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Qatalog recently launched a mini-documentary series examining the staggering pace of change in the workplace and sets out to find better ways of working along the way.&nbsp;
The second episode focuses on the strategic role that operations teams play in bringing the pieces of increasingly complex workplaces together. Through our conversations with operations leaders we find out what operations is, why the role has become so important, what challenges they face in our new digital and distributed workplaces, as well as what tips they have for building a career in operations.&nbsp;
Visit <a href="https://language.work/documentary/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=LW-documentary&amp;utm_content=Operations-nation-blog" rel="follow">language.work</a> for the full episode, or read below for a quick summary of what we learned.
<h2>Operations Nation</h2>
Don&rsquo;t you love it when the organization you&rsquo;re at works like a well-oiled machine? When things get done, when colleagues aren&rsquo;t bumping into blockers, but have the right set of tools that enable smooth teamwork and collaboration at their fingertips. There are normally a few people working behind the scenes to make that happen &ndash;&ndash; the ops team. They are the unsung heroes who enable individuals and teams to do the work they have set out to do and allow organizations to unlock their collective potential.&nbsp;
<h2>Operations in the modern workplace&nbsp;</h2>
So what is ops, and what do they do?
It&rsquo;s much more than just keeping the lights on. Ben Gateley, CEO and Co-Founder of CharlieHR defines operations as &ldquo;the foundation of any organization &ndash;&ndash; it&rsquo;s the processes, the ways of working, the rhythm, the routines, and the policies that govern how a company does what it does.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Gerisha Nadaraju, Head of BizOps at Dojo, refers to ops as enablers, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s actually what I do, enabling others to do their jobs better,&rdquo; she explains.
But the role can vary massively, depending on the nature of the organization.&nbsp;
For Astrid Verstraete, Co-Founder of Operations Nation, a content hub for current and aspiring operations leaders, this role is hard to define, &ldquo;it is so different according to the company&hellip;however ultimately it comes down to creating processes, helping people navigate them and removing friction.&rdquo;
So how do they remove frictions and challenges your org might be facing?&nbsp;&nbsp;
Qatalog&rsquo;s Chief of Staff, Marta Kutt, sees a lack of transparency as the leading culprit for workplace frustration. Breaking down silos between people and teams has become a key part of her role, &ldquo;operations teams can find tools to help us work better&hellip;if you don&rsquo;t have silos if you know where you can find information people are much happier and can work as a team much better&rdquo;.&nbsp;
<h2>Empowering organizations to scale&nbsp;</h2>
So, we know that operations has a critical role to play in empowering teams. However, what works for a team of 50 will need to be reconfigured to work for a team of 5000. Having long-term vision within operations will allow your company to consistently reach the next level. Operations are the ones who do the heavy lifting and problem-solving related to key business challenges when it comes to scaling.
According to Mike Strange, Director of Operations at Just Eat for Business, ops always need to keep an eye on the future with everything they do in the present. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s what you need to start changing tomorrow, next week, or next month to enable the foundation for 10x growth in a few year's time&rdquo;.
<h2>The changing face of operations&nbsp;</h2>
As companies grow and layers of complexity are added, operations departments get pulled in different directions and become more specialized to better serve the needs of the business. It&rsquo;s now become much more common to see product ops, sales ops, design ops, and marketing ops roles, which were few and far 10 years ago. However, this decentralization of operations may bring challenges of its own. &ldquo;With this new trend we&rsquo;re seeing we have to ask if operations are creating new frictions or new silos,&rdquo; Verstraete says and warns that this is something business leaders need to keep a close eye on in the coming years.&nbsp;
The other big challenge facing operations leaders has been the rise of remote and hybrid working. &ldquo;Since switching to online we no longer have visibility on corridor conversations,&rdquo; Strange explains. To counteract this, he advises catchups, standups, and even regularly becoming a fly on the wall in cross-functional conversations as techniques to identify emerging silos between colleagues and create processes that tear them down.
<h2>Operations and company culture&nbsp;</h2>
There is often a perception that operations is more the &lsquo;boring stuff&rsquo; - with a focus on the processes. But this is wide of the mark, as how your company operates ultimately defines the culture. It&rsquo;s how you attract the best people, how you retain them, and how you get the most out of them&hellip;it&rsquo;s not a pool table in the office or drinks after work on Friday&rdquo; - explained Gately.&nbsp;
He also warns that the rise of remote work means organizations cannot leave culture to chance, as work has an even greater potential impact on our lives. &ldquo;Workplaces have a responsibility to make sure that the experience that people have at work is a positive one.&rdquo; To achieve that, operations must embed company values into processes and policies, and through it, into people.&nbsp;
<h2>The people behind operations</h2>
This outdated perception also risks dissuading people from starting a career in operations. However, it&rsquo;s all about how you approach the role, whether you chose to focus on the analytics and processes or more on working with people so they achieve everything they set out to do. According to Strange, operations is a people-orientated role, it&rsquo;s about asking the right questions and listening to the answers. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s people over process.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Verstraete tells us that to be successful in operations you need to be curious, you have to find problems and find creative solutions to solve them. And Kelsey Traher, COO of Marvel App adds &ldquo;you have to firefight in the moment, while also keeping one eye on your long-term plan and the big picture&rdquo;.&nbsp;
So, for those considering a career in operations, we can conclude that every day will be different and it won&rsquo;t always be plain sailing. However, there can be no doubt that operations now play a critical role in the success of almost any business, enabling everyone to work at their best. And, as work continues to become more complex, we&rsquo;ll need them more than ever.
To watch the episode, visit <a href="https://language.work/documentary/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=LW-documentary&amp;utm_content=Operations-nation-blog" rel="follow">language.work</a>

