On Networking Groups ( Part Three )

As a remote worker, I've found the hours spent in a conference room or co-working space to be among my most productive. Getting around your geography can be difficult and leaving work for lunch hour can have some long-lasting effects on productivity. In fact, I've found that company culture is often more of a factor than time of day. I sometimes ask people what they do when they need a break. What I hear is "I go home and work at home." Or, sometimes, "I go to Starbucks."

But what if you had a place to go where the lighting was good, the temperature was comfortable and access to Internet? And what if you could browse products that you could only get when you worked in an office? You'd be more productive than ever. Wouldn't it be nice to have a place that combines both?

You might ask, why not just work from home? The answer is simple: in a virtual world, there are no timetables for balance and harmony.

What I will say is that if you're a remote worker, you often have a lot of different options. You can decide where and when to work. And you do a lot of different things in different places. Some of it is due to your own needs and preferences, but some of it is due to your company's requirements.

You might need to be working at the home office on Monday through Thursday, but instead, you find yourself working from Starbucks because that's the only time the boss needs something that you could get by going there (and your laptop has 3G service).

I call this a "hybrid workstyle." It's not the freedom of freelancing, or the structure and benefits of working at an office. But it's something in-between that has its own reality.

As you think about how you want to work and how you want to interact with your employer on a day-to-day basis, consider that your company might ask something of you that's not really feasible for your situation. How much should you fight back, or how much can you negotiate? If both parties are reasonable, then getting what you need should be possible without too much difficulty.

How do we get there? This is where networking comes in. We have to consider a "networked workplace." It's different than an office, where everyone's there, together. It's also different than a virtual office. But it's somewhere between the two.

Among other things, it requires that we learn to bridge the gap between work and personal life in a way that is more productive than going from one place to the other without stopping in between. In some cases, you might want to stop for lunch or take a walk around your neighborhood. In others, you might go ahead and get your work done and then go home for lunch (and maybe walk around your neighborhood later).

That's not to say that you need to bring a large crowd of other people with you. Connecting to co-workers is great, but in most cases, you're not going to have that many. And if your employer can't have telecommuting, then don't expect them to let you work from a coffee shop or a Starbucks (unless, of course, it's the only place all of your co-workers work).

There are many ways we can all build this kind of networked workplace (including at the local level), and I don't intend for this article to be a comprehensive list. These ideas are just one example. But I do hope they'll be helpful.

First, we have to consider how our company culture works. Depending on who your employer is and their feelings about remote work, you might find yourself working in a strange environment. If your employer doesn't want to hire remote workers, then you're probably not going to be able to find anyone to connect with at the coffee shop on your floor or the co-working space next door.

As much as I would like to say that it's easy for everyone else, I also wouldn't recommend trying this if your employer demands that you work from home (almost all of them do). If that's the case, get used to working at home with a laptop and an Internet connection. That's all you've got.

So, what should your employer expect of you? And what should you expect of your employer? The key, I think, is to make sure that everyone understands what's possible, and what isn't. If it's not possible for you to work at the home office, don't feel as though you have to ask. There are no deadlines. 

If there is a deadline and it can't be met because you're remote, then it's time to start talking about the possibility of working from somewhere else in between. And if your company can't accommodate this (or won't), then maybe there's a better match with another company that does.

We have to be careful about how we communicate our needs to our employer. We don't want to make it seem as though they're crazy to expect that we can't work from a coffee shop. It won't do them any good when you have your meeting and then go right back outside to get some work done at Starbucks. It's going to seem like you're not committed to their vision of the company.

But it is important that you communicate what's possible, and what isn't. When you start asking for permission (which seems ridiculous in a coffee shop), then your employer will start getting defensive and it won't be worth the fight.

Conclusion