Laurel Farrer
Remote Work Consultant, Founder/CEO
Welcome to the tenth edition of Async Chats! This letter is all about candid conversations with people like yourself. If you’d like some more context see this letter. Otherwise, let’s get into this.
Laurel is a Remote Work Consultant and the Founder/ CEO of Distribute Consulting. She is located in Connecticut, USA and is a remote worker.
What are your interests outside of work?
Art, gardening, yoga, reading
What are some of your favorite digital or physical tools?
Slack, Canva, Marco Polo, Google Suite
Do you prefer to work/ communicate asynchronously or synchronously? Why?
Asynchronously. I do well with a very quiet, independent work environment, so asynchronous work allows me to think at my own pace without the pressure of social observation. However, I love leveraging synchronous check ins to optimize my accountability and prevent feelings of social isolation.
Questions of the week:
Based on this edition of The Gray Area.
Can we have relationships remotely?
Absolutely. Good relationships — both personal and professional — are based on principles like effective communication, mutual respect, shared trust, and empathy. Because we have been raised in a proximity-biased society, we feel like we need to be in person to build these, but shared time is only one conduit through which we can facilitate these principles. When we explore asynchronous and virtual interactions, we realize that there are several other touchpoints that we can leverage to learn about each other. For example, we can see that someone is consistent and dependable by seeing their track record in a project management system, or we can express that we trusted them more after they sent an honest message about a mistake that they made. The more that we focus on who people are (instead of where they are), the more we’ll be able to build valuable, sustainable connections with anyone we meet.
Does the quality of the relationship have to suffer?
Absolutely not. I’ve built some of my deepest relationships — both personal and professional — without meeting in person until months or years later. I’ve learned to trust people on their consistency, their results, and their original ideas, instead of how comfortable I feel with them. Then, when we finally do meet in person, the energy that we feel when we’re together just enhances the bond we share.
You’ve mentioned that virtual professionals excel at remote relationships both in their personal and professional lives, why?
Virtual communication (in a professional context) requires more frequency, transparency, and consistency in order to be effective. This is because our verbal and written messages need to be enhanced in order to compensate for the non-verbal and contextual cues that are missing from not being in person. Over long periods of time working with these types of communication habits, we become more comfortable with being more proactive, responsive, vulnerable, and empathetic in all areas of our personalities and relationships.
Can remote relationships negatively impact our in-person relationships?
Of course, just like in-person relationships can negatively impact remote relationships. It all depends on how you’re managing the connection, not where the connection was built. When workers assume that how a peer acts online is how they’ll act in person, they’re often surprised, disappointed, or even frustrated. Communicating asynchronously is a different skill than communicating synchronously, and both need to be nurtured equally. We need to remember that human behavior is contextual and subjective, so we need to give everyone the freedom and safety to act differently in different environments.
Even deeper, if we’re using virtual environments to hide from or escape in-person interactions, we’re not applying the principles of workplace flexibility effectively. Remote work isn’t supposed to replace the office, it’s supposed to enhance it. We always will need a balance of both on-site and off-site work in order to optimize our productivity, cultural integration, and brand loyalty.
Do you have any tips to foster meaningful remote relationships?
When it comes to building relationships, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. How you got to know someone in person (sharing 15ish minutes of casual small talk) is exactly the same method that you can use virtually as well — just jump on a call to talk about anything other than work. In fact, the more that you apply good in-person social skills in a virtual environment, the more that the people around you will feel comfortable and grow to trust you. So, if you wouldn’t say it in person, don’t type it online or say it in a video call. Emotional intelligence is just as important as ever.
What is something few people know about you?
I struggle with social anxiety. In the beginning of my career, this was one reason that I was so relieved to work from home, because I was so much more productive without having to worry about and be distracted by the interpersonal dynamics (and drama!) of the office. However, it only took a few years of “hiding” in my home office for my invisibility to become an obstacle for my career development. So, I’ve had to work very hard to learn how to network on social media and engage with coworkers in a way that strengthens my career, while still feeling safe psychologically. So, while I seem outgoing and extroverted in a virtual environment, many people are shocked to see how differently I behave than they expect when we’re in person.
Anything new or important you’d like to mention to the readers?
Here at Distribute, we love helping companies build virtual work environments that attract a wide variety of candidates and retain top talent with strong employee engagement strategies. Through what we call a Virtual Culture Map, we consult employers on how to convert their company culture for virtual environments, build rituals that optimize trust and creativity in their teams, then describe employee experience in a way that attracts professionals with working styles and career goals that match the company’s.
Links
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Great stuff. I would love to appear if you think I am a fit.