Remote CEO Job van der Voort on the Best Approaches for Creating a Functional Remote Work Environment
In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by the CEO of Remote, Job van der Voort. We discuss overcoming common mistakes when creating a remote work environment, how to build culture remotely and what we can do to support that culture.
The values of “kindness, ownership, excellence, transparency and ambition” go a long way to building and maintaining a healthy remote work environment.
Listen to this episode to learn about how remote work is not the same as in-person work, and why we can’t treat it like it is.
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Remote CEO Job van der Voort on the Best Approach for Creating a Functional Remote Work Environment
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Overcoming Common Mistakes When Creating a Remote Work Environment
The first thing that Job makes clear is that “if you start working remotely, you have to embrace it fully.” Furthermore, “you cannot replicate the office environment in a remote environment because they are not comparable.”
For example, a two-hour Zoom meeting is not the same as a two-hour in-person meeting. The freedom to roam, take breaks and mill about in an office setting is not the same as having to stay in front of a computer screen for two straight hours. That simple example shows a need to avoid replicating in-person meetings in a remote setting.
And if you want to fully embrace remote work, Job recommends ditching rigid schedules and replacing them with flexible schedules.
Also essential is to document everything. Information can be free-flowing in-person because “you’re always together in the same space.” You can’t ask each other questions as they arise in the same way in a remote environment. Instead, you’ll need to adopt practices for people to retain information remotely, such as asynchronous communication.
How to Build Culture Remotely
During the transition to remote or hybrid, one of the recurring themes you hear about is building culture in a remote environment. Since Remote has grown from 15 employees to 400 in less than two years, I wanted to get Job’s thoughts on intentional culture-building in a fully distributed workforce.
Job explains that you must start with solid foundations. “We have a clear mission that we hope to achieve. And then, we have clear values: kindness, ownership, excellence, transparency and ambition. And so we try to do everything according to those values.”
Transparency is just as important, because nothing works without trust. Job shares the way Remote approaches transparency. “I do my best to overshare. Anything that I feel like -- ‘Should I make this public or internally or not?’ --- I always share. And I always make it transparent. That creates a company culture where you can be held accountable but also creates a lot of trust with everybody.”
Creating and fostering employee connections will improve attitudes overall. You have to make time to ensure that people get along and connect. Job has found a way to do that at Remote. One small example: Giving employees virtual reality headsets. In 2020, “we had a little Christmas party in VR,” Job says.
Supporting Employee Growth and Culture Remotely
I wanted to know more. I asked Job what he looks for in HR leaders and in people leaders that allows them to successfully support employee growth and culture in a distributed environment.
Empathy, empathy, empathy. “I think being kind aligns with our values. And just being someone that takes ownership of things and makes things happen,” Job says. “Defaulting to action, I think, is the best property, especially if you think about people roles. It gives immense trust in the people that you work with if you can show them that, whatever they come to you with, that you actually do something with that.”
Job knows it isn’t always easy for organizations to be transparent. But once you strike a balance, you’ve set your organization apart.