Much of what you’re hearing right now about remote work has focused on people who used to go into the office or plant every day and now find themselves working from home. Mostly, we are working with our same colleagues, just physically distant. But as this pandemic drags into the fifth month a lot of

Read More

If you’re already working from home, and not going into the office, why do you need to take time off? This was a real question a reporter asked me the other day.  My response was a carefully crafted list of reasons taking time off is important, no matter the circumstances. What I really wanted to

Read More

by Kevin Eikenberry, co-founder The Remote Leadership Institute Distress comes in many forms and from a variety of causes. As leaders, we want to help our team members be successful, and distress can be a serious barrier to successful outcomes. That is why we must understand the sources of distress before we can help people

Read More

No doubt you’ve heard the old phrase, “people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.” This is particularly true for people who work at a distance from their coworkers and their manager(s). Why is the risk of remote workers leaving higher than people who come into the office every day? There are a couple of simple

Read More

Regardless of our role – customer facing or not – as leaders, it is extremely important that we think about customer service. In the video below, I’m sharing a simple exercise that you can use individually or with your team to leverage lessons from a customer service disaster. Tweet it out: Use lessons from the

Read More

It’s that time of year, where people are breaking out their ugly sweaters, packing the calories onto paper plates under plastic wrap for sharing, and scrambling for babysitters so they can attend the Holiday/Christmas/End of Year/Whatever party. But what about those team members who aren’t able to attend these events because they work remotely? You

Read More

I feel sorry for HR people. They are responsible for the least predictable and most combustible resource a company has: human beings. They are often the last to be consulted when a business problem faces a company and the first to be called on for answers. This is true when it comes to setting remote

Read More

Video conferencing just isn’t the same as being there.  It’s easier to put on a happy face and pretend to be OK when things are just off.  Leaders and managers must be extra vigilant with remote team members to discover burnout and head off the effects.  It’s too easy to lose remote people to other

Read More

With all the headlines about the wonders of remote work, and how everyone will be happier and more productive if we let them work wherever they want, it’s important to offer this little reminder: Virtual teams are not right for every company or every worker. There, I said it. This came to mind because an

Read More