OMG I’m remote working, now what?
BLOG 160 :
OMG I’m remote working, now what?
May 2020
A tidal wave of change is occurring that makes the way we work almost unrecognisable from what we knew at the start of the year. With the global shift to rapidly evolving flexibility, It’s great to hear from clients about their remote working experiences as we all test our adaptability to new levels. Can’t help being concerned about what this means for our sense of belonging and keeping teams together – loneliness is one of the most common complaints. Just when we most need to be together, we have to stay apart. I thought I’d share some of what we know about remote working and flexibility in a series of articles. As Covid-19 develops and we get underway with multiple days of working remotely we need to be mindful of curating this new way of working deliberately.
Meet or Chat ? – Making meaningful connections
Thinking about which meetings really have to be meetings and which could be asynchronous chats , sharing documents for same time working or simply a group chat ( WhatsApp etc see tools below) What will make the most meaningful connection? Meetings are best when you need to make decisions , progress things, or brainstorm ( more on that later) for success online we need to clearly signal the type of meeting and its purpose. Over communicating Chats can cover a raft of general topics in a Teams channel ( or google ) for anything that is of interest to the whole team. These are for asynchronous conversations , don’t expect immediate responses here , talk about the topics in daily team catchups and flag when you want feedback. Then trust your team to look at the messages and get back to you.
Create informal channels too
Fun chats are important too – important to create water cooler moments where teams can share things to read, music or favourite activities.
Tools – Which tech do we use for what?
I’m hearing great stories about different uses of mainstream systems and apps for specific purposes. As long as your teams are on the same wavelength then it doesn’t matter which you choose.
Here’s a list from my Gen X friends who recommended this site with great categorised options : Remote.tools
What’s working for you?
What’s proving to be your favourite tools when you’re working remotely ? Lets share ideas on what works best and why consider alternatives?
If you have any questions please get in touch via email stella@beconfident.co.nz
Be Confident clients benefit from :
- Our track record of co-creating workspace purpose and change, in particular the creation of collaborative, connected and culture-aligned spaces and work practices for organisations seeking greater productivity through flexibility.
- We bring the science of Work Design – Team workstyles, cadences , strategic adjacencies, and organisational psychology to our thinking
- We’re specialists of integrating cross functionally
- Strategic purpose envisioning with senior stakeholder engagement
- Property place & space and the pragmatics of ROIs and facilities management
- Consideration and input to collaboration force especially in areas of ideation thru virtual tools, communications and cadences
- Linking the culture thru people involvement virtually and in person and a success measure of lifting employee engagement through change,
- The analytical approach we bring matched with strong stakeholder engagement and representational workforce involvement.
- A developed Flex in/Flex out methodology already in use with clients
FLEX IN & FLEX OUT
Greater flexibility is seen to benefit an organisation’s ability to better support project-based teams, mobile teams, and modern leaders, as well as accommodating more flexible workforce resourcing models. To better define Split modes of working Be Confident has coined the phrase FLEX IN & FLEX OUT where we talk to Flexibility of work. Where FLEX IN is flexibility within the walls of the office environment and FLEX OUT as being flexibility beyond the office environment. FLEX IN considers the provision of movement inside the workplace between teams, moving to perform a particular activities for teams and individuals.