Recorded on 01/2020 in Dublin, Ireland at Typetec’s offices. Director of Business Development Ken Tormey and Director of Finance and Operations Mark Fitzgerald sits down with Remoter at Typetec’s offices (which will be explained in this episode!) to talk about keeping up with the times. Typetec is a cloud solutions provider - they enable businesses to move to the cloud, take advantage of all of the economics, ergonomics, and everything else that goes with the cloud. Being remote-friendly has played a part in improving their staff retention and work-life integrations, and they continue to learn how to improve their remote work structure.
Recorded on 01/2020 in Dublin, Ireland at Typetec’s offices. Director of Business Development Ken Tormey and Director of Finance and Operations Mark Fitzgerald sits down with Remoter at Typetec’s offices (which will be explained in this episode!) to talk about keeping up with the times. Typetec is a cloud solutions provider - they enable businesses to move to the cloud, take advantage of all of the economics, ergonomics, and everything else that goes with the cloud. Being remote-friendly has played a part in improving their staff retention and work-life integrations, and they continue to learn how to improve their remote work structure.
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Josephine Tse 0:00
It's time for season two of the Remoter Podcast. I'm your host Josephine.
Josephine Tse 0:05
As a continuation from season one with Alex and Andres, I had the opportunity to interview some remote work leaders, ranging from companies, consultants, advocates and more to add to Remoter's stash of free resources and human-centred stories, enriching our educational platform about remote work. This podcast is sponsored by Torre, a new kind of professional network that automatically connects talent with opportunity. Founded by Alexander Torrenegra, our goal is to make work fulfilling for everyone find the job of your dreams by visiting torre.co. That's T O R R E dot C O.
Josephine Tse 0:49
Is there a podcast series out there about people who've had their lives changed after not having to commute anymore, because I would definitely suggest getting Mark and Ken from Typetec on that show. And I would also be the number one brand ambassador for that show, unofficially? Mark and Ken from Typetec in Dublin showcases the story of an older company embracing and adapting to change, not fighting against it. They transition their traditional office culture and team that they've upheld for over three decades into a more remote, lean, smart working environment. Ken and Mark's story confirms the importance of adaptability and dedicated leaders to make remote work, work. For those of you who may be thinking about doing the same, this one's for you.
Josephine Tse 1:32
I am here today in Dublin outside the city in an industrial park of sorts at Typetec's office with Mark and Ken today.
Ken Tormey 1:45
Hi, I'm Ken Tormey and I'm Director of Business Development in Typetec.
Mark Fitzgerald 1:48
Hi I'm Mark Fitzgerald, I'm Director of Operations and Finance for Typetec.
Ken Tormey 1:52
Typetec are a cloud solutions provider essentially, we would have come from a traditional reseller background, the company itself has been around in business for 37 years. So we're the longest going startup if you want to put it that way on the block.
Josephine Tse 2:07
So you may be wondering why we're even at an office if we're talking about remote work. And this is actually quite an interesting story. For our listeners out there. How I found Typetec was on LinkedIn one day, I was doing a lot of research into companies that were transitioning or have transitioned, and were documenting their steps and their processes. And I came across Mark's post on LinkedIn, it was a reflection post a year after they have implemented some of their remote work policies. And from there I found his first post and then from there I contacted him to be a part of the Remoter Project. Would you be able to bring listeners to the beginning of your journey?
Mark Fitzgerald 2:50
You're probably lucky. I probably post a blog every two years. So you're probably lucky when you went online that you came across one of my blogs. I think it was towards the end of 2017 myself, Ken and Paul, our CEO as a, as a management team, we were just obviously looking at strategy. But one thing that we wanted to improve and be proactive on was from from staff retention. Traffic around in and around Dublin is just getting worse and worse each year. So I think people's commute, I think everybody has a breaking point. So the first change was really myself and Ken giving up our offices. And we just said here, if we're not going to do it and lead by example, it's not really going to take off. So the sales people probably had desks. We asked why salespeople have desks, you need to be out, in front of your customers bit more. So we physically took the salespeople's desks away, we kind of had a bit more hot desks. Those with a few other physical changes that we felt might accelerate the introduction, but there's really from there. We said we'll try it and see and we kind of reached out for feedback as we went along.
