going to be one of the most important skills you can have out there is communication.
[00:00:35] Remote work takes about double the amount of skill that normal in person work does. so let me tell you remote work is great.
[00:00:41] It's wonderful but it requires a a bit of a transformation
[00:00:45] Welcome to Easier Said Than Done with me, Zubin Pratap, where I share with you the tens of thousands of dollars worth of self development that I did on my journey from 37 year old lawyer to professional software engineer. The goal of this podcast is to show you how to [00:01:00] actually do those things that are easier said than done.
[00:01:04] hey guys, welcome back to easier said than done and how to do it. And on this episode today, I want to talk to you about all the challenges with remote jobs. Okay. Cause I know everyone's interested in one... and they're fantastic. I've been working remotely for over 10 years now in various forms, either work from home or completely globally remote,
[00:01:21] and there is a ton of skill involved in doing this.
[00:01:23] So that's my goal for today is to give you guys a first look. full sense of all the skills that you didn't know you need to have to actually thrive and succeed in this environment because it's actually a lot harder than in person work. And more importantly, not everyone's great at managing themselves in this kind of work, and what ends up happening is performance ends up dropping if you're not careful. And I've seen this so many times - their performance drops and then they get managed out or they get fired and stuff like that. So there's no point going for a remote job if you don't have the skills to back it up and excel. If a remote job is going to send your career backwards compared to an in person job, then it's a bad decision. So we need to level up our skills on that .And i'm actually working on a full short course on this a [00:02:00] course for people to level up their careers using remote work That I will be publishing this year when I get some time. For right now i'm going to summarize all the key skills I'm going to cover about nine or ten of them
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[00:02:54] let me start by sharing my screen so that you guys Please To those of you who are listening, I usually share my screen on the YouTube videos [00:03:00] so that we can walk through the workbook together, right?
[00:03:01] So I have a couple of goals for you on, or rather, I have a couple of goals for myself on this episode. The first is to understand what we mean by remote, and there are four different types that I've seen and I've personally done myself.
[00:03:13] The second is to give you an insider's perspective after more than a decade of doing this kind of work as to what it takes to actually deliver great results, to exceed expectations and to do really, really well, and to continue career growth, both in terms of fulfillment and financially.
[00:03:28] So, First up a big warning for you guys. Remote work takes about double the amount of skill that normal in person work does. And Really All the skills that i'm trying to talk to you about today are about knowing how to be a top performer and not get fired.
[00:03:41] obviously a top performer won't get fired, but a weak performer will. So as long as you're not a weak performer, you're not going to get fired, but then you want to raise the bar and also be a top performer while being remote because that opens up a ton of opportunities.
[00:03:54] So let's talk about why I have an opinion on this. Number one, I've been doing [00:04:00] remote work in one form or the other, and I'll talk about all four forms, but I've been doing it for More than 10 years, okay And in my engineering career 80 percent of my career has been remote as an engineer and engineering is a particularly hard one to do remote In because there are really complex systems engineers often aren't very good communicators So getting onboarded by them was hard.
[00:04:18] I had an advantage because as a lawyer i'm very Very strong in my communication and organization and planning and written communication as well But not everybody's like that and that was a bit of a challenge Okay, now before covid I was doing hybrid work Anyway, either work from home or working remotely across geographies and time zones and even back when I was a lawyer This is you know, 10 something years ago I was regularly leading teams of cross functional lawyers from different countries as we did What's known as international M&A -international mergers and acquisitions- i'd have to coordinate with teams across the world. Ultimately, that's the same thing as being a remote worker . Because if you're working with people from around the world, it's exactly the same as working in a remote environment, in the sense that you're coordinating across time zones, cultures, [00:05:00] geographies languages, working habits, working cultures, and so on and so forth, and you have to be able to lead and influence through all of that.
[00:05:06] Now let's talk about the four types of remote work. Let's be very clear in our definitions because each type is different and gets progressively harder.
[00:05:15] So let's start with the easiest: hybrid.
