We do our best work when we are in our element

I’ve been thinking about writing this article for some time. Note: thinking about it, in an unsure-where-it’s-going, uncertain-of-the-content, not-convinced-of-its-appeal, am-I-saying-anything-new, kind of way. It’s ironic then, that in the end it just took one thing to make it flow; I moved to a new physical environment for the thinking part, and then to another to write. Being independent, I was able to do this fluidly because I have autonomy, but what would have been the outcome if I didn’t?

I recently read an article by Katrin Becker of workplace consultancy HCG, in which she discusses the future of hybrid working in the context of the current ‘everybody back to the office’ conversation. In the article, Katrin highlights autonomy as a key benefit of hybrid working. Her thoughts align so closely with my own from my 2017/18 Location Independent research into workstates and the importance of working in environments that are conducive to optimal task completion.

In the flex vs office back and forth, the discourse is typically that what is of benefit to one is to the detrimental of the other. When it comes to autonomy, that’s not the case. It’s simple: autonomy means happier, more accountable workers who stay in their positions longer… and psychological wellbeing, accountability and retention is very good for business.

Paige Tonna of Servcorp digs deep into the nuances of autonomy in the workplace in The Ultimate Guide to Working Autonomously for Companies & Employees, considering autonomy in terms of psychological safety, increased responsibility and decision making. These life skills enable employees to try out new ways of working, innovating, collaborating and problem solving, and ultimately paving the way to becoming better future leaders. 

It isn’t completely black and white of course. However strongly I believe in something, I’m aware of my own biases and understand the importance of considering alternative views. The two strongest arguments against worker autonomy are:

 1: The potential for the blurring of lines, lack of clear processes or ways of working.

To this, I say: be better. Create clarity. Interrogate your own processes and understand their weaknesses. Build a stronger playbook and communicate it clearly.

 2: The risks of giving too much autonomy too soon.

I speak from experience when I say that a lack of guidance and support early on in your career can be detrimental. Giving the appropriate degree of autonomy is key to how positively it is received and managed.

Ultimately, what we’re talking about here is autonomy over our lives, not just our working environments. After all, however dedicated we may be, work is just one component of our lives, not the centre point that everything else should revolve around.

---

References

1 Should Hybrid working really come to an end?, Katrin Becker, January 2025

2 Autonomy in the workplace has positive effects on wellbeing, University of Birmingham Business School, 2017

3 Job autonomy and psychological well-being: A linear or a non-linear association?, National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021

4 Job autonomy, its predispositions and its relation to work outcomes in community health centers in Taiwan, Oxford Academic, 2011

5 This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, Gallup, 2019

6 The Ultimate Guide to Working Autonomously for Companies & Employees, Paige Tonna, September 2024

I’m done flirting; it’s time to commit

If you’ve come here expecting to read some salacious story about my dating life, you may be disappointed, as I thankfully managed to turn that aspect of my life around some years ago. Stick around though, you may find that what I have to say is actually more interesting... yeah, I know!

 I’ve long flirted with the notion of becoming a Workplace Strategist. The idea took shape when I embarked on an extended period of travelling, living and working as a digital nomad a few years prior to the time the world as we knew it took an unexpected dive headfirst off a cliff.

I lived and worked in 17 countries over 24 months, experiencing the full spectrum of Coworking and Coliving offerings at a time when the industry was still in its infancy. This experience led to my research study: #MyLifeAsADigitalNomad, which in turn opened the door to a shiny new world. I participated in a digital nomad conference in Gran Canaria, presented my insights at the Workplace Trends Research Summit in London and Future Spaces in Finland, amongst others. It felt new and exciting and was positively received. I made valuable connections with workplace strategists, academic researchers, interior architects, biophilic design experts and a whole host of other interesting people whose professions I had not known existed until that time. I feel very drawn to this community and its spectrum of skills that are vital to designing the workplaces of today and beyond.

Fast forward a few years and I’d navigated my way through a Pandemic, IVF and resulting parenthood. Like many others my business took a hit during this period, but I was able to keep afloat whilst also succeeding in leveraging my remote working and ‘workplace’ credentials to win a few small projects. It was still just a situationship however, and a challenge to build it into something more sustainable.

As the owner of an insight business, I’ve always felt it prudent to have one foot in the present and the other in the future. I’m not blind to the fact that I’m going to have to fight to stay relevant and desirable in an industry where it’s essential to have your finger on the pulse. I know some fantastic insight consultants in their 50s, 60s and beyond who are extremely successful, but I’m aware that in today’s harsh climate, youth and lower day rates are often valued over experience and wisdom. In the back of my mind I’m always thinking about my next step. This is where I find myself drawn back to Workplace Strategy every time...but why?

