Intro: 00:00:00

You're listening to close the loop, a podcast for business

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decision makers who are eager to put on their marketing hat and prove the

Intro: 00:00:09

worth of their campaigns here to get you excited about attribution and invite

Intro: 00:00:15

you to act on these topics is the host.

Intro: 00:00:18

Kevin Dieny a true marketing and data nerd live and virtual event

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speaker and fan of all things, Batman, he's joined by a variety of guests,

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subject matter experts and colleagues who are passionate about helping

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business leaders like you to succeed.

Intro: 00:00:37

No need to take notes.

Intro: 00:00:39

Just visit the show page on callsource.com and read the

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transcripts, watch the episodes, or get any links mentioned in the show.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:55

Hello and welcome to the close the loop podcast.

Kevin Dieny: 00:00:58

I'm your host, Kevin Dieny And today we're gonna be talking

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:01

about managing remote employees.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:04

This is a topic couple years ago.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:06

I dunno if I would've thought about thought about this, even be a topic.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:09

But it's something that's happening all over the world and it's all

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:12

it's across every level of business.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:14

It's a really interesting topic.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:16

It's something that I've been asked.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:18

This is something we wanna know more about, uh, from our listeners.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:21

So this is something I'm excited to dive into to help me discuss this topic.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:26

As someone who manages remote employees here at call source,

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:29

her name is Tiffany Tran She's been doing this for a long time.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:32

She's been, you know, doing this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:35

As soon as the whole world was forced to doing this, she jumped

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:37

in the band mic too, but, um, I've known her for a long time.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:41

She's worked at us here at, with me here at CallSource for a while.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:45

And I'm excited to talk about this.

Kevin Dieny: 00:01:46

So welcome Tiffany.

Tiffany Tran: 00:01:48

Thanks, Kevin, I'm excited to be here.

Tiffany Tran: 00:01:50

As Kevin mentioned, I have been doing this since the beginning of the pandemic,

Tiffany Tran: 00:01:55

so I'm really excited to talk about it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:01:57

Talk about some of the things that have worked for me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:01

Maybe some of the things that haven't worked for me, um, I've been working

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:05

for call source for the last nine years.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:08

I am now our senior director of customer.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:12

So anything support related all trickles back down to me, all client

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:17

interface comes back to me at the end of the day, outside of that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:21

Um, I've got two kids.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:24

I love to garden and read and in just adjusting to life after COVID I guess.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:32

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:32

It it's such a big change.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:34

That's happened.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:35

I, I mean, the culture of some companies was like, if you're not working around in

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:39

the office, I don't think you're working.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:41

So like that would be somewhere I'd almost wanna start is like

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:45

in regards to remote employees.

Kevin Dieny: 00:02:46

Like how, how, how do you know anyone's doing any work?

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:50

I think this is actually a question.

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:52

I get asked a lot by our clients, especially, um, We

Tiffany Tran: 00:02:58

have daily check-in measures.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:00

So we have constant communication.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:03

That's the big thing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:04

So my team is logged into slack all day long.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:08

They check in when they get there, they check in when they're leaving for lunch.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:12

Sometimes it seems a little bit like I'm micromanaging, but it's really important

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:17

to know where everybody is, but also have.

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:20

Grace in the fact that people have lives and things have changed, and we have to

Tiffany Tran: 00:03:25

respect that and trust that you've hired a good team who is putting in the work.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:31

I guess I, I almost wanna jump into this topic almost

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:34

too quickly, cause I also wanna make sure everyone is listening.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:38

There's different types of work environments.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:40

So let's say, and there's lots of combinations of this, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:43

There's like there's sometimes work environments where it's like,

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:45

I work for four or four days.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:48

Crazy long hours and I don't work other days.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:50

I'm not really talking about that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:51

It's more like the environment here, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:53

Like you're either in office, out of office or doing some sort of a hybrid.

Kevin Dieny: 00:03:58

So there are these different types of environments and, and what

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:02

are those types of environments?

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:03

And if you could like, kind of define them a little bit better for me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:07

Sure.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:07

So.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:08

What we're experiencing at least at CallSource is we have a lot of hybrid.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:13

So for instance, myself, I come into the office two to three days

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:18

a week, and then I work for my home office every other day of the week.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:22

For me, my team works 100% remote for the most part.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:28

While that being said, I have had some employees recognize that they do better

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:33

working in an office environment.

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:35

So they've come back to work in the call source headquarters, just

Tiffany Tran: 00:04:38

because that was better suited for them and their personalities.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:41

I think in this episode, there's gonna be two big things.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:43

I, I, that I'm kind of hoping we can touch on.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:46

And one of them is like the management side, your role, how you help them, help

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:50

your team be successful, working remotely.

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:53

The other thing I'm wondering about too, Is the employee set?

Kevin Dieny: 00:04:56

What is it like to be remote work and, and maybe have been in the office

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:00

and then become remote work, right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:05:01

Cause that's sort of what the transition was here, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:04

Sure.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:04

Absolutely.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:05

I think that, that was at least at the beginning was a huge transition.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:10

Everybody had this idea that working from home was this great

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:13

thing and that's what they wanted.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:15

It was the ultimate perk.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:17

I don't think everybody realized how disciplined you

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:21

have to be in working at home.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:24

For me personally, as a manager in managing my team, I have to

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:29

overcommunicate everything because they're not in front of you.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:33

You can't just walk out of your office and have a conversation.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:36

So we've tried to create an environment that replicates that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:40

So do we have constant slack communication?

