1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:03,560 Speaker 1: What if just sitting in the same office as someone 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,480 Speaker 1: wasn't the key to connection at all. On today's quick 3 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:10,440 Speaker 1: Win episode, we dive into how you can actually keep 4 00:00:10,440 --> 00:00:13,640 Speaker 1: people connected when they're scattered around the world, or at 5 00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:17,200 Speaker 1: least not in the same office every day. You'll hear 6 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:21,560 Speaker 1: from Avani Prugophar, who is the chief people officer for 7 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:24,759 Speaker 1: a Lassian, the global tech company with more than thirteen 8 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:29,400 Speaker 1: thousand employees. She's been experimenting with distributed ways of working 9 00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:32,440 Speaker 1: long before COVID forced the rest of us to catch up, 10 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000 Speaker 1: and by the end of this episode, you will have 11 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,080 Speaker 1: a concrete framework you can borrow to help your own 12 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:42,600 Speaker 1: team feel more connected, even if you're thousands of kilometers apart. 13 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:51,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, 14 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:55,280 Speaker 1: and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor 15 00:00:55,320 --> 00:01:04,280 Speaker 1: Amantha Imber. So what's the difference between remote first versus 16 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:06,160 Speaker 1: a distributed first model? 17 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:09,760 Speaker 2: So, A, we believe that the future of work is 18 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:13,080 Speaker 2: going to be distributed, and even as we speak, teams 19 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:14,600 Speaker 2: are fairly distributed. 20 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:14,560 Speaker 1: In the world. 21 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:17,000 Speaker 2: How the work is coming together, It's no longer the 22 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,960 Speaker 2: office concept. Same people working in the same office, working 23 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:22,760 Speaker 2: on the same thing. It's fairly distributed, So that's the 24 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:27,800 Speaker 2: difference remote. Often people associate remote means work from home, 25 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:30,840 Speaker 2: you know, or remote means like you're not coming into office, 26 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:33,480 Speaker 2: and distributed means you can come into office or you 27 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,560 Speaker 2: can work from home, so it can actually be wherever 28 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:40,040 Speaker 2: you want it to be. That's the clear differentiation. What 29 00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:43,840 Speaker 2: we mean by distributed first though, means I'll make it 30 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:47,400 Speaker 2: real with an example. So for example, the four people 31 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:50,480 Speaker 2: in a team, three of them are in office whatever, 32 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:52,800 Speaker 2: like you know, they all decided to go into office 33 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,480 Speaker 2: one day and the fourth person is logging in from Melbourne. 34 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:59,160 Speaker 2: They're not in Sydney, for example. Are the three people 35 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:01,040 Speaker 2: who are sitting in office will have to go in 36 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:04,200 Speaker 2: three different pods or meeting rooms to make sure they 37 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,680 Speaker 2: optimize for distributed first experience, which is the person who's 38 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,720 Speaker 2: logging in from home. You optimize for that. So you know, 39 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 2: where you have one person on zoom and three people 40 00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:14,640 Speaker 2: sitting in a meeting room, you're not optimizing for a 41 00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:17,880 Speaker 2: remote distributed first mindset, that's what we mean by that. 42 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really helpful. I would love to know when 43 00:02:21,639 --> 00:02:25,720 Speaker 1: you first moved to the team anywhere model, What were 44 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:29,320 Speaker 1: some of the more unusual challenges that you had to overcome, 45 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,720 Speaker 1: things that you didn't even think would be a challenge. 46 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,560 Speaker 2: So I would say this was all and maybe I'll 47 00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:38,560 Speaker 2: zoom back, because everyone associates there's ways of working model 48 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:42,280 Speaker 2: post COVID and pre COVID, post pandemic, pre pandemic. I 49 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 2: think for us as at Lasan as a company, we 50 00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:48,079 Speaker 2: were experimenting heavily in the future of work being remote 51 00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:50,840 Speaker 2: at that point in time with small teams, so we 52 00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:54,320 Speaker 2: had about eight percent of our teams already working wherever 53 00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:56,040 Speaker 2: they wanted to work that time you used to call 54 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 2: it remote. When pandemic happened, for us, it was like 55 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:02,639 Speaker 2: we had enough data points to say like this in 56 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,680 Speaker 2: this works at scale, it works for everyone, so we 57 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 2: are going ahead and doing it. So I think for us, 58 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,760 Speaker 2: the approach was like we put our stakes in the ground, 59 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:14,040 Speaker 2: this is what we believe, and we just go from there. 