research-article

Remote and alone: coping with being the remote member on the team

Authors:

Benjamin Koehne,

Patrick C. Shih,

Judith S. OlsonAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Pages 1257 - 1266

https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145393

Published: 11 February 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Geographically distributed work has become a popular way to work. Past CSCW research has shown that remote workers rely on innovative communication platforms but still face challenges being remote. Research has also provided organizational and managerial strategies to bridge the distance gap. Our study in contrast investigates how individuals develop strategies to cope with the daily challenges of working remotely and alone, and what managers can do to help them. We interviewed seventeen individuals involved in remote work about their experiences, identifying unique challenges and their workarounds. Our interview results suggest that, although people may work alone, the process of conducting distributed work is actually very social. Individual remote workers establish a unique kind of work rhythm, visibility management for evaluation, social support infrastructure, and personal connection as a part of their coping strategies to balance their professional and personal lives.

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Cited By

Chen BLi X(2024)Understanding Socio-technical Opportunities for Enhancing Communication Between Older Adults and their Remote FamilyProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642318(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642318
Wray CArora V(2024)Mental Health and Hybrid WorkReference Module in Social Sciences10.1016/B978-0-443-13701-3.00387-XOnline publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-13701-3.00387-X
Milfont PAlbuquerque ALeite G(2024)Management of Remote Work in Distributed Software Development: A Systematic Literature ReviewSoftware Engineering Methods Design and Application10.1007/978-3-031-70285-3_12(153-175)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70285-3_12
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Index Terms

Remote and alone: coping with being the remote member on the team
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 2012

1460 pages

ISBN:9781450310864

DOI:10.1145/2145204

General Chairs:
Steven Poltrock
Boeing Research & Technology
,
Carla Simone
University of Milano-Biccoca
,
Program Chairs:
Jonathan Grudin
Microsoft Research
,
Gloria Mark
University of California, Irvine
,
John Riedl
University of Minnesota

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 11 February 2012

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CSCW '12

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SIGCHI

CSCW '12: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 11 - 15, 2012

Washington, Seattle, USA

Acceptance Rates

CSCW '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 164 of 415 submissions, 40%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

Upcoming Conference

CSCW '25

Sponsor:
sigchi

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

October 18 - 22, 2025

Bergen , Norway

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642318
Wray CArora V(2024)Mental Health and Hybrid WorkReference Module in Social Sciences10.1016/B978-0-443-13701-3.00387-XOnline publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-13701-3.00387-X
Milfont PAlbuquerque ALeite G(2024)Management of Remote Work in Distributed Software Development: A Systematic Literature ReviewSoftware Engineering Methods Design and Application10.1007/978-3-031-70285-3_12(153-175)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70285-3_12
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Slavković MSretenović STošić B(2022)Remote Work Implementation as Organizational Response to the COVID-19 PandemicHandbook of Research on Key Dimensions of Occupational Safety and Health Protection Management10.4018/978-1-7998-8189-6.ch010(202-223)Online publication date: 2022
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Steup RWhite PDombrowski LSu N(2022)"A Reasonable Life"Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555776:CSCW2(1-22)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
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Rudnicka ACook DCecchinato MGould SNewbold JCox A(2022)The end of the active work break? Remote work, sedentariness and the role of technology in creating active break-taking normsProceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3533406.3533409(1-13)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2022
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