Lessons we can learn from extreme remote work.

Prepare and support

Remote area firefighters

Your remote team

• Teams are trained for high self-sufficiency and adaptability to changing situations.

• Provide your team with training and support to work independently. Prepare them to work through periods of disruption.

• Remote deployment happens more slowly than a city-based response. This increased response time is used to carefully plan and prepare for the mission.

• As much as possible, prepare the team for upcoming work, considering the implications for operating in a remote environment.

• As things can go very wrong, remote firefighters rely on backup and contingency plans. They pre-plan for a variety of outcomes to reduce hesitation when moving to plan B.

• Consider your backup plans. What could go wrong? Agree in advance how the team will pivot in each case. Don’t make the failure a point of discussion. Keep razor focus on what you’re trying to achieve.

Fight for communication

Remote area firefighters

Your remote team

• Keeping the lines of communication open is vital in an emergency. Teams know they must communicate clearly and often, in a shared language that everyone understands.

• Set expectations for communications in the team. Build a culture where everyone’s voice is heard.

• Communication is difficult in rugged wilderness areas. The team fights hard to make their technology work and get their message across, sometimes that means moving location, climbing hills or trying different channels.

• Anticipate and plan for communications not working as expected. Know what to do if things go wrong, if I can’t join the call via the internet, then I’ll join via the telephone. If my microphone fails, then I’ll type my comments into the meeting chat.

• The stakes are high. Protocols are agreed in advance for when (not if) communications fail. These usually involve a search and rescue helicopter being deployed if the team miss two scheduled check-ins in a row.

• The stakes are lower, but your main concern should be that people are OK. Have a process to check in when people don’t show up when they’re expected to.

Focus on collaboration

Remote area firefighters

Your remote team

• Teams frequently use separate radio channels to focus their communications on the job they’re doing and avoid getting distracted by other issues.

• Set up a separate team chat, project chat, or conference line for the task at hand. Bring the team members into the virtual room minimising external distractions.

• A dedicated liaison officer facilitates collaboration between the team on the ground and incident controllers.

• When being remote introduces risk, dedicating a team member to focus on reducing that risk is often a good mitigation response. For example, “While we’re offline brainstorming for our project, Joe will keep his phone on and stay on call for the network operators”. Joe will be a liaison to network operations so that the rest of the team can focus on brainstorming.

Orient to outcomes

Remote area firefighters

Your remote team

• Teams are laser focused on their goal, given the high stakes of a wildfire situation.

• Instilling the same culture in our teams will help us prioritise what’s important for our shared work, and to be more resilient when distractions occur. Remembering we anticipate that there will be more distractions and challenges because we’re working remotely.

• Not asking for appropriate help is a life-threatening risk. Achieving the outcome is more important than your ego.

• Build a team culture that allows asking for and giving help appropriately. Ensure there is a conscious and intentional focus on team outcomes rather than individual outcomes.