Interview with two managers! What I practiced to relieve the pain of remote work

2020 was a year of major changes in lifestyle due to the global epidemic of the new coronavirus.

In order to avoid contact with people, there are many restaurants that support delivery and takeout, and there are many companies that have adopted remote work (telework) and flextime systems.

at our companyRemote work began with the declaration of a state of emergency in April, and continues to this day.

In this article,Difficulty of being a manager class (manager) that I realized after working remotelyI will talk about

I would like to introduce what I heard from Kanno of the System Development Department and Nakamura of the Media Division, who are actually managers at our company.

Kanno

I'm Sugano from the System Development Department. thank you.

I'm Nakamura from the Media Division. thank you.

Nakamura

[Introduction] Introducing the System Development Department and the Media Business Department

First of all, let me briefly introduce what kind of departments our company's system development department and media business department are.

Let's take a closer look at each department.

The system development departmentDevelop and deliver systems requested by companiesThe company is doing so.

For example, the public relations system used in the company and the web system of the advertising business.

Media DivisionFrom the planning of articles published on the website we operate, to the creation and submission of manuscripts, etc.We are doing

CurrentlyForex strategy techniqueand ... andjob change indexetc. is operated.

In both departments, immediately after remote work was started, it was completely remote work, but now some people are working in a combination of office work and remote work.

Introduce the work that Sun-El managers are in charge of

After introducing the work of the entire department, I will explain in order what kind of work the manager does.

First, let me briefly introduce the managers of each department.

System development department manager job

Kanno

My job is the management of the system development department and the practical work of development.

Management has two main tasks:project managementandorganization managementIt is.

Project management in a nutshellWork to manage the development process in order to develop the requested system by the delivery dateis not it.

Specifically, I decide the order of development, allocate who is in charge of development, and manage how to make up for delays.

In the management of the organization, individual 1on1 is implemented and communication between members is smooth,Keeping the organization healthyThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

The practice of development isThe main work is design work, such as designing a system that asks the engineer who actually develops, "Please develop with this content."It is.

I also do some programming myself.

Kanno

The ideal is 80% management and 20% development work, but the ratio changes depending on the month.

The job of the manager of the media division

Nakamura

Next, I will introduce the work I am doing.

My main job isSeeing whether the project works normally and how the members workIt is.

In addition to that, I also write articles for the website I manage.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

As a member of the department, I am responsible for everything from article planning to publication, such as writing and submitting manuscripts.

that's why,'Playing manager' who works on site and manages at the same timeI think it's close to the way of working.

The ratio changes depending on the progress of the project and the month, but it seems that the ratio of basic work is about half and half.

What are the difficulties unique to remote work for managers?

From here, I realized that I became a remote work,'Hard work of a manager'Let's have them answer in a dialogue format.

It is difficult to grasp progress delays in remote work

Nakamura

I'll start by talking to you.

The first thing I struggled with when I started working remotely wasInability to see work progressIt is.

The progress of the work comes out as a finished product, but it became difficult to understand how it was handled in the middle.

When it comes to remote work,Because I work from home, there may be delays in work due to factors such as housework and work environment.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

However, even if there is a delay in progress due to such factors, the reason is not immediately apparent at first glance when working remotely.

Nakamura

The first thing I felt was that "remote work increased the number of reasons for delays in progress, making it difficult to grasp."

and the managerWhile looking at the schedule for managing the progress of the entire project, it is necessary to think of a solution if there is a delay.So we have a lot of different things to deal with.

In connection with thatUntil now, we were able to talk face-to-face, such as progress confirmation, all now using chatSo there were times when I thought about how to start it.

As a result, the direction of thinking for communication has increased,Impression that the amount of follow-up required by management has increased compared to when working in the officeIt is.

I think that the words necessary to raise the tension for work differ depending on the person, so I was worried about how to talk to them.

Nakamura

I'm the type of person who worries about who to talk to and how, but I don't think people who don't care about this don't care.

It's just the type that I don't care about.

Kanno

It's just my opinion, but I think it's not only the management style, but also the composition of the members in the department. Perhaps because there are a lot of men in the system development department, I don't have to worry too much about that.

Kanno

Nakamura

It's true that there are many women in the Media Division, and I think there are many people who need to spend time on things other than themselves, such as being married or having children.

Nakamura

If the team member is a man, the points of concern will be different again, so you may not worry about how to talk to them.

Remote work exposes the laxness of process management and work allocation

Kanno

What I struggled with was managing the deliverables and managing the process.

Since becoming a remote worker,Realized that there was a part that was covered by communication in the officeI did.

for example,Until now, I had to verbally explain parts of the specifications that were difficult to understand, but this is not possible with remote work.That's right.

