“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
Brené Brown
We need to talk about remote working. And yes, it’s the conversation that dominates every business and boardroom right now, but it’s all wrong. Yes, you read right: remote working is the wrong term. At 20fifty, we prove why.
Remote Working is Wrong
Remote working is a misnomer. There, we said it. Get comfortable as we buck the narrative and the norms there and remind you that company culture is not your cubicle. As far as we are concerned, culture is something that happens in a petri dish, or you find it in your yoghurt. At 20fifty, we’re not about that cubicle ‘culture’ and free pizza Fridays. To us, culture has become a misused and misaligned term in the world of work. Some might call it tainted, and for us, we believe in things far more important than a foosball table and getting an hour off for reaching some inane target. That’s why we don’t call it remote working at 20fifty. Instead, we’re connected, not remote.
Connected Working is Correct
The era of remote working is now a global phenomenon, but the 20fifty approach to it is somewhat different. Our 20fifty environment bucks the narrative of typically remote working, by actively encouraging and enabling a truly connected team. By countering the norms and the narratives, the 20fifty environment is not your typical remote team. We are an atypically connected team, with proven agility, true flexibility, and we enable exceptional on-time delivery of client requirements.
Our Connected Working Rules
While company culture at 20fifty isn’t a petri dish in bloom, we do have a few rules about how we keep connected. These include:
- Put it in the channel: Communication experts constantly tell us that communication is a two-way street. At 20fifty, we have one street, and we’re all on it. Our carefully selected communication channels and collaborative tools make it easy to stay on the same path, while experimenting with new ideas. It also makes it super simple to substantiate everything we do. Every business needs a paper trail, right? Well, we’re 99% paper-free, and our communication trails tell you everything you need to know.
- True connection: That’s why we hate the term ‘remote working’. By its very definition, remote implies disconnection. We’re the opposite of disconnected, making us more connected than those cubicles you find in those fluorescent-lit open plan offices. We call it connected working. We work anywhere, and we work everywhere. And we’re always connected.
- Serious collaboration: We work on the same things, at the same time. The iterative processes that make up what 20fifty does require this. We work together, live, on a regular basis. You know how so many love to call their team meetings all “hands on”? Pfft, please. All our hands are on, all day.
- Share early, share often: We take an iterative approach to our work. It’s not just a requirement for ensuring we deliver incredible products, it’s an adventure that enables us to experiment and optimise at every moment. That’s why we share early, and share often. Whether it’s a single line of code, or a 12-page treatise on the future of the Internet, we create and implement, stage by stage. We enable early feedback loops and review work in progress, all the time. This happens in our internal processes, and with our clients too.
- Connected clients: Nobody knows our clients’ business better, not even us. We may be the people who solve the problems, but are we solving the right problems? That’s why we integrate ourselves into our client processes, and integrate our clients into our 20fifty processes. From day 1, to launch day, and beyond, we involve our clients in everything we do to ensure we’re solving the right problems.
- Meetings might be emails: Okay, we know: meetings could be emails. Meetings could be a message. Meetings could be seminars too. That’s why we trash the default meeting length (we may all be cute to look at, but do we really need to spend an hour devoting our brainpower to each other?) to eliminate time wastage. At 20fifty, we only book the time we need. There are no hour-long introductions and Zoom snooze fests at 20fifty.
- Connection is energy: Occasionally, we do get together in person. Whether you work at HQ, or from the top of a mountain in the Alps, we try to get together at least twice a year. During that time, we schedule big strategy sessions, spend time together going on silly escapades, we do not “do team building exercises.” If you need an icebreaker by the time we connect in person, then we haven’t melted the ice already in our connected work environment. Ask one of the 20fifty veterans what we get up to during our time together in person, and you’ll hear stories about wine farms, dinners, downhill scooter racing, and maybe a little bit of dancing.