The second episode summary of a documentary series on the staggering pace of change in the workplace. Visit language.work for more!

Operations Nation documentary | Qatalog

Shining a spotlight on the critical role of operations in helping to drive growth and build culture in today's workplace.

Operations Nation

Qatalog recently launched a mini-documentary series examining the staggering pace of change in the workplace and sets out to find better ways of working along the way.&nbsp;
The first episode is an expos&eacute; on the chaos of the modern workplace. It takes a look at how the very tools designed to make us more productive are achieving the exact opposite.
Visit <a href="https://language.work/documentary/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=LW-documentary&amp;utm_content=Productivity-paradox-blog" rel="follow">language.work</a> for the full episode, or read below for a quick summary of what we learned.
<h2>The evolution of work</h2>
It all started with the industrial revolution, which caused an irreversible shift in our understanding of what work is, and how to go about doing it. We went from thousands of years of subsistence-based work to mass production and swapped farms for assembly lines and offices. While our setting and type of work changed, everything was still in person, and getting context on what was going on at work was simple &ndash; you just had to ask the person next to you.&nbsp;
However, no one really came prepared for what happened next, when we swapped our physical offices for virtual ones. According to Tariq Rauf, Qatalog&rsquo;s founder and CEO, &ldquo;...the way in which we work is largely still influenced by the industrial revolution. We work 40 hours a week, we don&rsquo;t work weekends.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;This is all a function of the production line. But the way we work today is very different from how we used to work in factories. You&rsquo;re working in 17 different locations across seven different time zones&rdquo; - he continued.&nbsp;
The advancements in technology combined with the rapid adoption of new productivity tools, a trend accelerated by the pandemic, have together outpaced the speed at which workers can adapt. And this newfound complexity comes at the peril of our attention and focus.
<h2>The rise of productivity apps&nbsp;</h2>
We now have thousands upon thousands of these apps. But most of the ones we have today were built with little respect for how we actually use them &ndash; in tandem with each other. This critical flaw has left workers at the mercy of an ever-expanding digital ether. Rauf explains this phenomenon as &ldquo;the sea of apps we use to keep on top of our work that we end up drowning in&rdquo;. Try to find anything and you&rsquo;ll have to battle through a maze of productivity apps, all fighting for our attention, making it harder to do the work we want to do.&nbsp;
<h2>Today&rsquo;s chaotic workplace</h2>
So the app boom hasn&rsquo;t been the silver bullet that we hoped for. &ldquo;People are working in digital silos&hellip;as a consequence, there's a lot of information pushed into apps, documents, files, and folders all over the organization with very few people knowing exactly where they are. Access to this information is getting more and more fragmented and people are losing their sense of context&rdquo;, Rauf goes on to say.&nbsp;
Qatalog partnered with Cornell University to understand the impact of productivity software on the way we work &ndash; and its researchers found that we waste 59 minutes every day just trying to find information trapped in apps, laying bare the enormous cost of the productivity paradox we find ourselves in.
Hema Thanki, VP of Product Marketing at Qatalog, says this impairs our ability to work effectively. &ldquo;Information is locked in people&rsquo;s heads making it very difficult to make the right calls, make the right decisions, and actually do your job.&rdquo;
But it&rsquo;s not just productivity we have to worry about, many workers are also suffering from burnout. Cognitive capacity during the workday is a finite resource. Different apps that incessantly demand our attention end up abusing it, promoting an always-on culture that causes real damage to our mental health. Employers can&rsquo;t afford to turn a blind eye for much longer, as employees won&rsquo;t hesitate to leave a workplace that doesn&rsquo;t support their mental wellbeing.&nbsp;
<h2>Reimagining the modern workplace</h2>
The modern workplace is now digital. It is a collection of people working on their own terms, anywhere they want, and on their own schedule, but this is only possible with a foundation of trust and openness.&nbsp;
The endless pings, meeting requests, and notifications have turned into a crescendo of distractions. And unless a new, more intentional framework for collaboration and communication is introduced to workplaces, it will be deafening.&nbsp;
Thanki closes the episode with a word of warning to managers. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re stuck in old ways and haven&rsquo;t realized that this shift is happening you&rsquo;re really going to be left behind&rdquo;&nbsp;
To watch the episode visit <a href="https://language.work/documentary/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=LW-documentary&amp;utm_content=Productivity-paradox-blog" rel="follow">language.work</a>

The first episode summary of a documentary series on the staggering pace of change in the workplace. Visit language.work for more!

