Episode Transcript
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Carl (00:04):
Welcome to Communication
Connection Community the
podcaster's podcast.
This podcast takes a deep diveinto modern day communication
strategies in the podcastingspace.
We chat with interesting peoplewho make the podcasting and
speaking spaces exciting andvibrant.
We also dive into thepodcasting community with news
(00:24):
updates, latest trends andtopics from this ever-evolving
space.
So strap in, it's going to beone amazing ride.
Let's dive into today's episode.
For over 25 years, ShaneSpraggs has been driving
successful projects for avariety of notable media and
software startups and some ofthe world's largest brands,
(00:47):
including Disney.
As CEO of Vertura, Shane'sfocus on productivity has
generated immense value for ourFortune 100 clients and he plays
a vital role in developing andimplementing cutting-edge
systems and strategies thatconsistently boost the
performance of the remote-basedteams.
The reason why I want to talkabout remote work today is
because not only is Shane anexpert in it, but you know what?
(01:09):
There are so many people in thepodcasting space.
They're working remotelyalready.
We're coming out of a pandemicthat remote work becomes very
relevant in our world today.
Shane, welcome to the podcast.
Shane (01:21):
Thank you so much for
having me.
Carl (01:22):
It is a thrill, my friend,
to have you here today.
Let's talk about remote work.
This isn't a new concept.
This is something that's beenaround for generations.
We just maybe didn't thinkabout it as remote work, but how
long has this been a thing, forthat matter?
Shane (01:38):
Well, actually back in
the IBM, actually had a program
for telecommuting, looking atways to reduce the commute for
their team members in California, and they've been.
They were doing for many yearsand it was actually picking up a
lot of steam for a while.
I don't get into the nittygritty, but around CEO, of
Yahoo came in and she decriedthat everybody has to be back in
(02:03):
the office, can't have anyoneworking from home, because we
need to be together to beproductive and to be creative.
And that put a bit of a kiboshon the concept of remote work
for a period of time, which wasonly really brought back by the
pandemic.
Up until then we hadsmatterings of people working
remote, very few remote-onlycompanies.
(02:24):
A lot of you know anyone who wasworking remote.
They were one-off in a businessor they were, you know, a
satellite office.
Then, of course, the pandemicreally pushed it all the way
home and what people learnedduring the pandemic is that it's
less about productivity andmore about well-being.
People learned that, hey, Ididn't have to spend an hour and
a half driving today to get tomy job.
(02:45):
We call the job a nine to five,but it's really eight to seven.
A lot of people.
I'm not spending, on average,$55 a day to be at the office.
I get to be there when my kidscome home from school, I get to
be able to work with focus onthe things I'm working on, I
feel more productive, and so onand so forth, and that went well
(03:06):
for a couple of years andaround the start of 2023, there
was a bit of a push back to theoffice, and that return to the
office happened for a lot oflarge companies and, I feel, for
good reason as well.
From my perspective, to work asa remote company, it requires
new management techniques andnew leadership approaches, and
(03:29):
the HR department really needsto know how to run remote
business, and a lot of thecompanies just didn't learn that
over the course of the pandemicand it was going to be easier
for them to bring people back tothe office than it would have
been to retrain their entirestaff Now, that being said,
around October, September oflast year, that flipped People
started realizing that maybereturning the office is not what
(03:51):
it was going to be.
Instead of people goingfull-time remote, we saw a lot
of companies meeting in themiddle of the way hybrid work,
working two to three days a weekat home.
Carl (04:01):
What's interesting is
there are companies who do
nothing but hire workersremotely.
I have a client in Germany, forexample, and most of the
individuals who work for thatcompany, they're not in Germany,
they're in US, they're inAustralia, they're in the UK,
(04:23):
they're in various parts of theworld.
Completely so it can work.
It's a matter of, as you said,it's training, it's
understanding that people havebetter quality of life when they
aren't spending, as you said,three hours travel time.
And that's if traffic's good.
And even though I mean, when Iworked in radio, my commute was
(04:45):
30 minutes, yeah, but if everthere was an accident, that 30
minutes could easily be threehours, yeah, one way or the
other.
Shane (04:53):
Or weather.
You know there's lots ofreasons why that would make your
life miserable.
Carl (04:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
What is it about companies,then, who are resistant to
embracing remote work more?
