The Remote Work Handbook

Mari Anne Snow, CEO of Sophaya and Remote Nation Institute, successfully led remote/distributed teams for over twenty years. Early on, she sensed the growing strategic business implications of remote work as a global financial services executive where she launched an online corporate learning university that served 28,000 people in 32 countries. And as a professor at Bentley and Suffolk Universities during the early days of digital/social media, she helped position her students for success by helping them craft a place for themselves as the first digital professionals at Reebok, Mike, the New England Patriots, Fidelity Investments, and other notable organizations. Early on, she saw the strategic implications of these new technologies on remote/distributed teamwork. A passionate businesswoman committed to people-centric leadership; Mari Anne recognized both the enormous potential of these emerging technologies to support remote work. She developed new leadership approaches to meet the needs of the people impacted by this seismic shift. Then she left corporate life in 2010 to launch her remote work/distributed team consultancy, Sophaya, to help visionary early adopters transform their organizations to accommodate the structural needs of their growing remote/distributed workforce. Over the next ten years, Mari Anne devoted herself to refining best practices for leading a productive, engaged remote workforce. During this time, she focused on two questions: 1. How do we maintain meaningful human contact over distance? 2. What actions can smart leaders take to build trust and engage people who work remotely? Her research spanned multiple continents, testing alternate operating models, and gathering input from hundreds of remote work practitioners worldwide. The results? A new set of business principles for creating highly productive remote teams to support the workplace revolution that’s happening right now.

Chapter 1: Workplace flexibility is a smart business move Chapter 2: Build it right Chapter 3: The 5 organizational components of remote work Chapter 4: Component one: Infrastructure Chapter 5: Component two: Operational protocols Chapter 6: Component three: Performance accountability measures Chapter 7: Component four: Talent Management Systems Chapter 8: Component five: Remote workforce training Chapter 9: Operationalizing your remote work business model Chapter 10: Managing change Chapter 11: Multi-channel communications Chapter 12: Institutionalizing remote work Chapter 13: Build on team achievements