Lessons

Lesson Info

How to Pivot to a Remote Career

Pivoting to a remote role so I pulled these four steps from a chapter in my book living the remote dream which purchases of this course will get it is it's it's a how to guide on taking step bust up taking the approach to getting out of the office and what it's going to take so let's spread down these four steps the first one is preparing for more and so you know I could I could hear the groans already so to prepare for a remote role I have to prepare for even more you know it's like really I was trying to go remote so I wouldn't be so stressed and overwhelmed in life but what I've found is that more work is a far superior to mohr commute and more travel and it actually takes a much smaller toll on the body and gives you more purpose the thing that really ground my gears when I was commuting I said to myself, you know I feel like I'm working ten hours a day two of those were commuting when I could accomplish nothing I could help the organization zilch not at all I said you know what if...

I'm already doing ten hours imagine if I weren't remotely and actually worked for those ten hours I would actually rather work for ten hours then worked for eight and drive for two and I would be furthering the objectives of the organization and a lot of people believe in that because you've rather spend those two hours helping your colleagues helping your team were helping yourself if it's going to the gym or storing of enterprise anything beats commuting because there's just no productivity in that so preparing for more offering tio own more responsibility when you're thinking about what what do I need to position myself as and how do I need to position this to my manager offering their own more responsibility is a great way to start conversations where you say I want more responsibility and a promotion those are tough conversations because maybe the organization isn't in a position to offer up that promotion but if you say I want to own more responsibility and the only thing that I want from you is a little bit of flexibility on how much I have to commute that's a lot easier for them to sign off on it doesn't cost them anything the pml stays the same and honestly if they're able to get rid of your office all together they save a lot of money on facilities charges especially in big cities that office space cost the company a lot of money and so if they can get rid of that entirely you can actually save them money so pro tip if you're in if you're in a big city you could save him quite a bit by doing that it's always given take so if you're willing to give more of your time or take on more responsibility and an acceptance of that, you get to work somewhere else on your own terms that's it it's it's a constant given take so sometimes it might not be practical for you to work from home maybe there's this big project and you really have to be there that week sometimes you just have to do it you have to hop on a plane, you have to be in the office, you have to make the sacrifice but it's not so bad when you remember you get to fly back home or wherever you want after that's over there is a price for added freedom, especially if you're in a organization where most people have to go into the office every day if you're in a completely distributed environment it's a little bit different because the playing field is pretty level, but if it feels like you're the one getting the benefit of added freedom it's a reasonable expectation that you might have to work a little bit harder to get to pay for that time when this will be scrutinised muchmore than people that are in the office. If you have a project assigned to you and you're working remotely and it's due by end of day thursday, you better deliver by end of day thursday because the way everybody else will see this as they don't have to do the commute they don't have the distractions of the office what else are they doing? They need to get it done on time when you're in the office there's all those excuses to buy you time oh what joanna grabbed me over here for this and I wasn't expecting it I need one more day totally reasonable but when joanne is not in your house to grab you not such a reasonable expectation joanna is in your house might want to call the cops that cz probably probably not the greatest, so the second step is picking your targets. So once you've said you know what I'm willing to take on mohr, I'm willing to engage in some given take start thinking about specific examples what projects have you heard your manager colleagues complaining about? Are there certain things in the organization? They just need to be owned? These are things that just routinely come up his problems and we don't have the manpower for this we just we don't have the bandwidth to get this done if you hear of anything like that come up be the person that proactively says I am the bandwidth let's figure out a way to get this done what projects are in need of an owner, those projects they need to have you as the owner this is a great way to say I'm willing to take something on now let's, figure out a way for me to work remotely other areas where you could improve if you just decided to chart a course and make it happen all of this boils down to being really proactive more proactive than your colleagues that are in the office. So once you've lined all of this up, all we've talked about so far is preparatory work the conversation it's a tough one when you schedule a meeting with your manager and the agenda is let's figure out a way well, I don't have to see you as often but that's basically what it boils down to it's a tough conversation to have but my biggest tip on having that conversation is to be incredibly honest whatever it is that your yearning for that you can accomplish when you're in the office every day just