You said it's training, orthat's one aspect.
Is it the thought that maybethey're not getting the
productivity out of theiremployees?
Shane (05:13):
I think the productivity
argument has been quashed by
companies that are fully remoteand demonstrating that they're
able to be productive.
One that comes to mind recentlyis the company that built
Monopoly Go.
It's an online app, verysuccessful game, and it was
built by a remote-only business.
There's another company thatI'm familiar with out of
Vancouver called the Jane App,which they're fully remote as
(05:35):
well, and they have people allover North America working for
them, and these organizationsmay not have started remote, but
they've adopted some of theremote best practices, and along
with that is training themanagers on how to work with
remote teams is really the keybit to it.
It's an obvious reason thatthis is not really picked up,
(05:56):
and the reason is simple.
We had bad managers before thepandemic.
Right, we have this culture oftaking someone who's a really
good individual contributor andsaying, hey, you're good at your
job, let's see if you canmanage.
And oftentimes they can't,because management's a different
skill, it requires differentmuscles and a lot of different
training, and so now we makethings worse.
(06:17):
We are now taking these peoplewho don't know how to manage
people and telling them theycan't see their team or walk up
to their desks or gather in aroom together and it just adds
to the challenge of someonebecoming a good manager.
It's not just a matter of trust.
Trust comes from the bestpractices they follow.
So they do a better job ofdelegating the work, assigning
(06:40):
responsibility andaccountability, getting their
team members to say when they'llget things done, following up
with them to see if they got itdone and if they don't, dealing
with that appropriately andcreating a psychologically safe
environment for people to beproductive and creative and
innovative.
So all that, from that trust isbuilt because they deliver
(07:01):
value to the company as opposedto clocking hours they deliver
value to the company as opposedto clocking hours.
Carl (07:06):
Wow, I run a company that
is totally remote All of my team
are and, again, I'm a verysmall company I'm not a large
corporation that relies on brickand mortar and such but and my
company is virtual.
Podcasting is a very virtualthing.
Who knew?
So maybe that's a differencetoo is I have a virtual company,
my business.
(07:26):
I don't need to go to a physicallocation.
Even the way we work today,with all of the tools and
technology, you don't need to bein a physical studio to record.
We have microphones, we haveall of those things that could
connect to a computer that wedidn't have to the same way that
we do today, say even fiveyears ago or 10 years ago.
So, for us to do the work formyself and my teammates, we
(07:49):
don't need to be sitting in aroom together.
We can easily be sitting on aZoom call.
That also didn't exist.
Well, it existed, but it wasvery rudimentary.
I think before we had Zoom, wehad Skype, right, and that was a
thing.
Remember Skype?
Well, skype is still there, butit's now part of a larger it's
now Teams.
Shane (08:08):
The Teams right.
Carl (08:10):
Right, but the point is is
that you still had more
physical meetings and physicalconnections.
Now that we're in this virtualspace and I think the pandemic
proved to this we can be equallyproductive.
We can be even more productive.
We can in some cases and againI speak frankly as a business
owner, I can grow a globalcompany and do it with remote
(08:36):
teammates and probably moreeffectively, more expeditiously,
versus the old way of doing it,which was clocking in a time,
going to an office doing it likethis.
Am I the only person?
I know I'm not the only person.
Shane (08:52):
You're not.
No, and that's where businessis going.
It makes no sense to me that ifI'm going to start a new
business, I'm going to spend$5,000 to $6,000 a month on an
office space and limit myself tothe people in my geographic
location when there's people allover the world who can do the
work I want, at various rates.
(09:13):
And if you think about wherebusinesses are going to go from
here, the next Google andMicrosoft are being created
quite literally in someone'sgarage right now, not in the
same way Apple was built in agarage, but more of the.
You know this is the officespaces.
You know people are working outof their basements and if you
just play it forward, I don'tsee this time when someone's
(09:34):
going to say, well, hey, we'reup to 50 people, now let's pick
a place to open an office, right, and so we're in a transition
period.
We're in this position where,yes, a lot of large businesses
are not really in a position tomove full time, remote.
A lot of companies, a lot oforganizations, let's say your
local, municipal government,your town hall.
There are people there whodon't need to be at the town
(09:56):
hall working on a daily basis,so they can work hybrid, but
it's municipal.
