THEATRE

EFFECTIVE REMOTE COMMUNICATION

How to communicate with remote teams

Fortunately, there are examples you can look to for inspiration and guidance as you adapt to the dynamics of managing remote working teams.

One such example is Great Place To Work-Certified™ company Peerfit, who are 100% remote and always have been. I asked them how they stay connected without the benefit of sharing a physical space. Here’s what they have learned:

1. Show empathy, and remember we’re all human

For organizations that are new to the world of remote work, it’s important to understand there will inevitably be a learning curve — especially if your team isn’t particularly tech-savvy.

One way to make this learning curve less painful is to have and show empathy for all employees. Assure them that you are available to help during the transition and they’re able to voice questions and concerns.

This is a stressful time as it is, and creating an open dialogue with a little compassion will go a long way.

2. Say “good morning”

One of the biggest transitions employees face when working remotely is the lack of human interaction and the lack of structure.

It’s hard to avoid this issue entirely, especially while practicing social distancing. That said, you can help employees feel more connected to each other while they’re physically apart. One way is to encourage them to talk to their colleagues the same way they would if they were at the office.

A good place to start? Say “good morning” to each other and make time to chat over your morning coffee. It’ll help your remote team feel a little less remote.

3. Convert in-person meetings to video meetings

When you work remotely, it’s easy to start to isolate yourself not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally. This poses risks to both well-being and job satisfaction.

Twenty years ago, this would have been a substantial risk with few good solutions. Thanks to modern technology and tools, it doesn’t have to be this way.

By converting in-person meetings employees would normally have to video meetings, your teams can still get the face-to-face connection that a phone call can’t provide. This helps peers better connect, communicate and collaborate.

4. Build camaraderie with a virtual “water cooler”

Give your team a venue to talk about non-work things.

Since they don't have an actual office water cooler to chat around, Peerfit has set up a #sparklingwatercooler channel on their internal messaging platform.

Other channels they’ve set up include:

   #PeerfitPets — where employees can post pictures of their pets
   #watching — dedicated to discussing what people are binge-watching

After all, nothing helps a stressful day like a puppy picture or a new show to watch, right?

5. Invest in internal messaging tools

If your company doesn’t currently use an internal messaging system, now is an ideal time to start. The many short conversations that you’re used to having in person still need to happen but in a new medium.

Now, you could shift those conversations to email. However, does anyone on your team really want to get more emails? I doubt it.

A messaging system gives employees a way to communicate quickly and efficiently while not putting additional strain on their inboxes. It may even lead to more communication once employees have learned how easy it is to use.

When you supplement your existing communication channels with group chats and instant messages, you enable your team to stay on the same page even when they’re not in the same ZIP code.

6. Grow personal connections with fun

This last one comes from me. As with in-office teams, it’s easier to communicate with colleagues when you can relate to them on a personal level. 

While video meetings may feel detached, they’re actually opening a window into our private, domestic selves. When taking a video meeting from your dining table/living room, why not open by asking team members to share about an object on their “desk.”

If you can change your video chat background image, why not upload an old holiday photo? I’ve started doing this every week at Great Place To Work®. Now my colleagues know I have a brother who I spent last Christmas with on the beach in Australia. Backdrop photos are the new icebreakers. 

Another way to build better connections with fun is by hosting your regular team-building events online, for example:

Regular virtual trivia nights
Virtual happy hour with a themed tipple each week
Video coffee dates – including across teams to encourage non-work-related chat

With a bit of imagination and a good WiFi connection, just about any social activity is possible via video conference. 

Your teams can stay close together even when they're apart.

Remote work is rising in popularity, but it has suddenly become the global default due to COVID-19. Many workers in the United States and around the world are finding themselves working remotely for the first time. Working from home has many benefits (including stopping a pandemic!), with 77% of remote workers stating that they’re more productive. Distributed teams come with a different set of working conditions and one very big, very important challenge: communication.