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:43

We have email conversations constantly and I've made myself available.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:49

At any time that they need me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:51

So if they need to call me, text me, whatever works best for them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:55

But keeping that line of communication open has been extremely important to

Tiffany Tran: 00:05:59

have a successful work from home team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:06:02

I think as an employee, it's a little daunting because they don't

Tiffany Tran: 00:06:05

always come and ask questions.

Tiffany Tran: 00:06:08

So you have to almost prompt those questions.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:11

So whenever I do research for an episode, I look at okay, Here's

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:15

the pros for managing remote employers.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:17

Here's all the great benefits, but I've also looked at what,

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:19

what is the argument against it?

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:21

What's everyone saying?

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:22

And one of the things that people were saying is, as a manager,

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:27

it feels like micromanaging.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:28

And that's like a feeling that they don't want to convey to their teams is

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:33

like, I'm watching everything you do.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:35

Like I'm on your webcam.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:36

I'm watching your keystrokes.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:37

If you walk away.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:38

I know.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:39

And that's not how it was in the work in, in the office environment.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:41

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:42

They were around, but it's not like.

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:43

Like peeking through the blends of the office, like watching

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:47

them every second, you know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:48

So that, that, that feeling of ultra micro management to me does feel

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:52

a little bit like sour, you know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:06:54

So what would you say about this argument of, if we, if we go to remote work, I'm

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:00

gonna have to be micromanaging ultra, and it's just gonna feel terrible and it's not

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:04

gonna create a foster good relationship or environment as a manager to the.

Kevin Dieny: 00:07:09

Sure.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:11

So I think as much as it feels like you're micromanaging, I think

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:15

a big part of it is you have to trust that you've put proper process in place

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:20

that you have things to measure success.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:24

And even now adapting and changing those things as the work environment

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:28

changes, I stress with my team that I'm not here to watch every

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:34

little thing that they're doing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:36

But at the same time, if metrics start falling, then we have

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:39

to have a closer conversation.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:41

The big difference, I think for me is just keeping the lines of communication

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:46

open and making sure that you're continuously asking questions, but also

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:50

recognizing that they're people, right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:52

Because even when we were in an office, We're still recognizing that

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:57

they're people, they like to socialize.

Tiffany Tran: 00:07:59

They like to have conversations.

Tiffany Tran: 00:08:00

And so allowing yourself to be open, to just have conversations.

Tiffany Tran: 00:08:04

Cause I think it's so easy to get lost in only business conversations when

Tiffany Tran: 00:08:09

you're remote, remembering that they're people and they like to connect with

Tiffany Tran: 00:08:12

other people and they like to just have conversations and letting that be okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:16

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:17

I, I, that was that's immediately.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:18

The last thing I, I was seeing crop up was people.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:21

Psychologists weighing in maybe, or just different types of organizational

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:25

behavioral, behavioral people looking at the workplace and being like, this

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:29

is, this has the chance to be here difficult because boys are gonna be

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:32

isolated into some extent, or maybe, you know, maybe we from home for a

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:37

lot of people, is them home alone.

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:38

Or, you know, maybe they have a roommate or something that's doing

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:40

it, or they have a spouse that's doing it too, in your case, you know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:44

So like if you could touch on like, or how you combat the isolation, the aloneness

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:52

also the, like the, the disconnectedness, the social, the people still kind

Kevin Dieny: 00:08:56

of me to get feedback on socially, how you've either dealt with that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:09:01

What you've seen in that, anything.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:04

Sure, so for me personally, I've been very

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:06

fortunate as Kevin mentioned, my husband also works from home.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:10

So I have a built in colleague comes with its own challenges though, working with

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:14

your spouse already for the same company, but also then working in the same space.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:20

It's a little bit much, but I have had, even on my team, I've had teams identify.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:24

This is not for me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:26

I'm too isolated.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:27

I need to put myself back in a work environment.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:30

I need to be back in an office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:32

You have to recognize that not everybody.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:35

Enjoys working from home and be adaptable to that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:39

And so if you're looking to hire someone, are they really

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:42

open to working from home 100%?

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:45

Do they have outlets?

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:46

Do they have friends that they're regularly talking to?

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:49

Do they have outside of work interactions?

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:52

If they don't, then you have to make sure as a manager that you're prioritizing

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:57

creating those connections for.

Tiffany Tran: 00:09:59

For me personally, we do things like we have a book club for some

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:03

of the girls on the team where that's what they like to do.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:05

They like to read.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:07

I love to read, so, Hey, let's just get together and have a

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:10

social meeting once a month.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:12

And we talk about it right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:13

Also opening up your team meetings for that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:16

Letting them just have conversations, letting them joke and interact

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:19

as if they're in the office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:22

Um, and our slack channel communicates a lot to that as well.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:25

So they just communicate, they talk back and forth.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:27

They're definitely open in terms of that communication.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:31

And I try not to control that too much so that they do get some

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:34

interaction with other people.

Tiffany Tran: 00:10:35

That's not 100% work related.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:38

Gotcha.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:39

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:39

That's all really interesting.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:40

And, and I've heard tips like that out there and seeing, you know, I almost

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:43

wonder, like, has it been long enough that we know that everything is working or not?

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:47

So I was kinda curious.

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:49

How do you kind of know that the remote thing is working or

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:53

that, that things are working?

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:55

I mean, there's sort of science and data and there's science, and maybe

Kevin Dieny: 00:10:57

you have conversations with employees and they're giving you this feedback.