60 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:16,639 Speaker 2: So it was pretty much a one way door decision, 61 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:19,360 Speaker 2: and we knew we are taking a one way door decision. 62 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:21,200 Speaker 2: What it means is like once you make it, there's 63 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,399 Speaker 2: no coming back from it. So when you make decisions 64 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:26,680 Speaker 2: like that with that premise, I think it's much easier 65 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:29,680 Speaker 2: to solve for it what we learned. And I can 66 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:32,400 Speaker 2: tell you being a HR person like it was, it 67 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:34,519 Speaker 2: wasn't part of my DNA to say like, hey, let's 68 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:36,080 Speaker 2: just roll with it and then we'll figure it out. 69 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:38,120 Speaker 2: I'm like, we're talking about people like we need to 70 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 2: put some policies in place, we need to put some 71 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,720 Speaker 2: checks and balance, says what will retell employees? And this 72 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:44,680 Speaker 2: was the first time where I think it tested my 73 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:47,400 Speaker 2: I would say DNA as well as HI to say no, 74 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 2: we're doing it now, we'll figure it out, which meant 75 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 2: at every stage had to go back and tell people 76 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:55,760 Speaker 2: we don't know about this. So I don't have an 77 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:57,960 Speaker 2: answer for what happens to your internal mobility if you 78 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:00,200 Speaker 2: move from here to here. I do not know what 79 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:02,640 Speaker 2: is the tax implication. I do not know what will happen, 80 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 2: but hang in there. We are working through it, right. 81 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:08,160 Speaker 2: So I think that approach itself is very important to 82 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:10,760 Speaker 2: call out because it's very different. Otherwise most of the 83 00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:13,360 Speaker 2: other companies we like, let's write down all of that, 84 00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:16,279 Speaker 2: put it to tea and then we take it versus 85 00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:17,920 Speaker 2: this was like we're doing it. So I think what 86 00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:20,920 Speaker 2: it helped us was we did a lot of experimentation. 87 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:22,640 Speaker 2: So I'll give you an example in terms of we 88 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,040 Speaker 2: are figuring it out, things like collabse zones. We call 89 00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:28,080 Speaker 2: them collaboration zones in terms of what type of work 90 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 2: can happen across different time zones. What is a good 91 00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:34,680 Speaker 2: amount of overlap? Is four hours overlap between Sydney and 92 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,960 Speaker 2: West Coast California. Is that a good amount of collaboration 93 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:41,359 Speaker 2: time zone for people to work on the same thing? Right? 94 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,800 Speaker 2: Does it make sense for somebody in Sydney to work 95 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,599 Speaker 2: with somebody in London? Maybe not? The overlap is not there. 96 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:49,920 Speaker 2: So I think when we were kind of listing it down, 97 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,280 Speaker 2: it gave us a clear framework in terms of the 98 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:55,880 Speaker 2: what are the real pillars that we'll have to really 99 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,200 Speaker 2: establish as we think through it. So one was that 100 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:01,320 Speaker 2: how distributed the work can be, how do you solve 101 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:04,480 Speaker 2: for productivity? Like everyone wanted to make sure that we 102 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:06,160 Speaker 2: are not burning people out and we are making sure 103 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:08,560 Speaker 2: that we are doing the right thing. Third thing was 104 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:12,200 Speaker 2: about connection and I think connection was the most interesting 105 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:15,920 Speaker 2: I would say part that we unpacked during this learning 106 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,080 Speaker 2: in terms of there's so much, so many myths around connection, 107 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:21,720 Speaker 2: starting from the fact that, hey, you build connection when 108 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,760 Speaker 2: you're sitting next to each other in office. So I 109 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:26,560 Speaker 2: can talk a bit about more. But that was one 110 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:27,680 Speaker 2: of the most interesting part. 111 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:31,240 Speaker 1: I would love to know more about connection because I 112 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:34,960 Speaker 1: think it's one of the biggest challenges that leaders grapple with. 113 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:36,800 Speaker 1: So how have you solved for connection? 