They are probably going to drawpeople to those jobs that are
living there.
It's municipal.
They are probably going to drawpeople to those jobs that are
living there.
So there's a variety ofbusinesses, but for businesses
like yourself, that is fullyremote, fully digital, and so
much of the businesses that arehappening these days are a lot
(10:18):
of software development, a lotof data management, a lot of
enterprise work, that there's nophysical product anymore and it
doesn't need to be built inperson.
Carl (10:23):
Yeah, there are so many
good examples too, even in
government, and again, not to goon a political rampage here,
but there are some examples ingovernment where it worked
during the pandemic.
Everyone worked remotely duringthe pandemic.
What's the push to come back tothe office?
Is it because we still havebrick and mortar and, oh my
goodness, if people aren't inthose buildings, then we're
(10:45):
basically paying for emptybuildings.
Is that one of the challenges,too, that some companies or even
governments are struggling with?
Shane (10:54):
It's one of the aspects
of it.
We certainly do see citiesstruggling with their downtown
core.
There's a story recently aboutSeattle that has not recovered
since the pandemic, where itused to be pretty vibrant
downtown.
People would come to the officein the tall buildings and over
lunch all the restaurants andpubs down there would be flushed
with customers and that justhasn't recovered.
(11:16):
Because people are staying homeand even though the company is
maybe holding on to those officebuildings to do hybrid work,
we're seeing a fraction of thepeople actually making the trip
down to work.
But there's other reasons aswell.
The ability to run the companyis important and leaders and HR
and managers they need to thinka little bit differently.
(11:38):
And so, again, from a managementstandpoint, it just isn't
feasible to provide training andmove that behemoth into a new
way of thinking across a large10,000-person company that may
have multiple layers of middlemanagement.
And even then we've seen todraw an example from my
experience, the rollout of Agilein some of these businesses has
(12:00):
been very textbook and theymissed the point that some of
the flexibility of the conceptsaround agile.
They just deliver variouslevels the green belt, the white
, red belt and black belt ofagile.
And then companies come in,they apply that to a business,
they leave and the business justdoesn't know what to do with it
anymore.
Moving people, changemanagement is a real tough thing
(12:22):
and be forced to do it over thepandemic and we have to see the
results of it.
And some companies stood backafterwards and said, yep, this
is for us, this is working, andthere's a number of those in my
town, there's a number allacross North America and, as I
mentioned earlier, we're goingto see more companies join that
crowd, I believe, as theprogress here.
Carl (12:46):
There's certainly been an
evolution and we can certainly
see the pandemic probably movedthe pendulum a little bit more
in that direction or certainlypushed us a little further there
.
You've written a book aboutthis called the Power of Remote.
Shane (13:01):
I've got it right here.
There's my prop.
Carl (13:08):
There's the book.
You cover some key points herethat help organizations
implement and thrive in themodern workplace.
What are some of these keymessages that you want to share
with people?
Shane (13:17):
So from my perspective,
there's a few important
foundational aspects to runninga business.
The first is being intentional.
What you hear quite a bit withan in-office business is that
things happen organically.
And if you really start to lookat the word organically in this
context, it really means byluck.
You're not going to have anyplans in place, but someone's
(13:39):
fortunately going to meet aproverbial water cooler and come
up with a great plan and goimplement it.
With remote work, you just don'thave that.
So you have to be moreintentional with everything you
do, and it's not necessarilyabout process.
It's more about habits andculture establishing the right
ways of communicating, hiringthe right people.
(14:00):
So, for example, not everyone'scut out for remote work, and
that's the other thing.
People found as well that, hey,you do like to go in the office
occasionally and see people andthat maybe remote work isn't
for you.
Setting up intentional systemsand processes and habits is very
important and having thoseconversations with the people on
your team how does innovationhappen?
(14:21):
Right, what are we doing toencourage innovation?
And interesting thing for me isthat this actually becomes a
bit of a superpower because youcan have those conversations in
the office as well.
How does innovation happen here, and those businesses that do
that tend to succeed and thrive,whereas the businesses that
(14:42):
just focus on the day-to-day andlook at, you know, their next
product launch and they don'tconsider you know all the
aspects of running a businesslearning, development, training,
mentorship, innovation, projectmanagement.
