I was one of Gartner's first WFH analysts in 1995. They were not sure the WFH model would work in analyst world so they had me spend most of the first 6 months at HQ in Stamford, CT. My employment contract also required me to relocate to a new office they were opening in Atlanta. Fortunately, my cohort of remote analysts turned out to be extremely productive (Gartner tracked all kinds of metrics on client queries handled, new presentation slides created, research pages written etc) and much to my wife's relief they allowed us to stay put in Tampa. Or at least that's what I like to believe. It could be they needed the relocation budget for something else :)
The technology was primitive. I got a hand-me-down Apple Powerbook (Gartner was an Apple shop back then). I did get a brand new HP All-in One. We got to provision two phone lines - one for a 14.4 baud line connection to servers at corporate. High-speed! The other for client queries. Connectivity on the road required finding public phones with elusive RJ-11 jacks and it cost a princely sum when you were overseas. We somehow stayed productive - I think I was in the top 10 in metrics for all analysts for most of the tenure there.
I have stayed reasonably productive since with my books, blogs and advisory work. However, the last 3 months have been humbling as I have cataloged acrobatics during this crisis. We are seeing the emergence of WFH superworkers:
Rob Enslin, President of Google Cloud Sales describes a day in his work life especially at quarter-end. He had customer calls to Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil, Florida, New York and California. Organizing all that a few months ago would have required 2-3 week trip.
In his interview, Rob talks about remote consulting Google is doing even on complex ML projects. He talks about how the service sector will be a lot more productive going forward. I have been imploring SIs to cut travel since I was at Gartner (I had arrived there from PwC). The pandemic has forced them to finally act. In my vision, the next step will be to move to shared services across projects and to a lot more automation. Even more productivity.
Tamas Hefezi of Automation Anywhere has been on a 15 year journey to turn all his analog interactions digital. It is mind-blowing how organized he is and the set of technologies he leverages. Read about his routines here.
Vittorio Viarengo describes a morale-boosting project he was asked to coordinate at VMware. He mixed and synthesized audio and video files from 30 virtual employees around the world to produce a rendition of "This Little Light of Mine". Watch the 5 minute final product, then read here the effort and skill it took to mix music and synch videos from amateurs recorded on consumer grade tech. Bear in mind he has a full time job there - he VP of Cloud Marketing. This was a side project he tackled.
My interviewees share many more examples of remote productivity in this series - click here for more
Before we use these superworkers as benchmarks, let's acknowledge that WFH does not work for everyone. People who also have to school kids, compete with neighbors for badwidth, those who thrive on social interaction struggle with WFH. Telcos do need to upgrade their last mile fiber (my FiOS cable was mangled or cut in March and the tech told me our neighborhood fiber was 15 years old), companies need to fortify the security at their remote machines, buy employees better webcams, mics, lighting etc. All this will need a lot more CIO/CFO/CHRO coordination.
We are learning so much from this phase, and whether full time or part time, WFH will be part of every white-collar work regimen. For now, this WFH pioneer is proud of - and extremely humbled by - acrobats like Rob, Tamas and Vittorio.