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:00

Like, it's great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:02

I, I might need more of a work environment or, you know, what, if

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:04

we started a club or something, I think that's all amazing feedback that

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:08

you've been getting and that there's, you still have those relationships,

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:10

but is there anything you're looking at where you're saying to yourself,

Kevin Dieny: 00:11:13

you know, this is working or maybe it has not been long enough for you to.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:17

So I think for me, this was a big thing I did last year was I started

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:21

to measure our effectiveness with data.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:25

I think that was the first thing asking people if it's working because they

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:29

like the perks of working from home.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:31

I don't know that you're always gonna get an honest answer there.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:34

The proof was in our data.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:36

Our connections with clients has skyrocketed because I think they

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:39

also now are in home environments.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:41

And so we've had more connection than ever.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:44

I think we.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:46

Also can tell, just in email response rates, how many meetings we're

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:50

having and measuring all of that, but having a baseline for that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:54

Right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:54

So what did it look like before we worked from home with a team of the same

Tiffany Tran: 00:11:58

size and what does it look like now?

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:00

And is it increasing?

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:02

Is it decreasing and kind of really closely monitoring those numbers to

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:06

make sure we're not seeing a dropoff, but you bring up a good point.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:10

Some of these dropoffs that we see.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:13

You have to address them very quickly.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:15

You can't let things linger.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:17

So if numbers start to drop, performance starts to drop.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:20

There's a complaint from someone internally about someone who's working

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:23

from a home, you have to take it seriously and you have to address it right away.

Tiffany Tran: 00:12:27

Otherwise it's too hard to make corrections remotely.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:31

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:32

So a side note to this, right, is like you're, you're, you're

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:36

mentioning like productivity is a really great way to measure.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:39

This is kind working and then there's the social component.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:41

There's, you know, addressing concerns and, and making sure

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:45

that everything's aligned.

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:46

But, and the other side of this, like the pro, so like the major benefits

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:50

and, and one thing I've heard a lot is like, as a parent with kids and needing

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:55

flexibility, Like all of a sudden at two o'clock I have to go pick 'em up

Kevin Dieny: 00:12:58

for 10 o'clock someone's say, or I have this crazy schedule and things are

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:02

adjusting out summer now's school year.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:04

Like I heard like a lot of parents say, you know, for, for all of the

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:08

stuff they say bad about it, there's one thing I've really appreciated.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:11

And that's like the flexibility part of it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:14

So on the pro side of taking remote work is the way to go.

Kevin Dieny: 00:13:18

What would you say.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:20

As a parent, I can highly speak to the fact that it has

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:27

drastically improved my work life balance.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:30

I can be there when my kids need me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:33

If my kids are sick, I can make things work.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:35

There's a lot more adjustments that you can make to be

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:38

there for your family, which.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:41

With everything going on over the last few years has been huge

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:45

when I was working in the office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:47

I think I went through my sick time in the first three months of the year,

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:51

every year because kids get sick.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:54

It happens.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:55

Right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:13:56

And as a manager, I've always tried to make sure that there was some

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:00

sort of balance if they couldn't work or they needed to be home.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:03

I made sure that that was a priority.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:04

We have to understand that people have lives outside of.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:07

But when they're working remote, it gets a lot easier to work during nap

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:11

time to be able to be on when they normally wouldn't be able to, and

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:16

being able to accommodate that is huge.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:19

Pick up times is also a big thing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:22

But I think even for my team members who don't have kids

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:25

think about the things like, Hey, they need a plumber to come out.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:28

It's not an all day thing, but if they were in the office, they'd have to

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:32

take the whole day off so that they could let her plumber into their house.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:35

Now they have the flexibility to be able to get those life things done,

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:39

cuz we all have them, but they're still able to get their work done.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:43

It's not something where they can't do work because this person is coming.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:47

They just need to be there to let them in, make sure they can answer any questions

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:50

and then they get right back to work.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:52

And so just understanding that and recognizing that this just

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:55

makes life easier for everybody.

Tiffany Tran: 00:14:56

And it really gives them the balance that they've been looking for.

Kevin Dieny: 00:14:59

Yeah, that's really good.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:00

I see like a lot of potential in, in it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:04

And in figuring it out, it still feels like a lot of companies are figuring

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:07

this out and maybe asking themselves if I open that door, I like, so what

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:12

would you say if they open the door and they're like, let's try remote and

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:14

they feel like it's not really working.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:16

Do you think it's something people that can roll back and could be like, now

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:19

we're all going back into the office.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:21

I mean, some companies are like, look, we're, we're only

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:23

gonna be in the office now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:24

You've had your time to be remote, come back.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:25

And, and it seems like employees are like, you know what?

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:28

I don't want that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:30

That seems like a backwards role.

Kevin Dieny: 00:15:33

What do you think about that?

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:34

So this is something that has come up quite a bit.

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:39

I think you have to be very transparent with your team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:44

If you're testing this out, you need to be honest that this is a trial.

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:49

That was a big part of what I did at the beginning of COVID with my team was

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:52

I said, look, if you guys wanna stay working from home, you need to prove.

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:57

That you are gonna be effective doing it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:15:59

If you can't be effective doing this, who's to say that our owners, aren't

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:03

gonna say, Hey, let's roll this all back.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:04

Everybody's gonna come back to the office, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:07

Creating that level of transparency.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:09

When you're testing something like this is really important.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:12

You have to be honest with your team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:13

You have to be a transparent.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:15

You have to let them know that it is 100% dependent on how productive they are.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:19

The conversation.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:20

Having people come back to the office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:22

It's not an easy one.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:24

Um, I've had to do it one time and it was a necessity.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:28

They had to come back to the office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:29

They just weren't being productive and it had to happen low and behold.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:33

They came back to the office for two months.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:35

They really wanted to go back to working remote, but they

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:39

had to essentially earn it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:40

And we have to be open to that idea that if it's not something necessarily your

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:44

company wants to do, but you wanna test it out and you wanna test the waters,

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:48

I would say I would highly recommend being fully transparent with your team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:52

That it's a test, it's all based on productivity and making sure you can

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:56

still meet the business's needs and being honest with yourself, whether or not it's

Tiffany Tran: 00:16:59

actually meeting those needs or not, or you just don't like working from home.