1. I believe being able to work in an environment conducive to producing high quality work and that is aligned with our human needs should be a right not a luxury or a ‘perk’

2. It’s a fascinating, evolving area that will require a great deal of love and attention in the coming years and I am willing to give that in abundance

3. It’s a shift rather than a complete 180 so my skills and experience remain relevant

4. It’s an area where I believe experience and wisdom are valued highly

Attending the Workplace Trends User Experience Conference earlier this month, learning about all the ground breaking and meaningful work that’s taking place in this sector, and meeting even more smart, forward thinking workplace professionals, cemented things for me.

So here we are. It’s time to make the statement out loud and be more than a little vulnerable. I’m here to embrace a new challenge. That’s right; I’m committing. I will remain faithful and loyal. I’m eager to learn and embrace each opportunity that arises. I will take any advice you have to offer.

OK, that wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.

Edit: Whilst reviewing this piece an email pinged in my inbox from Jobgether, alerting me to the Top 100 Future of Work Leaders Report. https://jobgether.com/top-100-flexible-influencer. I sifted through, happy to see at least 10 professionals that I’ve met or worked with over the last 5 years. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but wouldn’t it be nice...?

 *Watch this (work)space...*

The Semiotics of Remote (3 min read)

Real world journalist Vs. desk-bound theorist

The following is based around a blog post that I wrote in 2018, and am now revisiting in light of the Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on our working practices. I’ve included the initial post as I believe it’s still so relevant, and have added to it to give it context in 2021.

January 2018 (Medellin, Colombia – month 11 as a digital nomad)

Remote. Remote. Remote. Remote. Remote.

Barely an hour goes by where I don’t hear this word being uttered, read it on a Slack post or see it somewhere in my immediate environment. I’m so used to hearing it that I almost don’t hear it anymore. Does that make sense?

Recently though, I’ve started hearing it again. And listening. I mean really listening. And what I’m hearing has started to clarify some things in my mind.

This past year I’ve heard many different people’s experiences of their remote working lives. It’s disappointing, but not altogether surprising that a significant proportion of employers have serious reservations about allowing their staff to work remotely. Some reject the idea outright and others find obstacles to place in the way.

I’ve tried to unpack this the best I can, with the help of the Remotes that I’m travelling with and others I’ve met along the way, and I hear the same concerns around trust, communication and collaboration raised again and again.

 As those who have followed my journey know, I’m currently 11 months into conducting a year-long ethnographical study into Digital Nomadism (working title: MyLifeAsADigitalNomad), and these are all themes that I’ll be reporting on in detail in 2018, so they are not going to be the focus of this piece, but what I do want to look at is what semiotic cues can be taken from the word Remote itself and how this can affect people’s perceptions and therefore their actions.

First off, here’s a snippet from the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Remote: 

Adjective: (of a place) situated far from the main centres of population; distant - Having very little connection with or relationship to.

 …and some synonyms from a brief Google search just to hammer the point home:

Irrelevant to, unrelated to, unconnected to, unconcerned with, not pertinent to, inapposite to, immaterial to, unassociated with, inappropriate to.

I think it’s fair to say that our residual definition of (and associations with) Remote sit at the core of people’s apprehension, and while there is positive evidence to show that the word is being used increasingly in our everyday lives, I feel that this is an issue that needs to be tackled head-on and I for one am willing to take up this gauntlet and run with it.

Before starting to write this piece, I sought the opinion of an experienced Semiotician who is a former colleague and current friend, and whose complex mind I admire greatly. He suggested that I “consider what the positive signifiers are of remoteness in the context of work, but what the negative associations are in terms of our cultural understanding…”, but in truth I struggled to find any historical references to the former.

On the whole, his thoughts and mine were pretty well aligned; “…the myths about slobbing around in pyjamas, not engaging fully with work, productivity dropping, too many (homely) distractions etc, and how we might signify proactivity to offset that assumption with activity signifiers…. greater use of email to declare work in progress and checking in for reviews etc. The stuff we habitually do to make sure nobody thinks we’re slacking off.”

Interestingly, his immediate associations are around working from home, whereas mine are generally intertwined with travel; clearly a product of him being a dedicated partner and father living outside of London, and me being a little more footloose and fancy-free.

The issue as I see it is that these negative perceptions are barriers to individuals and employers considering remote work as a positive step forward. Not only does this create resistance to a movement that is growing in popularity and momentum, but it also holds people back from exploring their full potential and becoming their best selves.

