The current pandemic has forced American software companies to allow their employees to work remotely…something many of them have been very resistant towards. Now that they have no choice, they make it seem like this “transition” is extremely difficult. It isn’t.
Nearly every US software company has multiple locations throughout the US, and often outside of the US. Most of the time, software teams are disbursed between two or more of those locations. This means that team meetings take place via internet. In my husband’s case, the out of state team members were already remote workers, yet the company still claimed that “transitioning” to full remote was a “difficult strain” and have been looking for every excuse they can find to force employees back into the office (including attempting to claim that they were ‘essential’).
Why are these companies so resistant to their employees working remotely?
I don’t have any real evidence to help me answer this question. All I have is an educated guess based on intuition and observation. I see mid sized and large American corporations with C-suite executives who often do not have the right background to run a software company. Many of them want software to behave like a factory, but it doesn’t. Instead of trying to understand software and technology, they try to force the technology to behave the way they want it to. When that doesn’t happen (for obvious reasons) they blame the employees, distrust those employees, and want to keep constant tabs on everything those employees say and do.
This is such an ancient mentality. So many corporate heads come from a generation of people who believe that everyone must conform to the same schedule and the same methods. Whenever I think about it I’m reminded of the video for Pink Floyd The Wall, part 2. Everybody looks the same, filing one-by-one into the meat grinder. My last blog on remote work covered why this is wrong. What I don’t get is why so many corporate leaders just refuse to believe the experts.
What I find to be worse is when Agile gets caught in the crossfire. C-suite executives rarely understand the technology much less any framework designed to help engineers create the technology. Certainly, pure Agile works best on a small scale. But these companies even corrupt scaled Agile (SAFe). They do this by cherry picking the aspects of Agile they like and discarding the rest. By doing this, they cause more harm than good.
One aspect of Agile that always seems to be cherry picked is the concept of face-to-face collaboration. This concept is used by companies to justify their resistance to remote work. Companies need to understand some things:
Agile only works properly when it is used properly.
SAFe isn’t just a bunch of cherry picked aspects of Agile. It’s a carefully constructed version of the Agile framework scaled up for larger projects.
Lack of transparency creates a culture of distrust.
When C-suite executives stay aloof, sit in their offices all of the time, hide information from their employees, and/or lie about what goes on in the company, employees will not trust management.
When management surveils their employees, installs tracking/recording software on the employees’ computers, don’t want employees to work remotely, it tells employees that management does not trust the employees.
Breeding a culture of distrust lowers the employees’ investment in the company, increases their apathy toward the company and their work.
Incorrectly using Agile principles against employees to get what you want enhances the culture of distrust.
Software engineers, certified product owners, scrum masters, and anyone else trained in Agile understand how it works. By cherry picking different aspects that further whatever agenda you have, all that’s happening is a stronger culture of distrust is being created.
I may not understand the drive behind resisting remote work or the need to create a culture of distrust, but I do know some ways for top executives to get back in touch with what really matters – the people who keep the company alive.
Understand what you do.
It blew my mind when I heard the C-suite executives at my husband’s company say that they were a “finance company.” These guys were so out of touch that they didn’t even know what the company really does! They are actually a software company that makes finance software that they sell to businesses. That may not sound like a big difference, but it is.
Learn about the things the company makes policies on.
It only takes a few minutes to look things up on the web. In a couple of days, you can be certified in whatever aspect of Agile you prefer (PO, scrum master). By understanding the framework, policy decisions can be more thorough and well thought out.
Come out of the office.
Simply coming out onto the floor, mingling with employees, and seeing what they do/how they work can do wonders for building trust. The more trust employees have in their leadership, the more invested they are in their company, and the more reason the leader has to trust the employee.
Be honest and transparent.
Not everything that happens in a company is good. Covering up bad things or lying about them will build distrust. The more employees distrust their leaders, the more they try to distance themselves from their work and their leaders. By being completely honest, during good times and bad, company leadership can build on the trust they’ve already established in other ways.
Remote resistance comes down to fear, distrust, and some warped sense of tradition. Companies tell us that “transitioning” to remote work has been difficult and costly, yet most of the teams were already working at least partly remote. The data shows us that remote workers perform better than in office workers, so the claim that switching to remote is costly doesn’t hold up. Leaders don’t want to say that they don’t trust their employees because they understand that a culture of distrust is bad. What they don’t get is that actions speak far louder than words. By refusing to trust employees, these companies are building that culture of distrust they want to avoid. How ironic…
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