[00:05:17] What do we mean by hybrid? Hybrid means you're working from home some of the days of the week. Not all of the days of the week, but some of the days it could be two days, three days, whatever, right? That's the easiest level of remote work. Now, obviously I'm not talking about in person work where you're five days a week together.
[00:05:29] That's a different thing. We're just talking about situations where you're working remotely or flexibly. First one, hybrid.
[00:05:35] Second one is working from home full time, which is definitely harder than the hybrid model because you don't actually interact with people and a lot of knowledge and information can get lost.
[00:05:43] Knowhow transfers the challenge. So that's harder. And onboarding is really hard.
[00:05:46] The next level up that's even harder than working from home is they're working from home But in a remote time zone, which means you're not in the same time zone as your colleagues So for example, if you're in The east coast and your colleagues are on the west coast
[00:05:58] you'll see it gets a lot harder. [00:06:00] Especially if your entire team's in a different time zone.
[00:06:02] That's the third level up and the hardest is what I do these days, which is completely remote Work from anywhere in the world at all and that's much harder because for example in my team we were across I think seven different times. So coordinating meetings is really hard and we'll dive into some of the challenges.
[00:06:17] So those are the four types of remote work now Why do I say it's so hard guys and this is really important first and foremost Let me say that i'm going to go through what about a dozen points here on the screen Maybe a little bit less. They're in no particular order But They're kind of going to be from obvious to less obvious, right?
[00:06:32] The ones at the bottom half of the list are less obvious So let's go through them in sequence from the more obvious ones.
[00:06:37] The reason remote can be really hard is onboarding is very hard Unless the team is accustomed to doing it remotely and onboarding means you're starting a new role You need to get your training.
[00:06:47] You need to understand who's who in the zoo. You need to understand how the business works, what its operational processes are like, what its strategy is like, how the working culture operates, what the expectations are, what performance expectations are, what communication expectations are, and so [00:07:00] on and so forth.
[00:07:00] So onboarding remotely is very hard because a lot of the training is not what you'd get in person. You're not actively trained the same way. It's a lot of more passive training and self help training, and you need to have some real good meta skills to do that successfully.
[00:07:13] Second thing is velocity. You see this a lot with engineering remote roles, but it's true of any role Another way of putting this is that you can't move as fast as you could if you're all together And that's because when you're together you can just look over the cubicle or look into the next office and say hey mary Can you help me with this?
[00:07:29] Or what do you think about this?
[00:07:30] And the response is usually instant unless they're on the phone or busy in a meeting But you
[00:07:34] But what happens when you can't see the people, when you have no face to face contact with them, when you don't know if they're available, if they're at the other end of the chat app or not, right?
[00:07:42] So you can get blocked. And especially in remote global, you can get blocked for 24 hours or more as you wait for the other people to come online, see a message, process it, understand, prioritize responding and so on and so forth. So these are really important. And if you don't know how to maintain your speed adequately, You will fall behind and your performance will [00:08:00] be affected.
[00:08:00] And I'll talk about some of the skills you need to get around this in a bit.
[00:08:04] The third one, no doubt, hands down, probably, especially in the age of AI, going to be one of the most important skills you can have out there is communication. Now, communication has become more and more remote as time goes on. A hundred and something years ago before the telephone people were always communicating face to face or via telegrams and stuff like that. Then the telephone came out that sped up communication, but it's also more remote . Now when you're doing it digitally It's much more typed communication than spoken communication.
[00:08:32] Which has significant challenges. Non verbal cues are missed. There's a lot of context that needs to be delivered, which means, for example, if I'm trying to ask a question to somebody who's not fully familiar with where I'm coming from, what my context is, I have to explain a lot more stuff by typing things out. And a lot of people, when they're in a hurry, don't do a good job of this, miss the context, the other person misunderstands don't have enough information to answer and therefore won't answer or they'll give you the wrong answer. And it's not necessarily their fault. We have to take the responsibility for quality communication [00:09:00] So you have to be very thoughtful in the way you type it.
