Andrew Meadows and Dr Penny Pullan Interviewed by Fotis Georgiadis

Andrew Meadows, Senior Vice President at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings. Dr Penny Pullan, Director of MakingProjectsWork.co.uk

GREENWICH, CT, USA, July 30, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Fotis Georgiadis, owner of the blog by his namesake, is a branding and image consultant specialist with a robust background and is a visionary interviewer. With a knack for pulling out a well-rounded interview, not only covering cutting edge technologies and corporate directions but also bringing out the personal side of the interviewee.

Remote worker management has become a crucial aspect of corporate life that cropped up virtually over night with COVID-19. Fotis Georgiadis discusses this topic with two prominent individuals, Andrew Meadows, Senior Vice President at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings and Dr Penny Pullan, Director of MakingProjectsWork.co.uk. Not only does the interview shed light on this important aspect of corporate success but helps bring awareness and brand recognition to both companies, something that Fotis Georgiadis specializes in. You can reach out to him at the below contact options to get your brand/image roadmap drawn out as #reopening continues, get ahead of your competitors.

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Andrew Meadows, Senior Vice President at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings
Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

The last 10 years have been transformative. While I have managed a few remote employees over the course of my 20-year career, I’ve gained substantially more experience over the last 10 years. In 2010, we opened our first office outside of our headquarters in San Francisco. After we found that the technology supported our vision for more remote work, we started hiring more employees in other areas of the country and offered the flexibility to work remotely. This benefit allowed us to leverage talent across the country rather than being limited to a specific geographic region. I’m very confident when I say we have some of the most innovative minds in retirement located all over the United States.

We continued to respond to the changing times and have developed policies to understand what works best for our company and employees. We’ve always had a clear focus on our mission and values to help support our decisions. One motto we’ve really leaned into is “freedom with accountability.” Our success in maintaining a remote workforce has much to do with portable benefits and creating specific policies on what it means for us to work remotely.

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what the five main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

Create simple rules around working remotely. Having rules that are straightforward and transparent allow us to work together under the same expectations. They also reinforce other values around collaboration and work/life balance. Here are the ones we created:
Be available.
Overcommunicate.
Get the job done.
Reporting is a big part of quality assurance. Make sure you’re using technology that enables you to report on how effective, efficient and productive your teams are. Each company and role is different on how success is measured and having reports that reflect the goals of that role and team will be paramount in helping people know what success looks like. The complete interview with additional points is available here.

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Dr Penny Pullan, Director of MakingProjectsWork.co.uk
Some companies have many years of experience with managing a remote team. Others have just started this, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you tell us how many years of experience you have managing remote teams?

I was catapulted into leading a virtual team by 9/11, so it is coming up to 19 years that I’ve been working with virtual and hybrid teams. It seems to be perfectly placed to help out those for whom March 2020 was their first experience of going virtual and those who will be returning to a hybrid experience, with some in the office and some virtual. I’ve had the luxury of time to think through all of this over many years and to find out what really works across industries. A couple of years ago, I pulled all of this thinking and experience together into my book: ‘Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams’ which has become a bestseller in the pandemic. Readers can get a copy at www.koganpage.com

Managing a team remotely can be very different than managing a team that is in front of you. Can you articulate for our readers what some of the main challenges are regarding managing a remote team? Can you give a story or example for each?

There are so many challenges! I’ve already focused on a few, so I’ll add these five:

Lack of clear sight of each other

You can’t see team members by glancing over in their direction. If they appear at all, it’s in meetings where each person is in a little box, which can get very small indeed if there are large numbers of people. The nuances and dynamics of conversation often get lost. If people are quiet in a meeting, they tend to appear even less. They could be drifting off to sleep. Or nodding in agreement. Or waving their fists at the screen. You just don’t know. Conflict is hard to detect and hard to fix.

The fix

Don’t just rely on team meetings to keep in touch with each person. Arrange one-to-one meetings where you can really tap into each person’s thoughts and feelings. This is how you can pick up conflict and then work to manage it, as well as keeping a good relationship going when you can’t meet up in person.

Your sensory input is limited

As humans, we are designed to perceive our world with five senses. In remote teams, we have at most two senses in meetings, sight and sound, and sometimes only one. It’s very easy to be distracted by things around you that you can touch, or taste, or smell. Read the other 2 challenges and the complete interview here.

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About Fotis Georgiadis
Fotis Georgiadis is the founder of DigitalDayLab. Fotis Georgiadis is a serial entrepreneur with offices in both Malibu and New York City. He has expertise in marketing, branding and mergers & acquisitions. Fotis Georgiadis is also an accomplished VC who has successfully concluded five exits. Fotis Georgiadis is also a contributor to Authority Magazine, Thrive Global & several others.

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