Every team strives to have excellent communication. Strong communication enables work to flow smoothly, teams to gel, and output to increase. Yet, remote communication is distinct from its office-based equivalent. What works in-person may not translate well online. Therefore, virtual teams must understand and practice effective communication. 



Why remote communication is different

Working remotely requires a different approach because there’s a third party involved: the internet. Walking through an office makes it easy to craft a casual task check-in. You can quickly tell how well a meeting is going by the look on your colleagues’ faces. The ease of face-to-face communication can be lost when corresponding through a device. (However, there is also much less walk-through-an-office fragmented communication.)

The principles of communication became even more critical for distributed teams. Excellent communication is concise, clear, has a purpose, is prepared with the audience in mind, and most importantly includes relevant and correct information. Direct communication has the benefit of non-verbal cues to support verbal communication, even if your instructions aren’t as obvious as they should be. Communicating as a remote worker requires communication to be thoughtful and precise. 

There are both advantages and disadvantages to remote communication:

The upside? The practice of efficient communication in a remote team will enhance your all-around communication skills. Also, remote communication can be much more purposeful and less prone to random chatter.
The downside? In any electronic communication, if your words are vague and could be interpreted differently, they’ll be perceived in the way that causes the most harm.

Real-time vs. delayed communication

In-person communication is instantaneous. When you speak to a colleague during a presentation or around the water cooler, their reply is in real-time.

When talking with a colleague in a remote team, their reply is not necessarily immediate. When a communication is sent without the expectation of instantaneous response, it’s called asynchronous communication (vs. real-time synchronous communication). Using team communication tools, project management systems, or email allows space between the two sides of a conversation.

There are significant benefits to this including fewer workflow interruptions and more time to prepare a thoughtful response. Yet, for teams unfamiliar with this correspondence flow, it can take some adjustment to expectations but there are significant team communication advantages. 




6 Tactics for better team communication

Our team has always worked remotely but a lot has changed since we started over 20 years ago. Over that time we have come to love remote communication and have developed a very clear communication flow.  

From our experience, employing the following approaches will allow your team to communicate remotely and remain -- or even be more -- productive and connected.

1. Use the right tool for your team
There are so many online tools designed to engage teams and ramp up remote productivity. We love Basecamp and have used it for years as our virtual office, Zoom for video meetings and screen share, and Loom to make quick illustrative videos when a visual demo of work is best. 

Remote work tools typically fall into team communication tools, project management tools, and document management tools (or a combination thereof). These tools can be industry-specific or integrated into operating systems. Whatever the tool, it needs to be able to capture your team’s communication needs.


2. Schedule blocking
Remote workers often struggle with the blended boundaries between the workday and home life. A powerful strategy to harness your time is time blocking.

Ditch the to-do list and, instead, divide your day into large chunks of time. Each block is dedicated to one activity or a related group of activities. For example, blocks could consist of: marketing, sales, email, administration, and meetings. The blocks can also consist of at-home activities, like laundry or stepping outside for some fresh air. Your entire day is portioned out, only those tasks can be tackled during those times, and they cannot spill over into other blocks.

Exercising this discipline while working from home sets strong boundaries. Time blocking also places communication together so that it can be done effectively (asynchronously!) without getting lost in a sea of online notifications.


3. Establish weekly check-ins
Regular check-ins build the connection between staff and maintain the workflow. Check-ins can be video calls, written reports, or individual answers to a specific question.

The Instructional Solutions team has a weekly check-in via Basecamp tool every Monday morning.

Everyone briefly replies to the automated check-in message with a) update on current progress, b) current week’s goals, and c) workload noted as red - capacity, yellow - ok but workload getting heavy, green - workload open.

A robust check-in practice ensures everyone is working well, everyone understands what everyone else is doing with intersections clearly understood, and no one is overloaded with work.


OUR TIP: Keep team check-ins simple and automated. If you require your entire team of 20 to gather for 30 minutes for a weekly group check-in, you’ve given that activity 10 hours of productive work time a week and 40 hours of productive time in a month! Instead, send an automated message and review the thoughtful written responses.