[00:09:02] So that's the third skill: communication of multiple types .
[00:09:06] There's communicating to people who are reporting into you communicating to your peers and communicating up to managers and above, right?
[00:09:13] Very different skills and you have to master them all.
[00:09:15] Now the fourth one is meeting and scheduling . Trying to make what would otherwise be asynchronous work, which means you're working not together at the same time at the same place, but asynchronously at different times at different places, trying to then synchronize each other for a few hours a week where you do happen to get together for meetings or, you know, brainstorming or whatever.
[00:09:33] That's a really hard skill to do. And we'll talk about why when we talk about the skills needed, to do that successfully.
[00:09:40] Now the next one on my list is relationships, right? Relationships is super super super important definitely important when you're in person and i've just renumbered on the screen for those of you watching because I Wanted to refer to the point by number so relationships is number five Relationships is really important in person and it's super important remotely when you don't have time to, you [00:10:00] know, grab a coffee together, take a walk around the block together, go for lunch.
[00:10:02] You don't have the time for all the social side. Most of your interactions being are very transactional, very work related, very, straight to the point. It's harder to build relationships that are meaningful where you can actually collaborate with each other.
[00:10:14] Number six: tools and processes. Now a lot of companies that weren't used to remote got caught Very badly off guard during COVID because they didn't have the right processes and they didn't have the right investments in the tools. I can tell you that the tooling is not obvious like Even being able to remotely access your data and your infrastructure and your email takes a lot of security investment.
[00:10:32] Now 12 -13 years ago when I was a lawyer and I would work remotely or from different time zones as I traveled around for work There was a lot of investment put into securely accessing your office emails.
[00:10:42] Now it sounds ridiculous today, but 13 years ago, that wasn't an easy problem because we weren't using cloud email providers, right? We were using on premises hosted Microsoft email servers. And so security tunneling in securely was a challenge. Nowadays, that's a lot better, but it's still a really important requirement .
[00:10:58] So not all businesses can [00:11:00] afford to do it right or do it at scale. So having the right tools and then the right processes to support the tools is really, really important because you have to have the right working culture and expectations and processes to make sure people get the information, people get their supervision, people get the feedback they need, people get the assistance and guidance they need, and they get unblocked and unstuck and they get on board.
[00:11:18] It's all of that is process, right? Oh, if they have to find information. It's better to not have to wait for somebody and to find it in a reliable place, but then you need to have processes to maintain that repository of information and so on and so forth. So tools and processes, very hard problem to solve.
[00:11:33] Next one, performance. Now this is, as I said, the further down the list I go, the more subtle or non obvious the point becomes. Now performance is really hard. Why? Most of your work is invisible. You're not actually seeing each other work in the office all the time. At the same time, you're not actually able to see what inputs and outputs are going in.
[00:11:49] You just, you actually don't see anything. And then you have. Outputs that come out the other end and you don't know whether delays are justified or not like it's hard. And so performance becomes hard because you need to manage your own [00:12:00] performance, You need to work with your manager to have your own performance reviewed, which means they need to know what you're doing But they're not with you every day or all the time And they're not seeing stuff, you know So there's a lot more trust involved and a lot more demonstration and signaling through other means. And then you need to manage yourself and you need to measure your own performance against your goals. All of which is hard when You could be sitting in your living room and working. Or sitting , on a couch somewhere and working and you don't have your team around you and you don't know whether your work is fitting into what everybody else is doing.
[00:12:26] The next problem, number eight is it's much harder to be seen and noticed when you're remote, when you're stuck in your room. And that is very, very important for your progress. You need to be seen. You need to be noticed. You need to have people understand what you're doing and where you fit in.
[00:12:37] And this is not about marketing yourself, though marketing yourself involves being seen and noticed. Just having people see and notice you at the physical workplace is a giant advantage that you don't realize until you don't have it, right? Because people don't know who you are. They don't know what you're doing. They don't know which part of the company you're in They don't know why they should even give you time when they've got a hundred other requests like that, right?