Ken Tormey 3:47
So I think when I joined, I was joining a traditional organisation. And traditionally everybody was here on a Monday morning at 8:30. It almost became one of those kind of rolling jokes that if somebody was late and they walked in at 10 past nine. The usual comment was did you bring the evening paper with you? And that's the culture that pervades in a lot of organisations. I live 60 kilometres away from here. So on a good day to the commute is about an hour. On an average day, it's about an hour 45 minutes. On a bad day, just the other day it was two and a half hours.
Josephine Tse 4:22
Is it driving or?
Ken Tormey 4:23
That's driving.
Josephine Tse 4:23
Driving?
Mark Fitzgerald 4:24
He's a bad driver.
Josephine Tse 4:27
That's really long.
Ken Tormey 4:29
Look, you only have to extrapolate that out across the team. And you begin to realise thus, there's an awful lot of waste and the impact on people's I call it a work life balance. We changed up our operational meetings. We changed up our sales meetings, we deliberately went and it coincided with the release of Microsoft Teams and because we're a Microsoft gold partner, there was only one way we were going to go. I think the game changer was enforcing video. And it's it that takes a little bit to get use to? It does. And I think initially, there was a little bit of reticence about or what's my background look like? And you know, I need to be shown that I'm in my home... that evolves over time.
Mark Fitzgerald 5:11
But you know, it's funny, even though when we're talking about the physical changes, I know we're doing this podcast in our CEOs former officer, it's kind of funny how that transition that it was a case of "I'm not getting rid of my office" to "now I don't need an office." So it's, it's really right through, right through the company.
Josephine Tse 5:27
Do you remember the day or where you were what you were doing the day you decided, you know what we're going to do this? What are our next steps?
Mark Fitzgerald 5:36
I think it was a month or two later, when we had our first vacancy. We're looking to grow our team. We had the job spec ready to go. I think it was Paul our CEO go, why haven't you written down remote hire? And we're like, Oh, I don't know. It's early days. Maybe not just maybe later in the year. It was kind of a bit of a I don't know. So we kind of re-advertise that, that was in February 2018. And thankfully we advertised and Barbara saw you advertise we had. We were just taken back from the the amount of applications but just the talent and the kind of, just being able to reach to the nationwide talent pool and in Ireland.
Ken Tormey 6:16
And I think when, when I look at that hire and the remote kind of hires that we've made since the the talent pool that it opens up, is what really opened up our eyes. Organisations who are looking to hire and can cast a net an awful lot wider. There's a huge talent pool out there that don't want to work and do work in that way.
Josephine Tse 6:39
It's really interesting for me, and I hope for listeners as well, to hear stories from every single stages of the remote work journey. I've met people who have been doing it for 20 years, but I've also met people who have just started and they're realising the benefits and they're much more maybe fresh within it because they're doing it right now and they're learning about it right now. I'm curious to know about you guys, your specific journeys and your specific learnings. When you guys started to work remotely and set an example for your team what were some of your learning curves?
Mark Fitzgerald 7:15
We're probably about two years in now. The biggest thing is probably, we're, We feel we have a great culture and a strong culture but when you it was a new, I would probably say a challenge you could say when you're not physically in the one environment and that kind of hybrid people, some people in the office, some people remote some people full time remote. So we just kicked off a few initiatives is somebody who's going to try it on air as soon as, it is keeping the engagement. Communication is key. I now to have a remote policy, trust intact, it's it's primarily trust but we're probably past that. We know it kind of works. We believe in it, but it's really the community, the culture and what we want to kind of focus on there, so we thought well, we found I think we kicked off maybe three, four months ago, I have to give credit to Ken here for coming up with this idea, let him talk about our Typetag and Typecast and I'm going to pass over to Ken, I can't take credit for that one.
Ken Tormey 8:10
What we've done is we've set up a basically, it's an ongoing communication mechanism where we tried to put a bit of fun into it as well. And we've two elements that we do so on a monthly basis, we have what's called Typecast. So that's an amalgam of Typetec and broadcast. And, you know, sort of just mash the two together. And so on a monthly basis, we set up Typecast, and the idea is that we will broadcast it live over Teams, and people will be in various different locations, some did dial in. We also record the whole session, and it's populated directly upon the stream using the technology that we have to try and encourage people to adopt the video kind of culture. We have what's called our weekly Typetag. The premise there is it's a little bite sized piece of content that centres on a weekly basis. You talk a little bit about your scenario, who you are, you talk a little bit about what's in the news. And then a little bit something special that people might not necessarily know about you. There's some real hidden talent out there.
Josephine Tse 9:19
What were some of the memorable Typetags that you can, off the top of your head?
Mark Fitzgerald 9:23
It probably took about two weeks before our CEO got tagged? It didn't take long.