Tiffany Tran: 00:17:03

Because I think that there, those are two different things,

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:06

Right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:07

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:07

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:07

I, I had an employer one time who.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:10

I mentioned, you know, it was one of the perks to my job.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:14

I like now that I've been here long enough, I'd like to have a day at

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:16

home where I work from home and it was like, great, great, go do that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:21

And about six months down the road, my employer told me, like, my boss

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:25

sat down me and said, look, I, I don't know where it's coming from,

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:28

but I just feel like you're not doing any work when you work from home.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:31

I'm just being very honest with you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:33

He's like, I just wanna ask you, like, just, you know, to gimme

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:36

the honest answer, like, are you when you're at home and I was.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:39

Well, I'll be totally honest when I'm at home.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:41

There's long periods of time.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:42

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:42

Where like my kids are running around.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:45

I wanna go and say hi or meet them, or I wanna go cook food and I come

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:48

back cause I don't have to go out for lunch and there's things like that

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:51

happening, but I'm still working and it's like, okay, cause there's no checks,

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:54

you know, there was no data points, there's no checks and bounces there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:57

Its just, I trust you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:17:58

And you were at home, you were working, you know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:00

And, and I could tell his fear was like, I, how do I know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:04

Like, am I just spending money on someone who's decided, you

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:07

know, now I have the ability.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:09

Do whatever.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:10

And, uh, I told him like, you know, there was a day where I didn't

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:12

do that much that day, but I made it up the next day or I did that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:15

And like, I was like, that's flexibility, sort of what I mean by working from

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:18

home one day a week is like all of a sudden when something comes up, I

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:21

could, like you said, plumber's kind, but I could still squeeze in some work.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:24

Otherwise I would've just called the day out, you know?

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:27

And, and having that very honest conversation, he's

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:29

like, okay, I feel much better.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:30

I'm good with this now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:31

And I'm okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:32

And so we moved forward with it and that's kinda how it went,

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:34

but it made me think about.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:37

The communication types between your employees and your manager.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:39

Cause at that time, the only thing that he did is he walked out, he

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:42

saw I was working, you know, so he just had his little walk bys

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:45

and he knew I was doing stuff.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:47

So what, like communication types are really effective for, but for

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:52

getting like two remote employees.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:54

Cause there's some employees like when they're remote, you

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:56

don't know what they're doing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:57

You don't know if they're in the bathroom right now.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:58

You don't know if they're what they're doing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:18:59

You don't know because the flexibility is there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:01

So there's things.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:03

Chats emails, calls, texts.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:05

But sometimes it's like, is that infringing on them?

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:08

Because you wouldn't have done that when they were in the office.

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:11

So are there some communication strategies you've used to, you said

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:16

you've had a weekly or daily check-in or something like what communication

Kevin Dieny: 00:19:20

strategies work have worked well for you?

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:24

I think the biggest improvement was definitely

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:27

adding something like chat.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:29

So we personally use slack.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:31

But that's a line of constant open communication.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:34

So at any given time I can message anybody on my team and

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:38

have a conversation with them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:39

That's huge.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:41

I think another huge aspect is zoom has made this very easy, so

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:46

we do face to face communication.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:48

So all one on one meetings, all team meetings, my team

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:52

is required to be on camera.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:54

It is the one and only time I don't care about your hair.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:56

I don't care about what you're wearing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:19:58

That's fine.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:00

But they are required to be on camera during those times.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:03

The reason being is one, the connection, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:06

I can't read social cues.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:08

I can't read their body language if we are not talking face to face.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:12

And if we're in a remote environment, sometimes that face

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:15

to face communication is necessary, especially when you're talking

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:19

about performance, things like that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:20

So zoom has been a huge attribute to us.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:25

I do think things like texting has also increased, but that's just.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:32

The way of life, I guess you gotta adapt and you gotta move forward.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:35

You can't stay stagnant forever.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:37

I do also set boundaries though, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:40

Because just because they're working from home, doesn't mean that I can

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:44

text them or call them at all hours.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:46

So that's a big part of what our slack channel contributes to is,

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:49

Hey, I'm here, I'm on the clock or, Hey, I have to leave really quick.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:53

I'll be right back, whatever that looks like.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:55

So I know where they are and I'm.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:58

Crossing those lines.

Tiffany Tran: 00:20:59

Right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:00

So just like if someone was in an office and they were taking their

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:02

lunch at their desk, that doesn't mean you can just walk up to them

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:05

and talk to them about their work.

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:07

They're on their lunch.

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:08

They're still entitled to breaks.

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:10

They're still entitled to a start time and an end time and you have

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:13

to respect that and roll with it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:17

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:17

I I've heard that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:20

Remote work can feel like they're always on call or that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:23

Now, anytime there's even a slight emergency, you know, it's gonna be

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:28

like bringing the bell and everyone's gotta come break the flexibility.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:31

They have to come fix the problem.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:33

So like breaking down, like when and how you're gonna communicate, how the

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:38

team's gonna work, your processes.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:40

You've talked about producing incredibly valuable and important.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:43

And also as an employee, it's like something you can be like rest assured.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:47

Okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:48

You know, it's not gonna be.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:50

Rebel ringing emergency every time, because now that I'm at home, my hours

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:53

work, my hours are not 24 hours a day.