My experience of living as a Digital Nomad wholly contradicts the dominant/residual semiotic cues of Remote. Of course, every individual is different, but on the whole I see only good things coming from those who are free to live a more integrated work and personal life. A life full of richness, cultural immersion, flexibility, opportunity, gratitude and positivity. The world and how we connect with it and each other is changing, and that to me is exciting.

When all is said and done my friend and I agreed that it feels like there is a battle of opposing perceptions… one dominant/residual that focuses in on the negatives, and the other emergent/dominant that tries to articulate the positives. The challenge is that the negative signifiers are well established and understood, whilst the newer, less formalised positive signifiers are still evolving and coalescing to create a new set of semiotic codes. And so we are left with a question in our heads and in our hearts:

How do we neutralise the negative perceptions of ‘remoteness’ with powerful signifiers of ‘remote action’?

---

March 2021 (London, UK)

Zip forward 38 months (has it really been that long?!) to March 2021, and we find ourselves in an almost unrecognisable world, yet still struggling with the residual connotations of Remote.

Essentially, the pandemic forced many businesses to ‘go remote’ overnight, with varying degrees of success. Switching to remote working has allowed businesses that were previously office-based to continue trading, and tools like Zoom, Teams and Slack have helped make it possible. For some, it has been an eye-opening, perception-challenging, positive experience, however such a massively accelerated paradigm shift is not without its obstacles, these being:

1)    The need to become familiar with remote working tools, extremely quickly

2)    The lack of embedded remote culture

3)    The issue of not having an adequate remote working environment

If the above resonates with you, it may well be that you are still feeling the negative residual connotations of remote, and it’s hardly surprising given all that is going on right now. My belief is that no’s 1 and 3 are easily resolved, and no.2 is the only one we really need be concerned with.

And so, two dominant mind-sets are emerging from those fresh to remote working:

1)    The realisation that remote working is possible for them; they prefer this lifestyle and are looking to make a more permanent change. In this scenario Remote starts to shake off its negative connotations

2)    The frustration of not being physically present and around their co-workers, plus the annoyance of having to use Zoom for 8 hours a day, coupled with ‘homely’ disturbances, leads to a resistance to on-going remote working. In this scenario we see the residual connotations of Remote being reinforced

 It is a truth that technology evolves more quickly than humans do, so changing the culture of an organisation is not going to happen overnight. It requires time (and in this situation, experience, which is what many people are lacking right now).

Luckily, there are some of us who have been advocating this shift for years, as we see the full extent of life-enhancements it can offer and are well-placed to help organisations manage this transition smoothly, and for long-term success. If you’d like to know more about the bespoke services I offer, you can contact me on deborah@caminoinsight.com for an initial chat or have a look at my Remote by Default course outline at caminoinsight.com/remote.  

 If you’re still not convinced that Remote can have positive connotations for your organisation, just take a look at the many fully distributed organisations that pre-date the pandemic and chose the lifestyle proactively. They are the ones who have, on the whole, continued to function unhindered, and there is much we can learn from them.

Vegetable soup: Batch #2, Day #9

5 things I’ve learned in Lockdown

1. My estate is a wonderful place to live

The Whittington Estate (on a quieter day)

I live in North London on the Whittington Estate. It’s a Brutalist estate owned by Camden Council, which has received a generous slice of attention over the years as an admirable example of London’s housing developments in the 1970s (check out The Golden Age of Camden Housing, by Fabian Watkinson). The architecture and the history of the estate and the area was what first drew me to it. Since the lockdown, it’s really come into its own; from both a social and a design perspective. Even while adhering to social distancing, I’ve met, smiled at and interacted with so many more of my neighbours in the last two weeks than in the 15 months I’ve lived here. There’s a real sense of a community pulling together and I like it. The low-rise flats and pedestrianised ‘streets’ were designed so that kids could play outside while parents looked on from in the kitchen or living area. The numerous routes around the estate were designed as such so that wherever you lived you could easily and safely access the communal areas. Although the basketball court and garden are, sadly, temporarily out of bounds, there is still ample space for kids and families to safely play outside. Life spills over the sun-warmed, south facing balconies, where conversation flows, meals are enjoyed, music plays out and claps and a few fireworks are faithfully delivered to the Whittington Hospital next door, every Thursday at 8.

2. There are streets in my neighbourhood that I’ve never walked

A rare view of Archway Road completely free of traffic

One walk a day and it must be within your local area. That calls for some imagination.