Basically, remote work is done asynchronously, so even if you talk on Googlemeet, you will have to adjust the time.

that's whyIt became necessary to strictly and accurately issue orders when allocating workThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

Also, when I received an urgent work request, I could immediately communicate it verbally in the office, but I can't do that with remote work.

that's why,It became necessary to strictly manage schedules, such as "who has to do what when".The following is a list of the most common problems with the

As a result, the lenient part of the process control was tightened, and although the efficiency of the department as a whole increased, the labor and cost of management increased.

But thanks to the tightening, it's no longer a problem to keep track of who's doing what and when.

Introducing the ingenuity we worked on to work smoothly

Next, please tell us what you devised to work smoothly with remote work.

Prepare a room where you can connect with members at any time

Nakamura

For communication purposes, I created a room called "Tsunagarashi" on Googlemeet.

At first, it was assumed that all members of the Media Division would be in the room and would talk to each other when they wanted to.

butThere was not much compatibility with the business content of the Media Division, which I often think aboutThat's right.

So, now I use it for simple meetings and feedback.

Since the one-cushion that prepares a room for Googlemeet has been eliminated,The hurdles for verbal meetings and feedback have been lowered.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

Kanno

I heard Nakamura-san's story that kept on connecting, and I wanted a place where I could easily communicate when I wanted to talk for a while.

Kanno

That's why I decided to use the online video tool SpatialChat (special chat) and announced it.

can i use that?

Nakamura

Kanno

It's ok. I want you to use it.

I'll use it for a while. That's what it is. When I don't have a chance to talk in the office, I think "Is it okay to use it?"

Nakamura

Once you have decided on a tool for communication, it is important for remote work that the person who will be the manager or superior takes the initiative in using it by involving the members.

Nakamura

Realize complete remote work by utilizing three tools

Kanno

In the system development department, we use tools called Slack, Googlemeet, and GitLab to facilitate remote work.

In addition to these three tools, I would be happy if the SpatialChat I mentioned earlier could cover the communication part.

Now let me briefly explain how to use these three tools.

Slack

Slackis a team communication tool that allows you to chat and call.

In addition to business communication, it is also used for separate reports.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

Minute reports are literally "minute versions of daily reports" and are a way to easily report your work status on Slack.

This is compatible with the work content of engineers,You can follow up between teams by asking them to write about their troubles and worries that are difficult to hear directly.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

There is also the advantage of being able to grasp the progress of the work by looking at the report of the team members.

Google meet

Google meetis a tool that allows you to have video conversations, and you can easily set it up from Google's calendar.

mainlyI use it for meetings and individual 1on1The following is a list of the most common problems with the

GitLab

GitLabis a service that allows multiple people to jointly develop programs.

We can also manage the process, so we touched on it earlier.GitLab is also used for strict man-hour managementThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

Three points for successful remote work learned from failure

Nakamura

I would like to talk about three work-related ingenuity that I adopted from the places where I struggled in my work.

Increase opportunities for communication

First of all, I couldn't see how I was working, so I thought it was important to imagine and think.

Plus,When I was in the office, I thought I didn't have to ask about it, but I checked it one by one during remote work.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

By asking, "Is this my understanding of this?"

in this wayPhysically increased the number of communicationsThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

Set up a recurring meeting

The second isSetting up a weekly meeting for the media teamIt is.

Originally, there were no regular subcommittees or general meetings.

As I introduced at the beginning, the main work of the media team is from article planning to publication, so even if the theme of the article changes, the content of the work itself does not change.

So I didn't share regularly, and I felt that setting up meetings when necessary and sharing via chat was usually enough.

However, about a month after remote work began,I began to feel that communication between members was lackingThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

In fact, there were times when members who lived alone were stressed because they weren't physically talking to anyone.

So I thought, "This is bad."I tried to set the meeting and the "keep connecting" introduced earlierThe following is a list of the most common problems with the

Allow room for overall progress

The 3rd one,The overall progress of article creation tends to be slowed down, but now it's possible to have some leeway and make adjustments.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

Each member has a family, and when they started working remotely, the relative weight of the family increased, and it was stressful for them to not be able to work as they wanted.

With the shift to remote work, it's honestly impossible to continue with the same progress as before.

So please understand that partPreviously, one person was doing all the work flow, but now we have increased the number of people who can do that work for each work.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

resulting in,We are now able to respond flexibly by saying, "If this person can't do this task at this time, have someone else do it."The following is a list of the most common problems with the

lastly

How was it?

Let's take a quick look back at the remote work ingenuity our managers have implemented.

Remote work poses problems such as keeping track of progress and communication between members that you didn't notice when you were working in the office.

I hope that the information introduced in this article will help you create a comfortable working environment for remote work.