Kevin Dieny: 00:21:55

You know,

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:57

That's very true.

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:58

Something.

Tiffany Tran: 00:21:59

That's put it into perspective for me is that my bosses have always been

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:03

good at if it's bad news on a Friday afternoon, it can wait until Monday.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:09

Right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:09

So they respect those boundaries and I need to respect those

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:13

boundaries for my team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:14

And so I've had really good leaders in place that have

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:17

mirrored that for me, right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:19

Your team isn't.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:21

All a team of managers.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:22

They're not on salary.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:23

You can't call them whenever you want.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:26

That's just not how it works.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:28

My boss is very good at respecting my time and knowing when I'm with my kids

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:32

and knowing that, Hey, I'm not gonna call her at seven o'clock on a Thursday or a

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:36

Friday night because she's with her kids.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:37

She's doing bedtime.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:39

But I need to give my team that same grace and give them, Hey, they're off.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:43

That means they're off.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:44

Unless there's an absolute emergency.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:47

I should not be calling them just as if we were at the office and I've

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:50

had to stop and think about that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:51

If we were in an office, would I be calling them for this after hours?

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:55

If I would great, then I'll still call them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:22:57

If not, then I should not be picking up my phone.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:00

I shouldn't be texting them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:01

I shouldn't be calling them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:02

I shouldn't be trying to get a hold of them at all.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:03

If it's not a true emergency.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:05

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:06

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:06

That's really interest.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:08

So you you've transitioned from having a lot of employees or, uh, in office

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:12

or, or person to remote and to somehow not some hybridization in there too, but

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:18

what about bringing on someone brand new?

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:22

You know, like you've had the flock you've used to, you've moved with

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:25

them, you know, them you've moved them.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:27

It's transition.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:27

You've had that rapport build.

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:29

How does it go with someone brand new that you're onboarding for

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:32

the first time bringing freshly into this now remote clock?

Kevin Dieny: 00:23:36

How does that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:38

There is a lot of overcommunication in the beginning,

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:41

although we've successfully done it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:44

A few times since COVID started.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:46

And since we switched to remote work, there's, check-ins all throughout the day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:51

They're usually partnered up with someone all day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:53

So that's a little bit of a difference is we use zoom as a tool for them to just

Tiffany Tran: 00:23:58

join somebody throughout their work day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:01

Uh, they don't necessarily have to have the camera on, but it's just

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:04

something where they have zoom up.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:05

It's open, it's running and then they can talk and ask questions as

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:09

they need them versus isolating.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:12

Right, because if they're in an office, they can turn

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:13

around and ask you a question.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:15

You don't really have that here.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:17

You have slack and you have other means of communication, but we try to leave

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:21

that door open by giving them things like zoom and just having it open.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:25

And they just sit on zoom with you all day and they kind of work beside

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:27

you essentially, as if you were in an office, that's been a huge

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:31

thing, but I'll be honest with you.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:33

Working from home has actually drastically improved our onboarding

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:38

processes because we've done things like record our meetings with clients and.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:45

We have zoom meetings and we didn't have things like this before, where

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:48

we recorded our meetings, we just called clients and did walkthroughs.

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:52

But now as this has become the norm, I have a library of calls and things like

Tiffany Tran: 00:24:57

that, that I can train people off of and have built this library out of necessity

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:03

to onboard people, but it gives them an additional tool that really helps.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:08

Integrate them into the new work environment and lets them see how

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:13

we operate, what a call sounds like as if they were there and sitting

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:16

right next to somebody, um, and really having the team participate.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:21

I think that's a big thing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:22

Is everybody on my team participates in some form or fashion when a

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:26

new employee is coming on board.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:28

It's not just one.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:29

It's not just me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:30

They're not just meeting with me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:32

They're meeting with everybody on our team to cover different topics

Tiffany Tran: 00:25:35

and different things and really leaning into that team environment.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:39

Wow, that that's so interesting.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:41

I, I, I, you know, you, you hear like some success stories about it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:46

Like we, we switched over and just, everyone's loving it sort

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:51

of anecdotally, but it's like a really interesting example of how.

Kevin Dieny: 00:25:55

Like the forcing in or the, the jumping plunging into the remote world.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:00

Okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:00

We've had to adapt to survive here, but if there's things that have come

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:03

out of the adaptation, like recordings and things that are helping people as

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:08

they come on, never existed before.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:10

That's really cool.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:11

Okay, so the next thing I wanna go with this is in

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:15

communication in, in breakdowns.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:18

So how, how are you able to keep a tab on, um, if something

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:24

is starting to break down.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:25

Not data related, but like communication related, how, how have you been

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:29

able to pick up like, oh, you know, we've had a bottleneck because

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:32

we're only talking at this one time or maybe I need more meetings.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:35

Maybe this person I need to have an additional meeting with.

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:37

How are you kind of, how are, how have you figured out or adjusted to

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:41

communicating with your employees?

Kevin Dieny: 00:26:42

Like in terms of one on one or as a team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:26:46

I think this all boils down really to being a good manager.

Tiffany Tran: 00:26:50

Right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:26:50

You have to recognize that everybody on your team is different.

Tiffany Tran: 00:26:54

They all have different communication needs.

Tiffany Tran: 00:26:57

And that doesn't change just because you go into remote work.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:00

When you were in the, when I was in the office, my team all had individual needs.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:04

Some liked to have conversations all throughout the day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:08

Others just wanted to drop in my office and have a conversation,

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:13

but you have to know your team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:15

You have to know their needs and recognize when something is off as a manager.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:20

It has to be top priority.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:22

If you're noticing all of a sudden, someone is really quiet.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:26

It's time to check in.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:28

If someone is normally quiet and all of a sudden they're talking

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:30

a whole lot more, they may need some extra interaction, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:35

So you have to recognize that and you have to change your one on ones a little bit.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:39

You have to start asking more personal questions mentally.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:42

How are you doing?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:44

Is everything going okay?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:46

Are there things that you need me to know?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:48

Are you struggling with certain things?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:50

Personally?