[00:12:59] Once upon a [00:13:00] time you'd Always see if someone is busy and know whether I could interrupt them or not. Or you'd have someone else introduce you at the office so that you can get your work done. Now in remote, you have to email someone or slack somebody or send someone a message cold or call them cold, and they have no context, no background on you,
[00:13:15] and so it's much harder to actually be seen and noticed and again, it links back to the relationship point. It's harder to get seen notice and build those relationships.
[00:13:23] Number nine, sort of linked to performance here, but more, more generally growth, mentoring, and training is a hard problem to do remotely when the people you're meant to be learning from and trained by aren't in the same place, don't have the same time synchronized with you and so on and so forth.
[00:13:37] So you've got to be much more self starting in that sense. And we'll talk about the skill around that in a moment.
[00:13:42] And the last one, number 10 is mental habits, mental health, and routines. Now this one's really important because a lot of people think it's all just fun. I have flexibility. I can do whatever I want and it's not really like that because you know, it often can be harder There's more information to process remotely without the help when you're doing [00:14:00] remote work And so what ends up happening is people get Poor boundaries between work and personal life.
[00:14:05] And they don't have Clear rules and habits and routines for themselves which then Leads to slightly negative or declining mental health, sense of well being, happiness, physical health fitness . So you have to be super disciplined, to get around these problems. So that's why that's another hard problem in remote work that people don't necessarily think about.
[00:14:22] Now Let's talk about the special skills needed for each of these things. Number one I'm going to start with communication and collaboration and team play because that is so important guys. Especially triply important when you're in a remote work, right?
[00:14:33] Because you cannot get things done that require teamwork unless you have some amount of credibility, likeability, and influence with your colleagues, right? Whether it's upwards, downwards, or to your peers, doesn't matter. You need some level of influence, authority, and credibility. And so when you're lacking relationships and when you lack formal authority and you've never met the person being able to collaborate with them and influence them and work Together with them is a really difficult skill.
[00:14:58] And unfortunately, [00:15:00] most people are not very good at this because they've never had to learn it It's a very different relationship from when you see people face to face. Digitally communicating is Extremely difficult because people behave differently digitally than they would in real life. And it can be a hard thing to do well, you know to build those communication bridges.
[00:15:16] Now the next skill that you need is to be ultra ultra organized. Which means you need to have Reliable systems and processes for yourself. Being ultra organized is all about Knowing what you're going to do every day, how to do it, having a process, having a system, knowing where to find the information, knowing who to speak to, knowing how to structure your day, how to block time in your calendar, how to actually run your calendar so that you're actually getting time to do the work and not pulled into meetings all the time.
[00:15:42] All of this goes into being organized. And by the way, everything I said was in the context of the in person world. Now amplify that up, you know, twice or thrice, like a hundred percent, 200 percent. In the digital working world because people can't see what's going on and they're just going to put time in your calendar. They're just going to send you messages and you're going to have all this [00:16:00] context switching going on So if you're not ultra organized and able to process all this information, you won't do a great job. So that's the second skill being ultra organized.
[00:16:07] The third one is what I call situational awareness, which means Given that everyone's working remotely given that this is across time zones You need to be able to say: well if I need to deliver this piece of work by wednesday afternoon How is that going to impact other people who am I depending on to get that piece of work done? What time zone are they in? What's their availability? Like what else do they have on their plate, right? So you can't actually walk up to their cubicle and speak to them anymore So you have to coordinate and be aware and be good at anticipating issues And the company priorities and the direction of the work All while you're operating in a lower information environment than you normally would because you don't have the visual cues and you don't have The stuff that you normally pick up at the water cooler and stuff like that.
[00:16:45] So high situational awareness and context awareness.
