At the end of this article I am going to draw three conclusions. Please read all the way through, because these three conclusions are very important when considering the benefits and downsides of ‘remote working.’

I shall explain the implications of these conclusions as we go. They are:

1. Oxytocin beats anxiety.
2. Making life easier does not always make life better.
3. Action beats stress.

Today I will be travelling from Inverness to Washington DC for a five-day real life seminar with a wonderful client, Corus International. A colleague from Revolutionise International will be travelling from London tomorrow and Corus will be bringing in thirty people from locations across the USA. I can’t wait for it. At the end of next week I know we will have co-created something awesome.

But WHY? It would have been so much easier, cheaper and quicker to run this on Zoom. It would be so much more EFFICIENT to run this on Zoom. But therein lies the rub. The purpose of this exercise is not efficiency, it is EFFECTIVENESS. And sometimes, for effectiveness, you simply have to get people together for an extended period of time.

This is not an opinion, it is a fact. I know it and our client knows it, hence the mutual investment of time and effort. We have three data sources for this:

1. Research carried out for EmPower, an emotional and mental health subsidiary of ours, combined with research into ‘What Makes Fundraisers Tick?’ commissioned by Revolutionise.
2. More than 100 interviews with leaders and managers.
3. Personal experience: our team have been working remotely, and globally, for 15 years and are rather good at it.

So here are the insights which lead to the three conclusions:

1. The number one indicator of a high performing team, and of staff retention and output, is good emotional and mental health. This creates focus, energy and increases achievement.
2. There is a short term boost to wellness when a person or teams begin to work remotely, i.e. from home. This is due to life becoming simpler and easier to manage – a bit more time in the day because of losing the commute, and increased ease in juggling family and personal responsibilities with work responsibilities. The short term benefit is ease, or let’s call it efficiency.
3. After a relatively short period of time, if all we do is work from home, wellbeing starts to decay and decreases dramatically after a number of months. There are three reasons why:

1. Oxytocin beats anxiety

Everybody worries about things sometimes. What all humans need to escape from worry is other people. The face of a trusted person releases oxytocin in us and oxytocin cuts right through worry and creates certainty. We get confidence from other people we trust. We only get oxytocin from seeing the faces of trusted people in real life. It does not work on screen.

In the absence of oxytocin, we internalise worry and it becomes anxiety. Eventually we lose our trust in other people and then there is no escape.

2. Making life easier does not always make life better

Efficiency (aka an easier life) does not make people happy and energetic in the long term. Achievements, according to our own definitions, are necessary for us to build our self-esteem and we must build achievements on top of achievements to our most suitable timescale.

Sometimes doing things the hard way enhances our sense of achievement, and hence our self-esteem. Sometimes there is no way but through and, when appropriate, this is good for us.

3. Action beats stress

Remote working slows decision making as requests for decisions bounce up and down the hierarchy, round and round teams and as we wait for scheduled video calls. There is more frequency in decisions being avoided altogether. This slows down action, focus and commitment. Apart from oxytocin, the greatest cure to worry and anxiety is a commitment to a specific action. In the absence of crisp decisions we get procrastination, paralysis and very poor emotional and mental health.

These insights give us knowledge which shows that the debate, driven by opinion in the main, about the benefits or downsides or remote working is far more nuanced than those with strident opinions either way would acknowledge.

There are many benefits to remote working, but they are all in the realm of EFFICIENCY. To the appropriate extent, which will vary by person, role and organisation, this is to be encouraged and promoted. It has real benefits.

There are serious downsides to remote working all the time, and these are all in the realm of EFFECTIVENESS, and effectiveness is driven by trust, achievement, decisions and most of all good emotional and mental health.

Designing a policy on remote working

So how do leaders design policy on remote working? As I said, it will vary. There is no ‘one size fits all’ – salespeople are very different to data analysts, for example. Here’s a simple thought process:

• What are we seeking for this project, team or programme? Is our aim more efficiency, or more effectiveness?
• If it is efficiency right now, encourage remote working and provide the best way of doing it.
• If it is effectiveness, get people together, share emotions, thoughts, decisions, focus, energy and create actions.

For some teams this will require attendance at an office regularly. Depending on team, this may be more or less frequent. For others it will mean gathering whenever a project or a programme demands effectiveness – which is what we are doing next week with Corus in DC.

Whatever the pattern, regular meetings and exercises with trusted colleagues is essential to wellbeing and therefore performance, whatever the effort and cost required. At Revolutionise we invest significant time, effort and money to get our teams together in real life regularly – with each other and with our clients … and to external events. It is worth it, big time.

Consider the evidence not just the opinions and you can do what’s best for your teams as well as your organisation.

And as a living member of the wonderful human race, you should grab every opportunity to get together with like minded people from within and without your organisation, even if there is some effort and cost involved in doing so.

I have this debate daily with people who ask why Revolutionise still run real-life masterclasses in remote locations. Here’s why:

1. Oxytocin beats anxiety.
2. Making life easier does not always make life better.
3. Action beats stress.

Please be in touch if you would like to know more. You’ll get more out of a real-life coffee than a Zoom call or email. Our team will be more than happy to oblige.

Happy fundraising!

Alan Clayton, Revolutionise International, September 2024