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:51

A lot of things, I feel like.

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:53

They would share with you in an office environment because you guys were

Tiffany Tran: 00:27:56

face to face in talking, you have to create a space where they feel safe

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:00

to still have those conversations and make sure that you're bridging those

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:04

gaps and still meeting those needs.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:06

Wow, that's really good.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:07

That's a really good note.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:09

I, I mean, at the same time, like if I'm managing people.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:13

it feels like there's a lot more going on here than just simply

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:16

managing them the way I did it before.

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:18

Like, uh, there's other things I should take note of, but would you say that once

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:21

you've done it for a while, you kind of get used to, okay, this is, this is like

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:25

a good way to manage it, to make sure I'm asking these questions that I might have

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:28

just assumed that before were, you know, because the environment we were able to

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:32

have, but, uh, do you think that it it's sort of something that you've adjusted

Kevin Dieny: 00:28:38

to and that you like the way it works?

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:40

I think it's something you have to constantly adjust to, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:43

Your team is changing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:44

Your team is evolving.

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:46

People are getting married, things are changing, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:49

People are moving into new environments.

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:51

They're buying houses, they're doing all these big life things.

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:54

And so you're constantly having to adjust as you add new people to your team and

Tiffany Tran: 00:28:58

the dynamic changes, you have to be willing to adjust your managerial style.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:03

It can't stay stagnant forever.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:05

And I think that that for me, Yes.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:08

I have a norm and I have a way that I operate, but even recently,

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:12

I've had a couple people join my team and I have to recognize that

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:17

I can't still operate the same way.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:19

Right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:19

They're long term call source employees.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:21

They know how everything works.

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:23

So maybe I'm a little more hands off than I should be, but being honest with

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:27

yourself and also recognizing that person needs a little bit more interaction and I

Tiffany Tran: 00:29:32

need to make sure I make that a priority.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:34

Yeah, no, that's really interesting.

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:36

And have you thought about, okay, we're all remote, but maybe we're gonna meet

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:42

in person or try to, or arrange for that or see if that's a possibility

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:46

or maybe have like a, still an in person, but a hybrid or a virtual need,

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:51

like not, not necessarily like a work related type thing, you know, like, is

Kevin Dieny: 00:29:57

there still room or you think there's still a need for everyone to at some

Kevin Dieny: 00:30:02

point do an in person thing together.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:04

I do I do.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:05

I think from a social aspect, I think it's good for the team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:09

I've had subgroups of my team come into the office so that we

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:13

could meet and discuss things and just interact in person.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:16

And they're super productive because they're like, Hey, let's just come in,

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:19

solve the problem and then let's get out.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:21

It has come up more recently.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:23

Now that things are opening up a little bit.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:25

I think.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:26

This is now when this conversation is starting, because as COVID is

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:30

easing a little bit, people aren't as stressed out about meeting in person.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:34

Okay.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:34

What do we do from here for me at call source?

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:39

A big part of what I did here was a lot of the social aspects.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:42

So I organized our corporate games.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:44

I helped with our Christmas parties and our summer parties.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:47

And for me, that's huge.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:49

That social aspect has always been a huge part of my life.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:52

Um, I mean, even having.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:54

My team over for barbecues and things like that was a big part of this before.

Tiffany Tran: 00:30:59

And so that's actually, the next hurdle that I'm trying to

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:01

overcome is how do I bring some sort of social aspect back, right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:06

We do like secrets in, at the holidays and do stuff like that, where we

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:09

interact, you know, a team social happy hour where everybody's on zoom

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:13

or whatever that looks like, but how do we give them that interaction so that

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:17

they can communicate with each other outside of a work related meeting.

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:20

And it's okay to have meetings just like you would at the office.

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:24

To just talk, just hang out, show everybody your dog, let your kids run in.

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:32

I think it's important to let people see that you're people and just

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:35

have that time that that's okay.

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:37

It's not a waste of company time to let them socialize for an hour or two

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:41

on a Friday when they probably aren't being super productive, even if they

Tiffany Tran: 00:31:44

are in an office to just let them socialize and have that interaction.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:49

Yeah, that's great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:50

And it's fascinating you didn't working on that and that's like the next hurdle that

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:53

you're looking at overcoming, so, okay.

Kevin Dieny: 00:31:57

So let's say there's two groups here.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:01

There's the employee.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:02

What tips would you give an employee?

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:04

Who's a.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:05

Remote work to make sure that they're successful as a remote employee.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:09

And the other side of this is the manager, uh, managers managing

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:14

remote employees or hybrid employees.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:16

Um, and there's a remote aspect to it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:19

What tips would you give the manager for managing specifically

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:22

those remote employees?

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:23

So those two questions are sort of in there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:25

Um, yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:26

Like what strategies would you, what tips would you give them to make

Kevin Dieny: 00:32:29

sure that they're set up for success?

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:32

I think from an employee perspective, Make sure that you're

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:35

communicating with your manager on your needs and being honest with

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:39

yourself and your manager, they can only meet you in the middle.