Mark Fitzgerald 9:28
There was was one, Andy I think, his older brother enrolled him into the army when he was younger. He just changed his name on the application form.
Josephine Tse 9:38
Did he go?
Mark Fitzgerald 9:39
No, no. I think he was about 10 years old at the time, okay, okay. But he did get a formal letter. It's great that everyone can see from various different departments what's going on, and it's early days, but it's all going in the right direction.
Josephine Tse 9:52
Now that you guys are two years ish down into your journey, what are some of the future plans that you have on your list for Typetec.
Mark Fitzgerald 10:02
I wouldn't say there's a master plan. I think it's from the culture we touched, we touched on there, look and take of experiments, try a few things and get what kind of feedback, because it's just getting more and more feedback to see, is it working, is there room for improvements. It's now part of our culture. And I have smart working that beforehand, that was nearly, I wouldn't say a policy, it's now kind of the way we work. We're just looking out and seeing, listen to other people's stories and just being sponges and seeing what what other tips and tricks etc. Right now it's hybrid, some people do like to balance and as I said it was, we weren't forcing anyone to work remote or smart. It was the option was there but people really valued it, so.
Josephine Tse 10:39
So I've noticed that you guys use the word smart working, which I think is more used over here in Europe than... I I have not heard that in North America yet. Could you explain a little bit about the term?
Ken Tormey 10:53
So I think smart working really came about because there's there's an association with the terminology which is remote working. There's an association with that terminology of working from home. And I think it's, there's a slight negativity associated associated with. And I think that's a cultural element. And I think it plays into what we're seeing when we're talking to organisations, which is that reluctance to make those types of changes. I think as people look to call it remote working or smart working, does the inherent traditional prejudices, is that still remain there, which is out of sight out of mind? How can I trust them? How do I know the work has been done? Whereas I think understanding that it's a smart working culture, I just think puts a better emphasis on the benefits that you get out of it. It's not about being completely remote. It's not about completely working from home. Work is no longer a place. It's something that you do. If you tied it all together, it's I think it's a better value proposition in terms of looking at, why would, why would you move to a smart working type capability within an organisation?
Josephine Tse 12:08
The term that people use in North America is more so telecommuting. They say like, oh, the connotations of remote work. They basically explained what you said, there's some negativity to it. And that's why we use the word telecommuting as well. So I guess that's the synonym. So with your experience, working now remotely for two ish years as well, can you tell me a little bit about your day to day? And what what are some things that you guys do in your own routines to you know, motivate yourself to better yourself discipline and all that as a remote worker, setting an example for your company?
Ken Tormey 12:47
One of the key things is, maybe it's talking a little bit about the smart working culture. So we've got rid of this paradigm of having to be here in the office at a particular time. My day is typically better served. And then I'll normally just log on at about 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning and I'll just avoid all of that congestion traffic. So simple thing like being able to do that, and connect with the guys, see who's online, deal with any priorities, let all the traffic pass and then if I need to, then I can commute over to a customer or commute to the office. And immediately all of that stress factor has been removed. So when it comes to the occasion when I do need to go to traffic you know as I did this morning, it's far less stressful because I know not doing it on a daily basis. So immediately my mood is completely different on a on a week to week basis.
Mark Fitzgerald 13:40
You can tell when Ken is stuck in traffic Yeah, no, same as what Ken says, you kind of wake up- I have two little people in the house as well so I can kind of sometimes schedule my work around that whether I go to one or two places nearby that serve a lot better coffee than I have at home but I wouldn't... You kind of plan your week as you go. Kind of whether you work, work from home work from another location or come into the office, so it's so yeah, it varies week to week, but you're kind of empowering staff to make that decision themselves.
Josephine Tse 14:11
I think this would be a great time to actually jump in on the call with Barbara because as you were saying, how you talked about the company and how you guys work. You guys are better at that now, but what was it like for the first remote worker joining your company? Oh, yeah. So for our listeners, for context, we are calling Barbara Hopkins. This is Typetec's first full time remote worker and she is located in the west of Ireland in Mayo.
Barbara Hopkins 14:40
Hello,
Josephine Tse 14:41
Hello. Hi.
Josephine Tse 14:44
Hi, Barbara. This is Josephine from the Remoter Project and I'm you are now on the call with Mark, Ken and I on the Remoter Podcast.
Barbara Hopkins 14:54
Wow. Good morning, everyone.
Mark Fitzgerald 14:56
How are you today?