[00:16:48] The fourth skill you need around relationship building is what I call social capital which means For people to be able to work together in teams They need to like each other they need to have a positive culture and they need to trust each other. [00:17:00] Building trust and likeability and that positive culture is all social capital and that's very hard to do when it's all done via Some slack message or email. You need to have the skills to reach out to people and build that social capital in a systematic patient way In a way that's of service something that I work a lot with my students on Is really raising your ability to communicate digitally physically emotionally and personally, right?
[00:17:22] So you have to be able to do that very very very well. Why? Because (A) it improves the culture in the team and (B) that drives better results for everybody and (C) You get better results when people are more likely to cooperate with you. We are cooperative social animals. That's how we get things done. The ultimate leverage that humanity has is that we cooperate we can do more together than we can do as one. Right, and that's super important that kind of relationship building and social capital.
[00:17:47] Okay fifth skill reputation management. Now this sounds kind of, you know, hokey or weird or, you know, gross or cynical, depending on how, what filter you put on it. But what is reputation management? Reputation management is having [00:18:00] professional credibility and standing. Okay. You have a professional reputation.
[00:18:04] Now you want to be able to maintain it and improve it over time. Which means you need to do good work. You need to be seen as doing good work, and you need to be able to work with other people who do great work so that your work is elevated, right? That's reputation management. We all do it in the context of our day jobs, in our, you know, in person jobs.
[00:18:21] We do it with our families. We do it in every sphere of life. We do reputation management, right? And it's really hard to do remotely. When no one is seeing you, when no one is hearing from you, when no one knows who you are, you started at the company or you've been there a year or nobody knows because you've been holed up in your bedroom or your, your living room.
[00:18:36] Right? So reputation management, huge skill. Why? Because promotions will depend on it. Opportunities will depend on it. Your own happiness and growth will depend on whether you are actually moving closer and closer to your potential, whether you're being more creative, whether you're learning a lot, whether you're growing every year.
[00:18:52] All of that kind of comes down to reputation management as well, because people will give you opportunities if you have the reputation for being credible, solid, dependable. [00:19:00] Which means you won't get opportunities if nobody knows you and nobody knows that you are those things. That's why reputation management is so important.
[00:19:07] All right. Skill number six is being very self directed, which means. You take control of the situation and what you need. So you're in charge of your growth. You take extreme responsibility for your growth. You take responsibility for setting your own boundaries while being flexible- so it's a it's a tightrope there- and you need to have the routines and habits that will make you succeed. So going to the gym regularly or having a meditation practice or having some space between your workspace and your your personal space More time for your family and other things that matter to you drawing those boundaries, right? So you have to be very self directed and take full responsibility for that. You also have to take full responsibility for troubleshooting. So when you get blocked, when you can't find the answer, when you don't know how to do something and you can't just wait for everybody to come online, you need to still try and make progress.
[00:19:49] You may not succeed, but you've got to try. And that means you've got to be very good at troubleshooting at thinking independently, at trying things, at taking some risks, being not afraid to make mistakes. A lot of that sort of [00:20:00] responsibility around your own actions to move things forward is really important.
[00:20:03] That then links into the sub point D in six, which is being autonomous, right? We mean learning on your own, being self directed in your learning, being self directed at being able to try and solve problems that others haven't solved that are going to impact you and your deliverables. Actually acting without anyone. Telling you what you need to do on your own initiative without other people saying do this do this do this do that. You should just take charge and do it. And You really need to do that in a remote job regardless of your level. You could be starting out at an entry level and you still need to be autonomous because you will not get the level of support You think you want or probably need compared to in person.
[00:20:39] You will get A lot of support, you know, in a well run organization, but it's not the same as in person. So you need to be more autonomous to compensate for that lack of direct face to face time.
[00:20:48] And which also means you need to be really good at handling ambiguity and uncertainty. If you don't know the answer, you need to be okay with that and figure out how to find out what you don't know you know, autonomously, through self direction, through taking personal responsibility. So, [00:21:00] handling ambiguity and being able to operate in an environment that is ambiguous can be very stressful for most people.
