How Dia Does Distributed
Anyone who has met me knows I passionately believe a flexible remote culture is the way of the future. My passion comes in part because it is the future I’m building for myself. I could pontificate for hours about the whys and what-fors but that, my friends, is a different topic for a different day. Suffice to say, I have a vested interest in helping build and create what I want here at Dia&Co. Here’s how we’re building a culture that promotes lasting success for remote employees on our engineering team at Dia&Co.
It all starts (for me of course) in my interview at Dia, when I asked about transitioning to a remote employee, in fact, becoming the first remote employee on the engineering team. My manager didn’t so much as bat an eye at this request. While I was excited, I was also optimistically cautious. I realized that becoming the first remote employee of a co-located team was going to present several challenges. Some I knew and some I didn’t even know enough to know (isn’t that the way with most things?). So I started with a few simple and overarching questions:
- Is it possible to work remotely in this organization and be effective?
- Will leadership provide the necessary support for remote work to be successful on this team?
- How do my teammates feel about a remote co-worker?
- Can I work as effectively with my team when I am remote as when I’m in the office?
Is it possible to work remotely in this organization and be effective?
Lucky for me, there were examples that I could leverage to answer some of my questions. We already had two business critical teams that were distributed. A flexible work from home culture was embraced and actively promoted. And get this!, not just by engineering, but throughout our entire organization. Dia&Co has been building a business with co-located teams, remote employees and distributed teams since its inception.
It didn’t take me long to realize that Dia was not using “remote” as a buzzword to draw in tech talent. We all know that company — the one that says you can work from home but there seems to be a passive aggressive sigh or rearrangement of schedules and meetings to accommodate the “flexible” schedule. The water cooler comments about what people are “really working on” when they are working remotely. To say nothing about the willingness or desire to make sure the employee is productive and happy in a remote role.
I do think it’s important here to delineate between a company that uses “remote work” as a recruitment tactic or as a “perk” to remain competitive and one that actively supports and builds the business to allow for productive remote work. It’s important to make this distinction because it is directly reflected in your ability to be an impactful member of the team while working remotely.
Are you able to attend meetings and actively participate in the discussion when all attendees are in one room with the exception of you? Are you being pulled into conversations that pertain to your area of expertise even when you are remote? Are there mechanisms in place that mark your productivity and/or solve for any productivity issues that may arise? Are you able to contribute to your team remotely? Are you someone who works well in a remote environment? Are you allowed the ability to explore if this option is right for you? These are some of the key differences you’ll find between those two organizations.
Will leadership provide the necessary support for remote work to be successful on this team?
It speaks volumes that at Dia, a member of our executive leadership is remote and that other members of our executive leadership team embrace working from home themselves. They demonstrate the balance necessary to contribute, be visible and available and lead while they themselves are distributed.
Additionally, Dia doesn’t let employees who are inexperienced with working remotely go remote right away because this can set them up for failure. If someone has remote experience already, no problem, but for someone interested in making the transition to remote for the first time, we spend time acclimating the employee and their fellow team members to a remote context. This is an important step for those who haven’t worked remotely before because remote work isn’t for everyone and teams that haven’t had remote members before need to get used to the new dynamic. This way, we don’t force a remote culture, we embrace a blended culture where those who prefer to be in the office and those who prefer to be remote are both well supported.
Minimally, every conference room is equipped with video conferencing software but what’s more impressive is when we discovered our first video conferencing software was subpar — we made the necessary changes to improve the situation. In addition to tooling, as the engineering team looks to hire our Director of Engineering, one of the criteria they are being benchmarked against is their ability to lead team members who are remote. These were just a few of the clear indications that remote life at Dia is not only foundational and cultural, but actively reinforced by leadership. So at Dia&Co, if you need to work from home or take a trip and work remotely, there really isn’t anything to it — just add it to the calendar, let your team know and be on your way. If there are any issues, there will be communication and a problem solving approach to make sure everyone is happy and productive. With all of this, you can feel secure in the fact that should we determine other flaws that hinder remote, distributed or co-located team members, we’ll work to resolve that issue as well.
How do my teammates feel about a remote co-worker?
Just because I talk about leadership support first, does not in any way make it the most important factor to consider. In fact, I would go as far as to say the success or failure lies directly in the hands of the team. While I’m not one to believe in making business decisions based on feelings, the feelings of our team surrounding working with and collaborating with remote members is critical in how we navigate this transition. Some parts of distributed communication can be challenging at best. Asking someone who isn’t already bought in to an idea, to then accommodate that idea, makes things more difficult to manage. Luckily, I encountered no resistance as I broached this subject with the team. In fact, I was met with enthusiastic support.
In hindsight, that response should have been obvious. I work with a team that is excited for challenges, that with no egos or titles will sit down and talk through problems with the intent to solve them. A team that isn’t interested in recreating what we’ve already seen but relying on our collective expertise to create what we want to see. After all, when you mind your culture, you might find yourself surrounded by a group of talented, open minded individuals who are ready to solve this problem with you. And that’s exactly where I’ve found myself.
Can I work as effectively with my team when I am remote as when I’m in the office?
So that brings me to my final question, given the team and my responsibilities, is it possible to deliver while being remote? This question has taken some field research to answer. In my eight months at Dia, I have spent collectively close to 3 months working remotely. I have worked from California, Kansas, South Dakota and Staten Island. In basements, on couches, at kitchen tables and from the comfort of my own home. I can honestly say, that regardless of my location — my ability to interact with my team and actively contribute hasn’t been hindered. There are a lot of little things that we’ve adjusted and talked about to make that possible.
An example of this, is when I first started participating in meetings remotely, there were a few that I attended from someone’s laptop in the room while on a Google Hangout (we’ve all been there). I found those meetings hard to follow and hard to be an active participant. I mentioned this to our CTO and to the team in retro. Since that time, we have made a point to schedule meetings in rooms with video conferencing equipment. Now, I am able to actively participate in the conversation and/or meeting — not just because the equipment is available, but also because I am being treated as if I am in the room not just an afterthought. Another example, is how we’ve moved from daily standup at 10:15am EST in a meeting room with a hangout laptop to providing our daily standup updates with a slack bot in a channel.
There are sure to be other challenges as we build this flexibility in to our team and add distributed team members; however, I have zero doubts that we will overcome them with our ego free, autonomous and iterative approach to problem solving.
If this flexible culture speaks to you, we’d love to talk to you about joining our exceptional team. Get in touch!