Barbara Hopkins 14:59
Oh, fantastic. I love a Monday morning.
Josephine Tse 15:01
We were just talking about, I guess well yeah, Mark and Ken's day to day routines while working remotely. We got onto the topic of how Mark finds it easier to tell people about what Typetec does and how the company is now compared to when they first started to transition the company to remote. So as you are the first remote worker for Typetec, I wanted to hear your story about how you got involved, what your experience is like.
Barbara Hopkins 15:29
Oh, yeah. So I started with Typetec almost two years ago. It is my first remote job. I remember seeing the job advertised and getting really excited about that kind of job because I'd love to. I always wanted to be a remote worker with kids and all it's a big house like so. Luckily, I don't know how but I managed to land a job in Typetec. Never ever did it before. But it was the transition was really easy. All the hardware was supplied for me by Typetec, and all I needed was a good internet line. And the rest is history. Here I am.
Mark Fitzgerald 16:13
There was an onboarding process, we did train Barbara, we did physically meet Barbara. It wasn't just shipping down a laptop.
Barbara Hopkins 16:25
Yeah no, there was a major process and do the whole week to training and everything but um, it was, it was I don't want to bore anyone with the details, but it was it was really good
Josephine Tse 16:37
As you're the one on the most west side of Ireland and all that I wanted to ask you a little bit about if you ever have feelings of loneliness, because that's a topic that a lot of people are talking about nowadays, the remote worker loneliness and isolation. Have you felt any loneliness and isolation and how do you cope with that?
Barbara Hopkins 16:57
Not so much loneliness. No, I can never say I felt lonely. We're always busy. There's always in Typetec, there's a great... we've a great little team, a great community. So I'm never stuck to talk to somebody, you know, everybody's very approachable. It's it's never ever really been a lonely experience for me. There's no probably not seeing people everyday like walking into an office that'll be you know, that kind of, you can judge a person by their face, I don't get to see that. You know, if somebody's feeling unwell or you know if they're in a bad mood or that you can, you can see all that when you see them in person. And that's probably the only only downside for me, where I can talk to them, I can still hear the tone of the voice or know what they're saying. There there's never a loneliness for me, as well because in the middle of the day, my kids come home from school so I know that they're in the house. And I have a dog here as well. So there's, I actually never suffer from0 I have read before with remote workers that there is a lot there's a lonesome thing there but I'm very lucky in the fact that I don't have any... I'm never lonely.
Josephine Tse 18:02
Of course, everybody's journey is very different. And it's awesome to hear that you found like, you know your channels and your ways of keeping busy with your life and balancing the work that you have to do and your personal life.
Mark Fitzgerald 18:18
We're also looking out for opportunities. I know, from time to time training courses happened and Barbara or Jerry or the team, other wider remote teams might come up and do physical training courses in from various providers up here. And then we have a summer party, Christmas party. So we're just we're just conscious of having a physical face to face kind of opportunity to meet a wider team.
Ken Tormey 18:36
I think the... like what we've seen over the last kind of two years is, um, because we have customers on a nationwide basis, there will be occasion where somebody is travelling, you know, so we look at that on a weekly basis who's going where, if somebody is heading our direction, we'll encourage them to make a point of actually dropping in and just you know, meeting Barbara for coffee or you know, if you're going to be take the extra step and just keep that connectedness together like you know.
Josephine Tse 19:05
Right. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for calling in.
Barbara Hopkins 19:08
Absolutely no problem.
Ken Tormey 19:10
Thanks, Barbara.
Barbara Hopkins 19:11
All right, thanks.
Josephine Tse 19:13
Thank you. Bye bye.
Josephine Tse 19:16
I want to know if working remotely has opened anything up for you outside of your career. So you had mentioned like you have more time for your family, and you have more balance with your schedule like that.
Mark Fitzgerald 19:28
Yeah, looking back last year, and it was first marathon. Did the Amsterdam marathon.
Josephine Tse 19:33
Okay, okay.
Mark Fitzgerald 19:34
I did a diploma as well, part time. So again, looking back, I also had time with the family and so yeah, I wouldn't say that'd be a typical year. Having a bit of flexibility to work with your schedule is it gives you a better kind of freedom rather than saying no, I can't do that because I finish half five, half five and drive home so I won't be home until seven o'clock. So it's a bit restrictive in some ways, when you're travelling in that kind of travel time, but uh, ya know, it's definitely given a bit more freedom and time back. Definitely.
Josephine Tse 20:02
What diploma did you...
