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What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

What portion of your team's work is done remotely?

2 min read

Leadership

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SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from over 240,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our newsletter.

What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

  • Over 90%. My team is all over and we use calls/virtual tools for almost everything: 12%
  • 60-90%. We do a substantial amount of work remotely: 10%
  • 40-60%. Around half of what we do is done remotely: 12%
  • 20-40%. We don’t do a lot remotely. Most work is face to face: 18%
  • Less than 20%. We are almost always working together in person: 48%

Remote work is substantial. While two-thirds of you still do most or all of your work face-to-face, it’s hard to ignore how much work has shifted to being remote. While the nature of your business obviously dictates how large or small the opportunity is to work remotely, ask yourself if you’re actively pursuing those opportunities. Remote work can improve productivity (e.g., it eliminates commuting, improves morale, etc.) and cut costs. Given the quality of tools available for video conferencing, document sharing and collaboration, and workflow management, moving some of your work to remote channels is an opportunity you can’t ignore. Take a moment to review your business processes and see which ones can be changed and supported by remote work. Run a pilot. Monitor results. You might be very pleased with what happens.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS. Before launching his own company, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He’s the author of three leadership books: “One Piece of Paper,” “Lead Inside the Box” and “The Elegant Pitch.”