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:43

If you're communicating what you need from them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:46

That's definitely a big one, but I think also setting yourself up for

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:49

success, having a designated space in your house, where you go to work every

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:53

day, keeping it, and maybe separate from as much as you can, at least from your

Tiffany Tran: 00:32:59

social and common areas in the house.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:02

Those distractions are gonna be there, right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:04

But you need to have a designated space where you can go to work every

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:08

day, but also for your own mental health somewhere where you can leave

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:12

work at the end of the day so that you don't wanna extend your day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:15

Right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:15

Because that, that is a line that you also have to draw for yourself

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:19

and was very important for me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:21

I'm very fortunate to, as an employee, I have an office at home and I can

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:25

close that door at the end of the day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:27

And that's, it works done for the.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:28

But even when I didn't have that designated space at home, it was still

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:33

important to make sure my computer's off.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:35

Once I'm done, I'm done.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:36

I'm, I'm drawing that line.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:38

And I think as an employee, that's very important, cuz it's very

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:40

easy as an employee to cross that boundary just because it's there.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:45

Oh, I have more projects I need to get done.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:46

I need to make sure I get this done.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:48

It's okay to leave it at the end of the day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:51

It's okay to come back to it tomorrow and recognize and understand that it's

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:55

okay to disconnect from your work just like you did before and make sure you

Tiffany Tran: 00:33:58

make that clear distinction for yourself.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:01

The adverse to that from a management perspective, like we talked about

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:05

earlier, you have to recognize those boundaries too, for your.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:09

And you have to recognize that they're not here to be a workhorse.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:12

They're not here to work 24 hours a day.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:15

They have those designated timeframes and you need to respect that.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:19

I think as a manager, for me, the biggest thing has been trusting

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:24

that I hired the right people.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:26

I have the right team they're meeting.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:28

They're exceeding the expectations I'm setting for them and trust.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:33

The process, trust yourself, trust that you're doing what is best for your team.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:37

And as long as you are meeting your metrics and your bosses are

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:41

happy, or the, your PNLs are good, everything is showing positive signs.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:47

Recognize that that's a success.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:51

And really owning that, but I think it all comes down to trust.

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:56

And I think at the beginning there were a lot of sleepless nights of figuring

Tiffany Tran: 00:34:59

out, oh gosh, am I doing this right?

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:01

Oh, did I do this wrong?

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:02

Where, where did I mess up today?

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:04

And then I had to remember that I have a really great team and I really trust them.

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:10

And I know that they're working hard and constantly recognizing that they're

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:14

working hard and keeping them that acknowledgement is really important.

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:18

Just like you would do in an office environ.

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:20

And trusting yourself that you're making the right decisions and you're making

Tiffany Tran: 00:35:24

corrections as quickly as you can.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:27

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:28

Yeah, that's really great advice.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:29

I, I love the idea of the employees, making sure that they're protecting their

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:34

environments for themselves and making sure that they're, they're like they are

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:39

responsible for their work and stuff that they're doing, but also now it's like

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:42

your work environment and your projects and the stuff you do and protecting your.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:47

So work doesn't take over your life.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:48

It's very important.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:49

And then as a manager, it's like recognizing that there's where

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:52

lines or draw where barriers are and something else you said was really

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:56

stood out to me was the end of the day.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:58

Trust your process.

Kevin Dieny: 00:35:59

Right?

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:00

I think I've heard this echo a lot.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:02

Some employees are now gonna work as hard as you, some employees are gonna do things

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:06

different than you, but there's a process.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:09

There's standards.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:09

There's measurements in place.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:11

As long as those are hit and they're maybe being exceeded.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:14

Maybe you don't need duplicates, CLS of yourself, running

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:17

around doing all these tasks.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:18

These people are distinct.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:20

You've hired them.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:20

You've brought them in.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:22

They have gifts and abilities that are different than yours.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:24

That may be better suited.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:26

For doing things a little bit different in their own way and allowing for that

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:30

space, that creative, that open space for them to Excel in, in that way.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:35

And maybe even you get feedback where they say, look, here's the process.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:38

Maybe we can adjust it and being able to do that.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:41

And allow that just the process be guided in a, in a sort of a feedback driven way.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:47

To me, it's something, it just, it was like little tones of it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:49

I was hearing what you were saying, but I was like, wow, that sounds really good.

Kevin Dieny: 00:36:54

um, as far as, this is a point where I gotta ask, is there anything I haven't,

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:00

we haven't talked about, we haven't said that you feel like, or maybe wanna re.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:05

Anything at this point that we've missed.

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:08

You wanna mention that?

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:09

Uh, it, it, that will help, uh, our audience understand about what, what it's

Kevin Dieny: 00:37:14

entailed in managing remote employees.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:17

I think we've covered it pretty well, but I

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:19

do wanna elaborate on something.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:20

You just said.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:21

One of the key things that I've also done with my team is

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:25

included them in this process.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:27

And so right before this, we were actually having a discussion on some

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:30

of the metrics that I measure them on.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:33

And I opened the discussion for missing, what am I missing?

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:37

What am I not seeing, or what I understand from this process and how can we improve?

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:44

You'll find that they're more dedicated to what they're doing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:47

If they get to contribute to the process, they get to be a part of the discussion.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:52

It's not just, Hey, this is what you're doing because I said, so.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:57

To your point.

Tiffany Tran: 00:37:58

They're all people, they all have different gifts.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:00

How boring would the world be?

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:02

If everybody was me, we'd all go a little crazy.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:05

If everybody was me, let's be honest here, but really recognizing that, right.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:09

I serve a different client base.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:12

Everybody who's listening, they all need have different needs.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:16

And especially in this role where they're serving your client's needs,

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:20

you have to recognize each person's strengths and align them according.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:24

We're not all the same, the process isn't gonna work exactly the

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:27

same for every individual person.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:30

And this has just helped us realize that I think the other side to this, Kevin.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:35

Is when everybody was in an office, they still weren't productive.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:39

100% of the time.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:40

Let's be realistic here.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:42

Not everybody was working all the time, even if they're at their

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:46

computer and like they're working, they're not working of the time.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:51

It's a good change.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:52

It's been nothing productive for us.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:55

Think it's a fit for every company.

