I have a confession to make.

In the entirety of my working life, I have only spent two years in an office. And it was the most unpleasant two years of work experience I’ve ever had.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a great organisation to work for.

But having to be in the same place at the same time every day is my idea of a nightmare. (I'll blame it on being the child of a flight attendant.)

The thing I couldn’t understand at the time was that, apparently, being in a physical space for a period of time meant I was productive. Even if I was staring into space, feeling uninspired, tired, or unfocused.

I hated it so much, I took the drastic step of founding my own organisation.

I was excited about my organisation's mission, but I also really wanted a day-to-day that catered to my energy.

After setting up the organisation, I spent years developing the remote practices that gave me the flexibility I wanted and provided the same to a team around the world.

For me, that meant working shorter days that are more focused and high energy. Running errands at 10am when I felt like taking a walk to feel connected and to think more deeply. And sometimes doing work in the evenings and the weekends when I had an exciting idea I wanted to get started.

The one upside of the pandemic — I thought — would be that more people would find the freedom I have so enjoyed. But as everyone moved remote, something disturbing happened.

Individuals were forced to work by themselves and at the same time organisations struggled to let go of the sentiment that butts in seats = work is happening.

Presenteeism itself isn’t new.

It's the culture of simply ‘turning up’ so that you can keep up the appearance of productivity. If you’re at work, you’re working.

But new presenteeism is the worst of both worlds: the dehumanising feeling of needing to be present with the staleness of round the clock screens.

As a remote worker, does any of this sound familiar?

• You have to be “available”
• Your “availability” is measured by how quick you are to respond on lots of different communication channels
• You are seen as productive if you have a full calendar of meetings
• People are aware of the little green dots next to your name

Being present should not be synonymous with being effective.

If your remote workplace uses meeting time and ‘presence’ as a proxy for ‘productivity’, then you aren’t leveraging remote working.

You’re trying to recreate your in-person workflow in an online space — but worse. Back-to-back meetings and always-on culture should not be allowed just because you are working out of your living room.

How do we move beyond this new presenteeism? Try these 5 steps.

1. Let go of the expectation that you will all come together in the same space at the same time to do your work. Remote teams are a network, not a factory.
2. Reflect deeply on how you have ended up here. Most remote teams that have presenteeist practices are either plagued with fuzzy strategy or do not have the resources necessary to do what they are trying to do.
3. Save synchronous time for topics that need it. Have the courage to cancel synchronous meetings that aren’t worth the cost.
4. Get creative with how you design your asynchronous work (hint: async work isn’t just the stuff that happens ‘between meetings’).
5. Get in the habit of talking to your team about their personal patterns. When do they feel energised and creative? When do they feel drained? When do they like to do deep thinking? When do they like to work on the easy details?

And if you are looking for somewhere to begin, start with the day-to-day patterns that are best for you and your team. Once you understand those patterns, how would you build your meeting culture from scratch? And how would it be different from the way you work now?

Good luck out there 🙂