With the world in flux and businesses adapting as quickly as they can to new environments, remote working has been the solution for many.
But with the dramatic changes that businesses have undergone, what was thought to be a temporary provision may last longer than anyone expected. Given this, making sure that strategy, communication styles, management approaches and motivation methods align with the new ways of working is of vital importance to maintain a positive culture, a productive workforce and flexible team working.
To help you on this journey, we’ve collected and collated the biggest names and businesses in the remote working world. This list will help you get to the heart of the community of people that have been thinking about, and solving the problems that come with remote working and distributed teams long before the world changed, and they are ready to help guide you through.
Top Tips From the Experts
We reached out to some of the influencers that have been included in the report for their top tips on remote working, here’s their advice:
“Given your team is not used to working from home, coupled with the added pressure of unclear semibroken work-processes, a feeling of loneliness might become more prominent, sooner. To minimize any initial shock:
- Ensure they leave their house from time to time
- Educate your employees about hygiene measures that should be taken, as well as how to behave safely when in public spaces
- Encourage breakfast, lunch or evening walks outside
- Crowd-source ideas from your team
- Consider implementing happy-hour-/lunch- or even cooking-zoom calls with no agenda
- Start casual slack channels (Photo channels work very well)
- Organize Online video game tournaments or ‘show your pet/hobby/flat’ shows”
Andreas Klinger, Head of Remote, AngelList
“Don’t replicate the bad parts of office working remotely. The synchronous-first instantaneous gratification of offices stops people doing deep focussed work. Asynchronous first should let people have the space and isolation to do great work, but only if you design your remote work processes that way.”
Chris Herd, Founder & CEO, Firstbase
“I’d advise that you respect a routine, but experiment with change in finding a structure that works best. The key is proactively filling the space that once held your commute. Aim for using this time to make yourself healthier. Exercising, resting, bonding with family, cooking, reading, studying, etc. — all great options. If you aren’t careful, that time can be squandered and the lines between sleeping and working are blurred.”
Darren Murph, Head of Remote, GitLab Inc.
“Back away from the refrigerator! Yes freedom reigns supreme working remotely, and with great freedom comes great responsibility and restraint. Limiting distractions like social media by scheduling your engagement time to avoid getting lost in the gravitational pull of various social platforms is as critical as not allowing yourself to hit the fridge every time you crave a distraction. I practice intermittent fasting, (IF), so I only eat from 5pm-10pm which makes it easy—I’m already resolved to not eat during my work day. Even if you don’t subscribe to IF, you can decide ahead of time “when” you’re going to eat rather than getting caught in the trap of frequent visitations to the kitchen or trips to the pantry for snacks. Or if you do snack, have healthy alterations readily available so you resist the temptation of reaching for the crisps and cookies! Don’t chain yourself to your chair either. Move your body often throughout the day to keep your focus sharp and energy levels high. Try a standing desk, and/or take frequent exercise or stretch breaks. I find even a 10-15 minute walk between conference calls not only reenergizes me, it stimulates creative thought, fosters innovation, AND it keeps me disinterested in what’s in the kitchen cupboards.”
Tamara McCleary, CEO, Thulium
Mapping the Community
For this report we analyzed 17.2 million posts looking at posts from 1st March 2019 to 29th February 2020 to bring you the this list. Below is a network map showing the online conversation around Remote Working, made using the Onalytica platform, with the top influencer, Andreas Klinger at the centre.
Top 10 Influencers and Brands
We looked at all the individuals and brands engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top influential experts discussing remote working. Below we have a list of the top 10 influencers discussing it online, and below that we have the top 10 brands. If you’d like to see the whole list, be sure to download the full report.
Influencers
| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Role | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @andreasklinger | Andreas Klinger | Senior Management | 100 |
| 2 | @chris_herd | Chris Herd | Entrepreneur | 79.78 |
| 3 | @jasonfried | Jason Fried | Entrepreneur | 69.23 |
| 4 | @hnshah | Hiten Shah | Entrepreneur | 52.24 |
| 5 | @laurel_farrer | Laurel Farrer | Entrepreneur | 48.42 |
| 6 | @wadefoster | Wade Foster | Entrepreneur | 48.21 |
| 7 | @amix3k | Amir Salihefendić | Entrepreneur | 48.03 |
| 8 | @MeghanMBiro | Meghan M. Biro | C-Suite | 45.2 |
| 9 | @darrenmurph | Darren Murph | Senior Management | 43.74 |
| 10 | @TamaraMcCleary | Tamara McCleary | C-Suite | 43.7 |
Brands
| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @weworkremotely | We Work Remotely | 100 |
| 2 | @Forbes | Forbes | 70.16 |
| 3 | @SlackHQ | Slack | 70.13 |
| 4 | @codecidedotnet | Codecide | 68.74 |
| 5 | @zoom_us | Zoom | 63.41 |
| 6 | @gitlab | GitLab | 58.09 |
| 7 | @Inc | Inc. | 57.51 |
| 8 | @OwlLabs | Owl Labs. | 50.92 |
| 9 | @lucidmeetings | Lucid Meetings | 49.46 |
| 10 | @zapier | Zapier | 44.24 |
Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking correlates to a strong indication of influence. The individuals listed here are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion around the above key topics. Onalytica’s PageRank based methodology is used to extract influential experts on a particular topic and takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives – this allows us to identify Topical Authority (reference) – our priority influence metric. We analyzed topical authority via their social engagement on Twitter and how much influential experts were referenced in association with remote working on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Forums, Blogs, News and Tumblr content. These calculations also take into account a user’s resonance (topical engagement) relevance (number of posts on topic, and % relevance – the proportion of their social content on the topic) and reach (number of followers). If you want to learn more, please read our article that outlines How to identify your target influencers.
At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Virtual Reality, Digital Health, Digital Marketing) be sure to have a look on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on Twitter? Effective influencer marketing starts with identifying relevant influential experts for your brand. Onalytica’s Discovery platform mines over 200 billion posts a year into a curated database of over 700K global social media influencers, including data from Twitter, Blogs, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn Profile Links + Demographic Data. Our software enables you to identify influencers by topic, demographic or content and includes real-time tracking and measurement reporting to scale your influencer relations.
Interested to learn how you can integrate influencers into your marketing strategy? Get in touch with one of our consultants by clicking the button below.