Luckily I live in an area that I find really interesting and beautiful. I have parks and woods within easy reach, and plenty of interesting architecture to feast my eyes upon. But let’s face it, no matter how lovely the surrounding area is, walking the same couple of routes day after day gets dull quickly. I crave variety and newness - always have. So, I’ve taken to discovering random streets I’ve never walked down and little local businesses that I never new existed. Cool little community gardens and lookout points with views over London that I’ve never before seen. It’s made me fall even deeper in love with my neighbourhood (honestly, I’m obsessed). Also… I’m still trying to figure out where the lone wind turbine is in east London that I saw from the top of Highgate High Street last week… anyone?  

3. Everyone’s suddenly a remote work expert

If you want to work remotely from home, experts say cats are less distracting than dogs (duh)

If you’ve engaged with me / my ramblings over the last three years you’ll already know that I am a steadfast advocate of remote working, and have conducted in-depth research into the movement. Pre-COVID-19, the resistance of some to even contemplating a remote working model for their business was something I believed would soften organically with time. Of course, I did not expect that the working world would be forced to transition to remote quite so fast. So now everyone is a remote working expert, it seems? Is it really possible to become an expert in something in a few weeks (of panic and fire-fighting)?

From my perspective it’s a fascinating thing to observe – and more than a little ironic. Last week I presented a webinar on how to use Zoom as a research tool, and one of the keenest participants was the very same person who (has probably forgotten this, but) turned me down for a project three years ago because even though I was, in his words ‘the best person for the job…’ he just didn’t ‘…feel comfortable with me not being in the same room’. Now, although by necessity rather than choice, he has seen the light and is busy selling the advantages of remote research to his clients so that he can maintain his business. So, in my opinion some things are changing for the better and that feels like a good thing. I do believe though, that with all of the tools and none of the rules of how to really embed remote working into company culture, the experience for some will feel somewhat dissatisfying. Luckily there are folks out there like me who can help with that! Look out for more on this soon…!!

4. It’s probably not worth it for a manicure

Last week I popped down to the Nisa Local to pick up a few essential items. OK, and chocolate. Wait… chocolate is an essential item now, right? As I walked passed a very, very small nail salon I glanced in the window and saw someone inside actually having their nails done, face to face, hand to hand, gel to acrylic. Not only that but there were another two inside waiting their turn. Um, HELLO?!! How can it possibly be more important to have perfectly manicured nails IN A LOCKDOWN, than to limit the risk of catching or passing on Coronavirus by observing social distancing? Five minutes later and still baffled, I passed the salon again where not one but two armed response units had surrounded said premises, and were escorting the sheepish offenders out. It was honestly a scene I never imagined I’d see in my life.

Karma says there’s now at least one person walking around looking ridiculous with half a manicure. I secretly hope they got gels.

5. I was wrong about the Nutribullet

Mmmm just look at all that kale

I’m not one for fads. I don’t trust them. They simply don’t align with my values.

When the Nutribullet sky-rocketed onto the scene some years ago I was interested but unconvinced. The idea of making fresh smoothies and juices at home (that you could also take out and about with their nifty lid) sounded great, but also, like a fad. But there it was, suddenly ALL my friends seemed to have one and I sat enthralled, listening to their latest concoctions of beetroot, ginger, coriander and lime and who knows what. It seemed as though everyone had ramped up the nutrition stakes by a few notches and I was trailing behind, still drinking coffee as a morning pick me up. The chatter went on for some time (exactly 6 weeks, yawn)…but then stopped. Just like that. But, why? So I did me some research…

1.  It’s a pain in the bum to clean

2.  You need a constant supply of fresh or frozen mango, kale, oats, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, matcha and flaxseed to put in

3.  The lid thingy broke so now it can only be used at home

4.  It gets expensive buying all those superfoods from Planet Organic

5.  It’s a pain in the bum to clean

I felt a bit smug. I was secretly pleased with myself that I hadn’t jumped on the bandwagon and run out to spend my pennies on this expensive fad. Besides, I already had an ice-cream maker, a mini Kenwood and some kind of electric whisk gathering dust in the spatially-challenged kitchen cupboards. There simply was no room for a sidelined juicer to join the ranks of the unused and unloved.

Then there was lockdown… and my boyfriend…and his Nutribullet. It’s rare for me to say this, so listen carefully. I was wrong. Maybe his is an updated version (easier to clean, more powerful, I dunno), so clearly some good design decisions have been made, but blimey, this thing is bloody amazing! I’m one of those people who prefers to just throw things in and see what happens so there have been a few questionable attempts, but also, I am now enjoying either a mean, lean and very tasty green juice or blueberry and banana smoothie every vitamin-packed morning. And once normal life resumes, it’s the first thing on my list. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes being wrong feels right. :)