Empowering and Supporting Remote Software Development Team Members through a Culture of Allyship

ABSTRACT

Software development organizations and employees benefit from remote work. However, we need more research and tools for more organizations to be successful. Microsoft is in a prime position to do the research, interventions and technology innovations need to advance the benefits of remote work. We discuss the benefits and challenges that remote workers
face. We provide remote work guidelines based upon personal experiences of working remotely before the COVID-19 pandemic. In this position paper, we argue for employers to
become allies for remote workers and to empower workers to work in their preferred environment. We provide ways to create a culture of allyship within organizations and teams. By creating a sustainable remote work environment and empowering remote employees, companies will find more productive employees with higher job satisfaction.

Keywords

remote work, inclusion, diversity, allyship

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/S

Paige Rodeghero
Microsoft Research, Clemson University
prodegh@clemson.edu

Paige Rodeghero is a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research and an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Clemson University. Her website is paigerodeghero.com

Tony Hernandez
Microsoft
Tony.Hernandez@microsoft.com

Tony Hernandez is a Software Engineer in the Customer Success Engineering organization within the Experience and Devices division at Microsoft. He also leads a virtual team focused on the remote onboarding of software engineers at Microsoft for the Content Publish engineering team.

New Future of Work 2020, August 3–5, 2020
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