[00:21:05] We're not accustomed to doing it this way and we think that, oh, the only difference between a remote job and an in person job is I don't have to go into the office. That is, that is wrong. So not true doesn't matter what role you're doing I can guarantee that 99 of the skills you need to do remote are probably not being exercised when you're doing it in person. And you just did not know you had to do it or you did not think about it. So whatever it is being able to handle your emotional state in through ambiguity and uncertainty is incredibly important. That's part of being self directed.
[00:21:32] Skill number seven sort of links to the previous one a little bit You can see there are overlaps is mindset.
[00:21:37] You have to have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. You have to have a mindset of the owner, not an employee. And I say that loosely. Obviously, you're not the owner of the business. You're an employee, but you have to have the mindset of someone who takes ownership. That's what I mean by that. So you have to have the mindset of positive, can do, go get.
[00:21:54] Yes, there will be setbacks. Yes. I will fail. Yes. I will make mistakes. Yes. I'm going to get stuck But I can figure this [00:22:00] out. I have a growth mindset. I'm going to keep learning I'm going to keep getting better and I'm going to take responsibility For trying to keep moving forward even though being remote is hard and difficult and there's lots of frictions. And you don't get all the support that you'd like to have. So that's mindset.
[00:22:12] And the last skill is you want to be super flexible and responsive. Why?
[00:22:17] Well, if you're working across time zones Sometimes you're gonna have to do calls really late at night or really in early in the morning. So that everybody is sharing the burden of the time zones. Now This happens a lot with my team and we do a great job because we have a wonderful culture And we're all trying to be fair about it.
[00:22:31] We're all trying to say hey this may be after dinner your time Oh, this may be super early and may impact school drop off or, hey, you know, this, you've, you've done two late nights in a row with these meetings, let's try and change it so that, you know, it's another time for you. So it's a little more relaxed and take some time off around it or whatever, like there's all this working together and collaborating to be flexible and responsive while at the same time, maintaining forward momentum.
[00:22:52] And that requires a strong culture, but it also requires us individually to be flexible and responsive while at the same time being [00:23:00] very wary and careful of our own boundaries of what we will and will not do and you need to flex. So someday you may not be able to go to the gym. Some days you may not have the distinction between personal time and work time as well drawn out as you'd like.
[00:23:10] And that's because you've made that choice for that day because the work is important, the meeting is important, and you made that choice. But you can't always make that choice because then your boundaries go down the toilet and you then really don't have proper boundaries. So you need to constantly balance that. Which means you need to be flexible Responsive while at the same time taking ownership for your own boundaries. And that's a really hard skill because it requires a lot of thinking: is this important? Is that important? What do I want to prioritize today? And being prepared to shift every day on your priorities. You're constantly juggling things all the time to figure out what is right. Now Of course i'm making the sound like a lot more work than it actually is but it's not like this all the time. The point is these are habits that we've probably not developed in in person work. Some of us have depending on the level we've been at or the kind of work we've been at and so on. But not everybody and so it's really important that if you're switching to remote work to be psychologically prepared for these [00:24:00] new behaviors and adaptations and skills that you're going to need to actually thrive and enjoy and make the most of a phenomenal opportunity that is remote work.
[00:24:08] So these are the skills guys, and I hope that was useful to you now Please if you got any value from this Please like and subscribe because I need the feedback from you guys that you're enjoying this stuff This material is useful to you that it's important to you that you've learned something that you know It's not something you've heard somewhere else because to be honest a lot of people out there talk about stuff They don't know anything about. I only talk about things that i've directly been doing for years.
[00:24:29] so let me tell you remote work is great.
[00:24:31] It's wonderful but it requires a a bit of a transformation mindset wise emotionally habits You know skill all of that. If you liked it and you you got value Please like and subscribe and come back for more leave comments. Please leave comments ask questions I'd love to answer any questions you have about this and guide you through whatever you're doing. Thanks for tuning in and I will catch you next time.
[00:24:50] See you guys
[00:24:51] just subscribe, you know you gotta do it.
