Remote work will kill your culture and your company . . . without the right technology.

Article 10 of 10

You want to be distributed? You need technology. CRM, Base, Phone

No one said it was going to be cheap.

Shoot me. Just shoot me now.

Now that you are getting past your fear of allowing employees to work remotely, you are probably getting all excited about all the money you are going to save on rent. Sorry, you’re going to need to redirect at least some of those savings into travel (see article 7) and technology. Let’s talk about technology because no matter how dynamic the leader, how perfect the plan, a distributed workforce will struggle without the right technology.

As we wrap up the series here is a quick review of what we have covered:

• Knowledge work is going remote, there is nothing you can do about it.
• The key to a successful distributed workforce is culture.
• The key to culture is mission and purpose.
• The key to mission and purpose is connectedness.
• Communication is what brings it all together.

You’ve read this far. You understand the challenge. You know what needs to be done. You are almost ready to start building a healthy growth culture that will thrive in a distributed environment. The last thing we need to talk about is the technology you will need to bring your new and improved communication plan to life.

It’s impossible to empower, let alone manage a remote workforce without the right technology stack.

You don’t need technology to replicate the in-office work experience, but you do need technology that fills the gaps created by geographical separation.

With little exception, today’s knowledge workers need technology to perform their job regardless of whether they are in the office or remotely. The difference with a remote workforce is you need your technology platforms to be real-time, open, available from anywhere, and as frictionless as possible. These are not nice-to-haves, these are must-haves.

Warning! As you use this guide to create your remote work plan you will realize that you need multiple technology tools. The tools should facilitate internal collaboration, task management*, file sharing, and discussion. They should provide quick and seamless access to all of the communication modes defined in the previous article.

*note — Task management here is a broad term that covers sales, support, marketing, implementation, and project management.

As you consider all of the various workflows (internal and external) required to keep your business running, you will likely discover that you need multiple platforms to form your stack. Sorry.

As a starting point for determining the changes necessary to better support your remote workforce, I recommend evaluating the following:

• CRM or industry equivalent: This is the core of your operation. If you don’t have a traditional CRM, it’s wherever you manage and document communication with prospects and customers. It’s where the work is done every single day (operating platform). If your answer is email, you need more help than this article can provide. Reach out directly. I can probably get you pointed in the right direction.
• Internal Communication Portal: Where would you go to post a company update or have a written dialogue on strategy decisions? Again, if the answer is email, then you need to reevaluate.
• Email: It’s evil, but you need it.
• Video Conferencing: You need to be able to see your employees and clients face to face in seconds with no prep time.
• Phone System: It needs to work the same wherever you are. If the answer is your personal cell phone number, you need to reevaluate.

You can see how quickly this can get overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be. You might be tempted to outsource all of this to a consultant. The evaluation, the decision, the implementation, everything. While that is certainly a viable option, you don’t need to. You can do this.

You need three or four different core technology platforms to truly drive your business. There may be some complimentary products you consider to accelerate or optimize your business, but those are not the same. They are not core and they should be treated differently. You need to be intentional about defining what is core (not optional) and what is complimentary (optional). It’s important to know which is which because they require different standards. Your core technology must meet criteria your complimentary technology may not. Your core technology should be viewed as a long-term decision, because switching is expensive and disruptive. Conversely, you should be comfortable trying out a complementary technology solution and ripping it out as soon as it doesn’t deliver value.

Selecting your core technology is a big decision. Be intentional about it. The goal here is to future-proof your business, and it requires a change in mindset. Twenty years ago, the safe choice was to spend more money to go with the established enterprise provider. The world has changed. Technology is advancing so quickly that the legacy players often struggle to keep up and the safe decision you made just five years ago is a constant frustration. The expensive tool you spent months installing turns out to be an anchor on your growth. You can’t just move all the way to the right on the price matrix and call “Big Company X” anymore. You need a different set of criteria.

Here are some suggestions.

• Cloud-based: Do you really want to be in the hardware business? No, no you don’t.
• Built with an API mindset: It shouldn’t require an act of Congress and custom development to get your tools to work together. Ask for their documentation.
• IT and Developer friendly: If you have developers, involve them in the decision. You will thank yourself later.
• Secure: It’s not a matter of “if” someone will try to hack your business, it’s “when,” and privacy laws are only going in one direction. Ask them about their security measures and encryption standards. SOC2?
• Reliable: Every technology company hits a bump. Have them tell you about theirs. How did they communicate with clients? How was it resolved? What are their performance goals? Have they met them? The answer to how they respond when something does go wrong is much more important than the difference between 99.999 and 99.997. Trust me.
• Innovation: Your needs will change. Book it. Does the provider have a proven history of shipping new solutions and evolving to the changing needs of the customer? Or are they still selling the product they launched five years ago? Make them prove it.

No provider is perfect, but you can’t partner with a technology partner who isn’t able to confidently provide answers and evidence of superior performance in these areas. Not for your core technology at least.

It’s not as complicated as you think. At one stop I stood up Salesforce for CRM (sales and support), a homegrown internal message board for internal dialogue, Slack and Trello for project management, Google Workspace for email and video conferencing, and DialPad for our phone system. The whole thing took me two weeks.

Establishing a thriving growth culture in a distributed environment is not easy, but it’s possible. This is what you signed up for. It is figureoutable.

Good news, I have done this three different times, and now I get to try it again in a completely different industry. As I build the foundation for growth in my new hustle, I will be using all of the advice above. How about you? Working on something similar? Hit me up. Let’s learn together.