be honest about what that isthe maybe it's you wantto better your health you want to spend more time on the trails you want to spend more time exercising you say you know what? If I'm commuting three hours a day where do I have time for this? I want to remove that commute, replace it with this and improve my health maybe it's more time with your spouse, your children, your family maybe you have parents that need taking care of these air riel riel issues that real people have and by getting out of the office we can help each other a lot more. We're just physically able to be there for people when we don't have to commute into an office and it's hard for a manager that has any amount of empathy to look at that and just completely blow it off, though at least consider it. Maybe you have a desire to live elsewhere, maybe have a wonderful job in new york city, but your family is all back in seattle and you really just want to be near them, but you don't want to give up on the organization entirely. You know, good talent is really hard to find, and most managers will say, you know what? We'd rather figure out a way how to work with you in a different time zone in a different place than to lose you entirely. And so, sometimes pivoting to a remote role is actually wiser than looking for a remote roll out of the gate, because if you can get in the door in an organization, make yourself valuable. Prove that euro value it's a lot easier to move on from that really our most popular question. We've got people voting on that. And people were curious to know you know which web sites to recommend for fine finding these remote jobs but you're saying it's really better to have the job and then transition to the remote it's a lot harder just find a straight remote job it is it's very difficult I will touch on a few sides that do have sallah solid amount of jobs for remote people but honestly, it's pretty tough a lot of of what you have to do now is sort of make your own way and it is easier the easiest route is to get into a job where you're at make yourself valuable of course it's it's wise to get into a job that you like yeah on find a place with people that you really like and you want to stay with because they're going to return the favor they're going to like you and they're gonna want you hanging around and then make the case once you're in there that's what happened for me currently I didn't fall into a job that was remote the job that was advertised definitely had a location it's in new york, new york and I said, well, I want this job I want to work with these people let's figure out a way to make it work on, so sometimes you it's not just gonna be thrown to you you've gotto be willing to work for it offering up a trial run I think is really really important if you run into a manager or a situation where you can just tell they're not going to be thrilled with the idea of you leaving the office and working remotely even a few days a week say look let's let's give this a shot I'm willing to take on this project all I want is a few days home and I'm going to deliver results and if this doesn't work if I can't make good on my promise in a month or a quarter I'll come back in it's like this never happened it's pretty tough to say no to that because then it's all on you to make good on it s o the trial run it's if you need to go there if they're just not willing to commit right out of the gate most decent managers will say all right let's give this a shot if you can prove that you can still be productive from wherever you're at then we'll go with it the last step beyond look out so this is looking beyond where you are now on and most of this ties into what you need to do what remote workers have to do that in office workers don't really have to do it maintain a list of your remote accomplishments it's actually astonishing how few of your accomplishments are remembered in an office when you're not there because e mails and projects are easy to submit in the byline kind of gets forgot it's like us long as the project shows up the clients happy, great, we live to see another day when your face isn't there to be attached to it. Sometimes it could be disconnected, and especially for humble folks it's like you don't, you don't even want to think about having to keep track of your accomplishments, but when it comes time for the performance review, if your face hasn't been there all year, it's easy for a manager to think about is what did you do? I didn't see you all year, so it's kind of on you to track those and say, well, I did this this and this so keep on that, and also the secondary benefit of that is if you have a list of accomplishments and you noticed that it hasn't grown in a bit, that might be a signal that, uh, either your work situation needs to change or you need to double down it's, just good to have that around. Update your resume. Remote workers are highly valued if they could be very productive, but business changes really fast in an office setting. And if you're not there to sort of build a report with people, you might be first on the chopping block. You always have to be ready for it and proactively outreach for your next big thing. Don't get. Don't get settled where you're at. If you are working remotely, you always need to be keeping a check on linked in opportunities, keeping up with your friends and your colleagues that air on business portals such is linked in, because how else are you going to know joe chaise jobs? He went over here. He knows someone over here. You don't have those office run ins, so you have to dedicate time to using the internet to scour for these types of networking things that would you would just see in an office you would hear about this so and so went to some office, so and so went to some new job that's on you now to figure out how to keep on top of that.