All these things need to have aconsider, you know, have
intentional approach to them inorder for you to be successful.
Carl (15:04):
Do you think that, with
this evolution of understanding
that there are some people wholove to work remotely can do it
independently they're alreadydoing that anyways, even if
they're in an office and thereare people who need to
physically go into the officespace to feel productive?
Can you sense, or can youpredict, that in future, maybe
even the near future we'll seemore hybrid models of work?
Shane (15:26):
I think we're already
there.
I think the majority of thecompanies that I talk to are
already allowing.
Either they have a prescribedstrategy where there's two or
three days a week you have to beat the office, or they have
some sort of flexibleunderstanding that if you want
to work a day a month at home,that's fine.
What I worry is that people seethese as alternatives to sick
(15:46):
days or vacations, that hey, youcan go work from home if you're
not feeling well, but it's notreally a sick day, it's a paid
day you have to do your work.
That's concerning.
I think this is one of thoseareas where maybe down the road
we might see some governmentregulation around what it means
to work from home and how that'streated.
But generally, most businessesthese days have a greater
(16:08):
flexibility for where you workand that gives people more
options.
I'm truly interested in whatthis next generation is going to
want to do.
So we look at this as a wheredo I want to work?
And yes, there's a goodpercentage of.
If you look at the numbers rightnow, majority of the people who
are comfortable working fromhome are actually older than
you'd expect the older cohort.
(16:28):
You know they've gone to theoffice.
They've made their, you know,had their chance to have built
relationships.
A lot of them are just tired ofit.
They don't want to go back tothe office and they're happy
just to get their work done andstarting to live life.
They're seeing their kids getolder, they're seeing their days
maybe get numbered and theywant to put more emphasis on the
life that they're living.
However, the younger groupcoming up, the proverbial Gen Z
(16:50):
or Gen Zed they are a lot morefinely tuned with technology and
all you have to do is go to aschool and I've got a daughter
who's in grade 10.
And they will text to eachother while they're standing in
front of each other.
They are far more comfortabledealing with technology than
other people and I think we'regoing to see that the concept of
(17:10):
remote work is going to reallyappeal to them.
But there's going to have to besome challenges there, because
my personal feeling is anyonewho's coming out of school
should spend the next five yearsworking in an office.
There's lessons you learn thereabout the culture of working
that are hard to learn whenyou're sitting in a house in
your basement by yourself at theend of a computer.
And that is dominantly, becausethere's no concerted effort to
(17:32):
train people on how to workremotely or how to even be good
workers at schools, and it'sgoing to take a long time for
that to catch up.
Carl (17:41):
I was just going to say is
there an education piece here
where colleges, universities,higher learning institutions
that they're going to see andnot that we want to see them
boarded up or anything but arewe going to see even more remote
learning or learning aboutremote working that, let's face
(18:02):
it, when you and I went toschool, there wasn't really a
course on here's how you workremotely.
Do you see that that'spotentially going to open things
up a little bit?
Shane (18:13):
I'd like to think it
would.
But back to your point.
I didn't get a course on how todo time management either.
I didn't get a course on how tobe a manager.
I didn't really get a course onhow to manage my money back in
the day, and those courses arestarting to trickle in, but
they're being offered asoptional courses and electives
next to foods.
What's someone going to choose,right?
(18:35):
I think that there's been lotsof calls over the years for
people to put more emphasis onthe life skills that you need to
use to be a good employee, tobe a good budgeter, to run your
household, and we just haven'tseen those materialize in a
meaningful way.
My expectation is that school,the way it is now, will probably
(18:56):
remain the way it is for quitesome time.
We may see more people doingmore remote learning, as it does
support the learning from homeoption that's popular among some
groups.
Carl (19:07):
What's interesting is in
the business world certainly the
world that I work in and wework with a number of coaches
and consultants and othersubject matter experts and
they're seeing a shift in eventhe work that they do.
So folks who would thinknothing of running an eight-week
or a 12-week program, hey,let's meet every Wednesday at 10
am.
That's when the course is beingheld.
A lot of those are not remote,but remote in the sense that
(19:30):
it's going evergreen.
You know what you sign up forthe program.
Here it is.
It's a learn at your own pace,and then we meet once a week.
If you have questions, yourquestions are answered that once
a week, or that's twice a monthor whatever it is, versus the
sitting in the classroom,sitting in the office.