The Productivity Paradox documentary | Qatalog

An exposé on the chaos of the modern workplace and how the very tools designed to make us more productive are doing the exact opposite.

The Productivity Paradox

There are lots of<a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/what-is-asynchronous-work/" rel="follow"> advantages to an asynchronous working culture</a>, which allows people to work when they&rsquo;re most productive and improves wellbeing. However, it&rsquo;s still a relatively new way of working, and as <a href="https://language.work/research/killing-time-at-work/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=killing-time&amp;utm_content=blog6" rel="follow">our latest report</a> in partnership with GitLab revealed, it&rsquo;s not always straightforward to make the change.
The research found that the two main barriers center around the culture of an organization and the use of technology. To help organizations overcome these barriers, Qatalog and GitLab put together a guide with practical tips to go async-first.
<a href="https://language.work/research/killing-time-at-work/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=qatalog&amp;utm_campaign=killing-time&amp;utm_content=blog6#async-guide" rel="follow">Download the guide here</a> - or check out the 12 recommendations below.&nbsp;
<h2>How to build an asynchronous culture:</h2>
<ol>
<li>Communicate proactively The first step in the process is to talk to your employees and explain why you&rsquo;re making a transition to a new way of working. Tell them about the benefits you expect to see, both in terms of business performance and staff wellbeing. Alongside this, you should also communicate the types of work that should be done asynchronously vs. synchronously, while giving each team some flexibility to set their own guidelines.&nbsp;&nbsp; </li>
<li>Focus on output&nbsp; Asynchronous working is about moving away from measuring time spent working, to measuring output and value creation. To align this with your culture, set clear objectives and deadlines, and let people manage their own time to achieve them. This allows everyone to focus on getting their work done, rather than presenteeism. It&rsquo;s critical this is reflected in reward and recognition schemes. </li>
<li>Model the behaviors No matter what it says in the guidelines, employees will always take cues from their managers when deciding how they should work and what is expected of them. To affect change, leadership and line managers need to lead by example and model the behavior they want to see. This might not be easy if you are used to working in a certain way, so discuss it together and try to identify potential barriers, so that these can be tackled collectively.&nbsp; </li>
<li>Set expectations early Talent acquisition is time intensive for all involved, so you want to get it right the first time. To reduce the chance of bad hires, clearly outline the way you work as a company in your job descriptions and discuss it during the hiring process to ensure new joiners know what to expect and are comfortable working in this way. &nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hold people accountable&nbsp; Culture doesn&rsquo;t work if it&rsquo;s just words on the page and there will inevitably be some people who either don&rsquo;t want to change the way they work, or find it difficult. In these scenarios, as hard as the conversation might be, you need to hold people accountable to your company values and agreed ways of working, from new hires up to the C-suite. </li>
<li>Be deliberate In many organizations, meetings are the default mode of communication when decisions need to be made or a progress update is required. For async to work, synchronous communication should be used sparingly and deliberately for specific use cases. This might be for consolidating work that&rsquo;s already been done, or for social activities.</li>
</ol>
<h2>How to get asynchronous technology right:</h2>
<ol>
<li>Create guidelines To avoid digital presenteeism, you need to set clear guidelines. These should include expectations for the different technology and tooling you use (e.g. response times) and specify whether each one should be used asynchronously or not, and in what situations. This helps to avoid situations&nbsp; </li>
<li>Minimize distractions There are plenty of tools out there, but not all are right for async. Where possible, choose tools that genuinely support asynchronous work and aim to minimize unnecessary distractions and interruptions. </li>
<li>Take ownership The default settings for most productive software are designed to keep users constantly engaged, to the detriment of their productivity. Encourage and empower employees to take more ownership of their tech and empower them to disable or modify notifications. To help speed up this process, make sure line managers ask their team if and how they have done this, to ensure they feel comfortable making the changes.&nbsp; </li>
<li>Documentation is key Documenting everything is key to building async workplaces that are scalable and don&rsquo;t collapse under pressure. Ensure employees know how to properly document their work and decision-making, so that knowledge and context aren&rsquo;t lost. Templates and examples of documentation done well can help people understand what they should be aiming for. </li>
<li>Make information accessible Utilize tools that make information and processes visible and accessible (asynchronously) to as many people as possible. The aim should be to minimize or even eliminate the need to ping someone to find a document or get status updates. This becomes even more important for distributed teams across multiple time zones, as otherwise work can quickly become blocked.&nbsp; </li>
<li>Optimize offices Many organizations use a hybrid model, which can make async harder. For those with office space, ensure you create an environment that provides space for focused work, not just open floor plans, which can often be distracting.</li>
</ol>

Find out how to build an asynchronous culture and how to get asynchronous technology right with this 12-step guide.

How to become async first

Our 12-step guide to becoming async first.

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More from Qatalog

Operations Nation

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How to become async first