Tiffany Tran: 00:38:57

No, I don't, but there is a lot to be said for trusting your team and trusting

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:02

your process to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:06

And if they're engaging a lot already, only over the phone or

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:09

only over computer, like our team was, there's really no difference.

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:13

It's really the same environment.

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:15

I think they're, they're getting so much more done now because they have more

Tiffany Tran: 00:39:18

leeway and there's more flexibility there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:21

I'd like to.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:23

Sort summarize a few things we've talked about today, which is there's a lot of

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:28

different types of working environments and they might be better suited and there

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:31

might be even a potential opportunity to adjust the work environments.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:34

There might be team members who Excel in person in hybrid or in remote.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:38

Uh, maybe shifting from one to the other, depending on the time of the

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:42

year, there might be reasons why.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:45

You don't need a giant workspace with all these people coming into

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:48

your office and they overhead the cost of this building space.

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:51

You, there might be a great potential to let go a little bit and explore this,

Kevin Dieny: 00:39:57

maybe trial it, like you said, Tiffany.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:00

Um, there's just a lot there.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:01

There's pros and cons there's challenges for sure.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:04

In managing, uh, employees in the environment, I think, but I, like

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:08

you said, there's the things that I didn't even realize the potential and

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:12

productivity increases and in training and onboarding, uh, angles and, you know,

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:17

still being able to get some of the best parts out of what you were getting in

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:21

person, maybe not fully, but you know, having events or having things or doing,

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:25

you know, in person stuff like finding a way to make it work for what you're doing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:29

Everyone's coming to the job to.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:32

Like they're, they're, they're trying to do what they either laid a

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:35

passion after to get the work done.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:37

They're proud of the work they do.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:39

They're happy when they make clients happy.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:41

They're great when they can do what they're, they're trying to do.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:44

I mean, they're working, they chose to work here, work with X company.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:47

There's some, something about it.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:49

That's keeping them there and keeping 'em hoping 'em going, helping them

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:51

be successful at the end of the day is like the art of managing.

Kevin Dieny: 00:40:54

So, um, some of this is really awesome that remote work enables that to.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:00

It's funny that you've laid out some great strategies for both the

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:02

employee and the manager to look at.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:04

I think one of the biggest things I'm gonna take away from this is involving

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:08

your employees in the process of building the process, um, because

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:13

they wanna know how they're measured.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:14

They want to know what success looks like for them, how they, what

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:17

flexibility they have, what areas they can be really good at Excel, what

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:20

things they might be excited about.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:22

They could tell you, look, this thing's gonna be tough.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:24

And you know, and all of that begins a process where.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:28

Bringing the team together in a better, in a better format.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:31

So that those are things that, that I, I saw.

Kevin Dieny: 00:41:33

Is there anything else you wanted to, to touch on for we close out?

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:37

I think if the one takeaway for me to give advice to anybody was

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:42

be prepared for bumps and bruises.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:45

They're going to happen.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:46

It's not gonna be perfect at first.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:49

Keep at it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:50

Don't give up just like any other business problem.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:53

It takes time to get used to it.

Tiffany Tran: 00:41:56

It's not gonna be perfect probably for the first six months.

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:00

It takes time to get there.

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:01

You're as long as you're improving every day, the process getting

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:04

better and your team is adaptable.

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:08

I think that you can absolutely have success doing it as long as

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:11

everybody's invested in the process.

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:13

But recognizing again, if there's a problem, you have to fix it right

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:18

away and recognize that it's a problem and make sure you address

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:21

it or those things become okay.

Tiffany Tran: 00:42:23

Moving forward.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:24

Yeah.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:25

Wow.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:25

This has been so great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:27

Tiffany, thank you so much for coming in and doing this podcast episode with us.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:32

You've shared such amazing wisdom and insights for managing your own employee.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:36

So I think if you ha if at this point you were a little shaky, a little uncertain,

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:39

how it's gonna look, I was gonna be.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:40

This gave you a very real glimpse to what it's like.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:43

And some tips and strategies.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:45

Even if you are doing this already, Hey said something I'd like to try,

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:48

like, you know, it's okay to go back to the, let's make this better.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:53

Let's do so about this evolving process.

Kevin Dieny: 00:42:56

Thank you so much for coming on and doing the episode with me.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:00

Of course.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:01

Thanks Kevin for having me.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:03

Now, Tiffany, before you just, I also wanna forgot if

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:05

someone wants to reach out to you.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:06

Let's say they're like, Hey Tiffany, you said something I wanna know more.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:09

How could people connect with you?

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:10

How could people find you or, you know, is there LinkedIn, is there a

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:13

way that you want people to know how to connect with you or ask question?

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:17

Sure.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:18

Absolutely.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:18

My door is always open, whether it's virtual or not, they can

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:22

email me directly at CallSource.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:24

Uh, Tiffany callsource.com pretty straightforward there.

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:27

Um, or they can find me on LinkedIn, uh, Tiffany Tran, um, happy to meet, connect,

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:33

and have conversations in regards to this, or if they're having certain struggle

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:36

points, happy to connect and have those conversations, if they need some input or

Tiffany Tran: 00:43:40

just another body to bounce ideas off of.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:44

That's great.

Kevin Dieny: 00:43:45

Thank you Tiffany.