Author Archives: Distributed Editors

Episode 22: Raj Choudhury Sees a Future Where You Don’t Have to Move Your Family for a Job

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“We have introduced so many frictions to people’s lives by forcing them to move.”

Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, the Lumry Family Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, studies the future of work — specifically the changing geography of work. What happens to cities, to immigration policies, and to issues around gender equity when more companies let people work from anywhere?

Choudhury earned his doctorate from Harvard, has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management. Prior to academia, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, and IBM.

For more on Choudhury, go to HBS.edu or follow him on Twitter (@prithwic).

The full episode transcript is below.

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Are We at the End of the “Culture of Presentism and Micromanagement”?

Back in April, when entire sectors of the economy had just recently — and abruptly — transitioned to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Mullenweg shared an aspirational roadmap, describing the five levels of autonomy companies go through along their journey from fully colocated to truly distributed. With increasing signs that we might never go back to the old normal, Enrique Dans, at Forbes, reflects on what executives and employees alike have learned in the intervening months. He takes Matt’s five levels as a starting point to ask how our collective understanding of remote work has changed as well, and what the near future might hold.

Where are we headed? Toward levels 4 and 5, characterized by the optimization of working practices, which means changing the synchronous-asynchronous balance: fewer rounds of endless video conferences and more short videos recorded for later viewing, much more Slackand similar communication tools, along with less time spent sitting in front of a screen listening to other people. Shared documents people can work on synchronously — coordinating in the chat window — or asynchronously are infinitely more effective than a marathon video conference. A spreadsheet, text document, or presentation that requires input from several people is an ideal solution for Google Docs, Office 360, or any of their competitors.

Head to Forbes to read the rest of Enrique Dans’ article.

Distributed FAQ: What Does the Ideal Remote Office Setup Look Like?

In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.

Q. Who at Automattic has the best office setup — and what does an ideal remote office look like?

A. The short answer is: nobody and everybody.

When people join Automattic, we provide an allowance they can spend on setting up their home office. They can invest in an ergonomic chair, a standing desk, a good monitor, or almost any other item that would make their workspace more comfortable.

One of the best things about working from home, however, is that everyone gets to have a corner office — or their version thereof. You can avoid compromises that you would have to make in a shared office. This goes beyond the choice of furniture; for example, music is something that can help some people when they’re feeling low and need to change a mood or mindset. In a traditional office, they’d need to use headphones. In their home office, they can do whatever works for them.

Having complete agency over your physical environment is incredibly empowering and can inspire people to be more creative and productive.  It also makes us more inclusive as a company, and allows us to attract a talent pool that includes people for whom an office isn’t the best environment.

Check out our Tools and Gear page for specific recommendations, and listen to Matt’s conversation with Lydia X. Z. Brown about flexible and inclusive work environments.

Episode 21: Morra Aarons-Mele on Introversion and Anxiety in Remote Work

Subscribe to Distributed at Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you like to listen.

Is working from home a breakthrough for introverts?

The answer, of course, is not so simple. Matt Mullenweg’s latest Distributed conversation is with Morra Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents from Harvard Business Review, and founder of award-winning social impact agency Women Online and its database of women influencers, The Mission List.

She’s also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home).

To learn more about Aarons-Mele’s work, go to womenandwork.org.

The full episode transcript is below.

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Distributed FAQ: How Did P2 Become Automattic’s Signature Mode of Communication?

In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.

Q. Automattic is known for using internal blogs called P2s for most work-related conversations. How and why did that happen?

A. In Automattic’s early days, we collaborated a lot directly in the code, or on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), a Slack precursor. We quickly realized that it wasn’t great for asynchronous discussions, and when we tried email instead, it didn’t allow for the transparency that is the hallmark of open source (it also brought a lot of noise with it). Finally, we ditched email and moved to an internal blogging system. P2 is the evolution of the blog for the purpose of working within and across teams. It’s organized much like a Yammer or Facebook stream, but on the back end it still operates like a blog, allowing for archiving, advanced search, and rich media embeds. 

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Why Distributed Companies Will Likely Move Away from Location-Based Compensation

Managing a remote workforce comes with obvious benefits (no pricy office space, for one), but also with some distinct complexities. With potential employees applying to a variety of positions from dozens of countries around the world, it can be a tall order to create salary ranges that are equitable, fair, and scalable. But as Matt Mullenweg recently explained in an interview with Connie Loizos at TechCrunch, getting this right is a crucial goal and an ongoing process for any distributed company that wants to hire from a geographically diverse talent pool.

Among other highlights, Matt mentioned that ethical considerations and macro-economic trends will push more and more companies in the direction of location-agnostic salaries:

“Long term,” said Mullenweg, “I think market forces and the mobility of talent will force employers to stop discriminating on the basis of geography for geographically agnostic roles.” He also said that while he isn’t aware of location or geography currently being a protected class for pay discrimination suits — at least in the U.S. — he thinks that for “moral and competitive reasons, companies will move toward globally fair compensation over time with roles that can be done from anywhere.”

Read the rest of the interview on TechCrunch

Photo via Pexels

How to Produce a Remote Podcast

As the world continues to work from home, podcasts are serving as a helpful diversion to listen to when we’re washing dishes or walking the dog. 

They’re fairly easy to produce from home, too. 

Many of the conversations we’ve featured on the Distributed podcast have taken place over Zoom, with each of us calling in from our respective home cities. In the spirit of transparency, we thought we’d share some of our best practices and must-have equipment:

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Distributed FAQ: How Do You Create Company Culture When You Rarely See Your Colleagues?

In Distributed FAQ, Matt Mullenweg addresses some of the most common issues companies, executives, and individuals face as they consider transitioning to a distributed model.

Q. Trust and a strong shared culture are two ingredients that help companies thrive. How do you build either when coworkers don’t meet each other in the hallway every day?

A: Culture is what people do when no one is looking. Companies redefine their culture in real time whether they’re distributed or colocated.

In more normal times, meetups are key to Automattic’s culture — employees expect 3-4 weeks of travel per year, one of which is devoted to the company-wide Grand Meetup, and the rest to team and division meetups. We’ve seen that you can build trust and create bonds when you break bread across a table and meet in person, and then use that momentum to power relationships for years when everyone’s back in their home base.

But even these days, when travel is suspended for the foreseeable future, there are many ways to foster trust and to reinforce Automattic’s values and culture. We put a lot of emphasis on social communication at the company, leveraging the same tools we use for our work — P2, Slack, Zoom — to encourage informal interactions. For example, many teams start weekly meetings with a fun, non-work-related question. We created automated systems that can pair people up to chat about any topic they wish, and recently launched Connectomattic, a series of video calls based on shared interests and experiences, from meditation to baking.

Ultimately, we believe in giving teams autonomy to create a culture that works for them.

For more thoughts on culture and trust in distributed settings, listen to Matt’s conversation with Glitch CEO Anil Dash.