114 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:41,000 Speaker 2: So what we learned, and again I will always emphasize 115 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,719 Speaker 2: that this is our learning and our journey and probably 116 00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 2: each organization has their own experiences. What we learned was 117 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,120 Speaker 2: connection wasn't built by sporadic office attendants where people just 118 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:54,600 Speaker 2: show up and you know, you assume like the water 119 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:56,760 Speaker 2: cooler chat and like going out for a coffee is 120 00:05:56,760 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 2: when you build connection. What we found out was when 121 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:03,880 Speaker 2: you you bring people intentionally together. We call them intentional togetherness. 122 00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:06,840 Speaker 2: That's our framework. It's called ITG So we every once 123 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,920 Speaker 2: every quarter. If you bring teams together, and it can 124 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:13,599 Speaker 2: be cross functional teams, not like your hierarchical teams. You 125 00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:16,080 Speaker 2: bring the teams that are trying to solve a particular problem. 126 00:06:16,160 --> 00:06:19,960 Speaker 2: So you bring them together, give them a strategic problem 127 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:23,080 Speaker 2: to solve. It could be an ideation, sprint, it could 128 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:26,840 Speaker 2: be a strategic brainstorm, whatever it is. But you bring 129 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,200 Speaker 2: together teams for a purpose to solve something, and that's 130 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,599 Speaker 2: when you build real connection. Most of the time people 131 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:34,920 Speaker 2: remember like you know each other, like hey, remember we 132 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:37,320 Speaker 2: were doing that project together and it was socialty, but 133 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:39,440 Speaker 2: they build the most amount of connection with each other. 134 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:42,080 Speaker 2: So the way we have solved for connection is really 135 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:46,240 Speaker 2: doing once every quarter. Itgs and every team can decide 136 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:48,880 Speaker 2: what framework works for them once every quarter, once every 137 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:50,880 Speaker 2: three months based on the nature of the work the 138 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:53,320 Speaker 2: cross functional team is working on. They come together, they 139 00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:56,080 Speaker 2: spend two three days together on doing a particular thing, 140 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,680 Speaker 2: doing some connection, you know, team building stuff, and then 141 00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:01,039 Speaker 2: they go back and then that connection last for like 142 00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:03,400 Speaker 2: another two three months and then you come back again. 143 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:07,039 Speaker 2: So you don't need an in office attendance to build connection. 144 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:09,200 Speaker 2: It is more in terms of you bring people together 145 00:07:09,279 --> 00:07:12,400 Speaker 2: for purpose to solve something, ad a cadence that work 146 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:14,480 Speaker 2: for the team, and then you go back and solve it. 147 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:17,960 Speaker 1: What struck me most with my chat with a Varni 148 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:21,560 Speaker 1: is how connection didn't come from random office days. It 149 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:25,040 Speaker 1: came from intentionally bringing people together once a quarter to 150 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:29,480 Speaker 1: solve a real problem, and that is what created bonds. 151 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:33,560 Speaker 1: That lasted far beyond a few days. So next time 152 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:36,600 Speaker 1: you're worrying about how to keep your team close, try this. 153 00:07:37,280 --> 00:07:42,360 Speaker 1: Forget about mandating office attendance. Instead, design purposeful moments where 154 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:46,360 Speaker 1: people come together to work on something that matters. And 155 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:47,960 Speaker 1: of course, if you would like to hear the full 156 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,360 Speaker 1: conversation with a Varnie, you will find a link to 157 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:53,520 Speaker 1: that in the show notes. If you like today's show, 158 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:56,520 Speaker 1: make sure you hit follow on your podcast app to 159 00:07:56,520 --> 00:08:00,120 Speaker 1: be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was 160 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 1: recorded on the traditional land of the Warringery people, part 161 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:03,960 Speaker 1: of the Kulin nation.