Mark Fitzgerald 20:04
Did a strategy diploma.
Josephine Tse 20:05
Okay, okay, that's awesome.
Ken Tormey 20:08
I live right on the coast. And there would be times when I wouldn't even see my local beach in the kind of like the January, February sort of dark winter months because you leave in the dark, come home in the dark. Whereas with a bit more flexibility, you can actually get down onto the down onto the beach and do your walk or run or whatever it is, and it just opens up that just as a, you know, a space that you have available too.
Mark Fitzgerald 20:32
Interesting points. I was trying chatting to someone after the Grow Remote Dublin chapter event last Thursday and just in general chat at the end, someone just saying that, if I was ever to move jobs, I wouldn't be able to give all this up, I wouldn't. I would want this in my next job or career move, etc. So when you kind of have that kind of flexibility, it's something that you don't want to give back up and it kind of just hit home going, yeah like, what you say there. So yeah, I think I'd like to think that the wider team was feel the same.
Josephine Tse 21:01
Do you guys think that Typetec's story, your journey and everything that you've gone through, do you think it will help encourage or enable more leaders and companies to think about going remote?
Mark Fitzgerald 21:14
Definitely, I think a few... we're a traditional tech company, we're established 1982, I think it's probably making those one or two first steps, which are not it, the more you hear about more companies stories, it's it's a bit more, you learn a lot, but it's there's no massive hurdle. It's just taking a few small steps. Technology's an enabler, but trust is the main factor, but if it's something that you feel your business would benefit from, and you can see, I know there's a lot of studies out there and you can see that the war on talent out there and how difficult it is to hire etc. But ultimately, your business will benefit from it. There's no reason why not. I think the first step is probably talking to staff, talk to your management team, talk to wider staff to see if they value because, as I said, we've never forced upon anyone to know, remote work isn't for everyone, but for those who do value, it's really powerful, so I would even just kick off a discussion. As I said it was two years ago, we just had our own discussion. And we just said we try something. We didn't, there wasn't any massive lightbulb moment. We just said we'd try it, let's see how we go. And we kind of just learned as we went along, and here we are today. So there's no magic formula. So but I think there with more stories out there, the technology, I think so many businesses are already using cloud and don't realise that it's not that complicated or expensive to kind of really embrace it. So it's really down to business owners management and leaders out there that want to want associated with it.
Ken Tormey 22:34
I think leaders have become much more aware of in that they they're looking for advantages certainly from from their staff retention and staff hiring. We've doubled down on this. So we sponsor an event in Ireland called a Happy Workplace. And we run we were sponsors for the first time last year. What that focuses in on is bringing leaders into a room and giving them insights in terms of what's actually critical from an employee engagement and satisfaction perspective. You know, countless studies have proven that a happy engaged employee is 20% more productive, adopting smart working and adopting mindfulness and the other elements that you would bring into that in terms of your, you know, looking out for your employees all has benefits down the line in terms of, you know, ultimately the bottom line but also the the environment and the culture that you work in. And I think leaders are becoming much more aware of the need to do it that. It's not just a desire anymore. I think it's got to the stage where it's a need, and I think Mark captured it perfectly, which is, if I was to move to another organisation in the morning, I'd be looking for for this, you know, to be replicated because I wouldn't accept anything else. That's that's the way I want to work on forward. I think this is becoming the norm. You know, employees have choice and they will they will move to the organisation that will look after them.
Josephine Tse 24:01
I've been hearing this come up a lot that it remote work is no longer a competitive advantage it's becoming more of a mandatory requirement. And I'd love to see, you know, later down the line hopefully in the near future that actually becoming a thing like personally think it's really important as well. That's why we're doing this at the moment. And I just, I just really want to thank you for joining me and participating on this episode of the Remoter Podcast.
Josephine Tse 24:34
Remoter Podcast season two is recorded, produced and edited by Josephine Tse. It is mixed and mastered by Stephen Stepanic and Vanesa Monroy. Graphics and visuals by Valentina Castillo. The music track used is Skip by OBOY from SoundStripe. Follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever you listen to your podcasts. Don't forget, we've recently made our Founding and Growing Remotely online course completely accessible and listed on our site. Visit us at remoter.com, that's R E M O T E R dot com for more relevant content. Follow us on social media @remoterproject to stay up to date with our latest initiatives and collaborations with other remote first companies around the world. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about each episode, so feel free to tag us on socials anytime. And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling, so what part will you play in shaping the future of work?