Why we need to stop saying “remote working”?

In the past years, companies have used different terms for people who work out of different offices or from home.

Some companies call them “distributed workforces” or “distance workers,” and then there is one of the most common, “remote employees.”

Can we take a step back for a moment and think about that last phrase, “remote employees?”

An HBR study* of 1,100 employees found that remote workers feel shunned and left out*. And more recent studies show that loneliness is the number one concern of “remote workers”.

In taking that a step further, what words come to mind when you hear the word “remote?”

The words that come to mind are likely things such as:

Desolate

Isolated

Nothing around

Lonely

Cutoff

And, if most of us are honest, that is the exact opposite of what we want our teams and organizations to feel.

Yet, we are consciously or subconsciously reinforcing the idea that they are alone and isolated simply by how we refer to where they are working from.

Regardless of where our employees are located, we want them to feel:

Included

Part of something bigger

Connected

Seen

Valued

At Coaching Right Now, we refer to this as virtual teams. Focusing on the integration, cohesion, and impact that high performing teams have.

This puts more focus on what they bring together than the distance between them. It puts more focus on what is, than what isn’t.

We’ve heard the phrase “perception is reality.” So, it’s our job to change the perception of how to have thriving and high performing virtual teams.