So it seems like in businessdepending on the business, of
(19:50):
course, it's shifting that way.
The education piece not to wavea flag or anything but
education needs to get caught upwith where the world is going.
Shane (20:01):
So much can be done from
a computer from anywhere in the
world and you have all yourequipment.
It's been shrunk down over thelast while to fit in a room in
your house or put in a bag, andthat gives you more options, and
so what we're seeing is thisflexibility is driving
innovation.
In some respects, People areseeing this opportunity to.
(20:21):
I don't have to be stuck inthis physical location to do my
job or run a business.
What options does that give me?
We're going to see some greatinnovation from that over the
next while.
I'm also very interested to seewhat happens with real estate.
In a sense, where are newhouses going to be built with
remote work in mind?
(20:41):
It used to be the den, but nowthe den is really the office and
it's going to be more of anecessity.
And what if you have two peopleworking remotely from home?
Well, do you need two dens?
Is that now becoming a, youknow, or maybe a third bedroom?
But is this now going to startdriving how people purchase
homes or what they look for in ahome or a dwelling?
Carl (21:04):
Wow, things that you don't
even think about.
You know, you'd think thatthree bedroom homes are the norm
right now.
Maybe we now need a fourthbedroom, because two of those
bedrooms, or the bedroom andmaybe a room in the basement are
going to be dedicated to, asyou said, not just the den, but
an office, where before itwasn't necessarily a dedicated
office.
Wow, shane, so much greatinsights.
(21:26):
Today I want to give you theopportunity to pump the tires on
the book, though We've alreadytalked about some of the aspects
of the book, but forindividuals who are looking for
their copy, where can they findit?
Give us a little bit more infoabout it.
Shane (21:37):
Sure, yeah, this was
published February 2023,
probably the worst time book inhistory.
It came out around the sametime as the return to office
mandates, but fortunately it's.
Since the hybrid work andremote work has become, far more
people realize the benefits ofit, it's becoming a bit more
popular.
I worked with Cynthia Watson onthis.
It's chock full of techniquesand strategies to work remotely.
(22:02):
It's predominantly focusedtowards the business owners who
want to run a business remotelyand those three key categories
leadership, management and HR.
We do have some of the outlooksin the back of the book for
project management and sales aswell Two other groups that are
seeing lots of work remotely.
It's available on Amazon,published through Forbes, and
(22:24):
we've received.
I'm a pretty humble person, butwe've received a lot of really
good praise about it.
I'm pretty happy with how wellit's been received and I'd love
to hear from anybody who eitherpurchases the book or wants to
learn more.
Carl (22:36):
And we'll make sure we put
the link to the book in the
show notes, as well as yoursocial links as well.
Shane, it's been an amazingconversation.
I'm excited for where work isgoing, although I'm already
working remotely, so maybethere's a remote, remote work.
I don't know.
Shane (22:51):
It's doing what you're
doing from a beach.
Carl (22:54):
Oh, I like that, I like
the way you think, my friend,
and not a Canadian beach inJanuary?
No, not quite the sameexperience, Shane Spraggs.
Before I let you go, I'll giveyou the final thought.
Shane (23:08):
Yeah, I think we've had a
lot of good conversation today.
The key one for me is lookingat where it's going in the
future.
And employers take note thatpeople are asking for remote
work.
People like the flexibility.
People recognize the well-beingthat it brings, and just the
simple ability of being able topick your kids up at three
o'clock in the afternoon whenthey come home from school is a
(23:29):
game changer for many adults.
It's a perk that you can offerfor low cost.
In fact, it saves you money inthe long run if you decide to
close an office or two.
Plus done right, it has beenproven to be more productive and
it sort of supports your bottomline as well.
Business owners take note it'stime to consider moving remote
(23:50):
if you haven't.
Carl (23:52):
All right, that's a great
place to leave it.
Shane Spraggs, thank you somuch for being my guest today.
Shane (23:57):
Thank you, Carl, pleasure
to be here.
Carl (23:59):
And, hey, thank you for
being a part of the show today.
So glad you could join us.
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our sonic branding genius,Kenton Dolborowski, and the
person who works the arms all ofour arms, actually our project
manager and my trusty assistant,Julovell Tiongco, known to us
(24:19):
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