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Q&A with Ken Zuckerberg

Are introverts more successful at working from home than extroverts?
Personality is not necessarily the biggest predictor of whether someone’s going to be successful in a remote environment versus an in-person environment. A bigger factor is your physical life circumstances.

What do you mean by that?
Practical considerations trump [personality]. Some people have an environment friendly to working from home. If they don’t have the right space in their home—it’s loud, it’s crowded, and the internet connection is lousy—those kinds of practical considerations are way more important. If, for example, I have to pick my kids up from school at 3 o’clock, I’m going to really value the flexibility of [working from] home near the school, whatever my personality is.

How can managers help employees who might be worried about the isolation of working remotely?
One big thing we talk about in our training programs is that overcoming the concern of isolation requires more proactivity than you maybe ever had. You’ve got to proactively figure out: what days am I going to connect with certain coworkers?

That sounds easy enough. But it can be hard to be proactive. How can employees and managers not let this get lost in the shuffle?
I think the big thing is scheduling it, just telling yourself relationships and connectedness are not going to happen organically. You can schedule working lunches with people—you know, let’s have lunch at our desks and chat about the week. The other way—and this is something that we specifically talk about with managers—is to schedule a certain amount of time at your department meetings and team meetings for conversation that’s not related to work. “We’re going to go around the room, and everybody gets 30 seconds to tell us how they’re feeling today and what’s going on in their life.” It’s the kind of thing that in an in-person environment you never would have scheduled, because it just happens.

Any advice for managers and hiring directors about onboarding new employees who will be working from home rather than the office?
From my perspective, the biggest onboarding challenge is asking yourself, “How am I going to help this new employee build the kind of relationships at the workplace that will make him or her successful?” You can’t get anything done at work without relationships. And relationships are harder to build when you’re new and you’re not meeting people face to face.

So how can managers help with relationship-building?
There’s no black-and- white answer to that question, but there are a couple of suggestions that I offer to people: maybe scheduling that the first five minutes of every meeting to be about nonwork stuff. The other thing I suggest is, even in remote environments, [that you need to create] opportunities for in-person get-togethers. Even if it’s once a year, twice a year, the rest of the relationship can be a lot more successful in a remote environment.

What about when you need to have tough conversations?
If you’re unsure how your intent is going to be perceived, just clarify it. “Before I even start this conversation, I want to tell you what my intent is here…I just have some feedback that I think is important to share.” The flip side of that, if you’re on the receiving end, is to try to get in the habit of assuming positive intent in people . . . overcoming that risk of misunderstanding and misinterpreting people’s intent.

Any considerations when it comes to monitoring the emotional well-being of remote employees?
The thing about mental health is that coming into an office can help. Sometimes we ourselves don’t know that we’re struggling with mental health issues. We benefit from having friends, coworkers pointing things out to us. You notice potential mental health concerns among your colleagues a little more easily when you’re seeing them in person. I think in remote environments noticing that stuff can be a little bit harder.

Anything managers shouldn’t do when they’re concerned about an employee’s mental health?
I think sometimes there’s a risk that leaders try to put too much on their own shoulders. For example, you might see that someone’s really struggling with isolation and loneliness, and you’re concerned about them. So, you start acting more like their therapist. That’s not a good role to play, even though you have good intentions. You want to be an expert in the resources that your organization offers, such as an Employee Assistance Program, to help people with things like therapy or other support that they might need.