I’ve worked from home for many years, and have developed my own ways to cope with the need for social contact, so here are a few tips for those of you doing this for the first time:
Tip #2: Make it visual and social
We are social animals, so working from home or in a virtual team can feel very lonely. But as we are all learning from our Covid-19 lockdown, being physically at a distance does not have to mean being socially isolated.
People are learning to live stream all their favourite social activities from virtual pubs and dance clubs, to exercise classes, to live theatre events. It feeds the need to be part of a tribe, and to experience things together.
This real time ‘face to face’ interaction is very important at work too, and is critical to our sense of wellbeing. Through visual contact we can react to each other better, show empathy, and build meaningful relationships. Subtle body language cues are transmitted almost as well by video as they are in person.
Here are three important ways to build visual communications into your virtual work life:
- One-One Meetings: Just as with physical work places, we all build our relationships will colleagues through personal one to one meetings. When you go virtual, don’t forget the importance of these meetings to build trust and empathy with each other. Skype, zoom and other video tools allow you to see the other person’s eyes and expressions clearly. Don’t be tempted to just do a voice call until you know the person well enough to be able to read their voice as well as you can read their face.
- Team/ group meetings: Big corporations have invested in incredible technologies like ‘halo’ rooms the size of a board room where two locations can sit around a virtual table as if they are actually in one room together – as close to ‘Star Trek’ technology as I’ve ever been. For those of us working in small companies this technology is out of reach, but Zoom, Skype and others provide a small scale version of this by allowing multiple people to connect on one screen. Be careful to use good meeting etiquette to ensure the meeting is efficient – long boring virtual meetings are as much of a drag as long boring actual meetings! More on virtual meeting etiquette in another post, but the essentials are: Have an agenda, a chairperson and andstick to the timings. Keep everyone visible, don’t switch off and do other things, and make sure everyone is specifically invited to speak – it’s much harder to notice the quiet people in virtual meetings. Have meeting ‘opener’ and ‘closer’ to check on how the meeting went vs expectations.
- Ad-hoc meetings and social interactions: In an actual office situation people are always moving around, bumping into each other, sharing jokes, and generally passing on information in an ad-hoc manner. It’s important to find ways to allow this to happen virtually too because it builds a sense of community and belonging, and helps to develop a collaborative culture. Big companies know this and have their own internal versions of facebook or WhatsApp. You can use chatrooms and other social media platforms to create ad-hoc meeting places or on-one conversations within your team (but be aware of corporate security – don’t talk about sensitive information using these tools). A little ‘ping’ now and then from a colleague is a pleasant distraction – and if you really need to get your head down to finish some work, you can log-out and ‘close the virtual office door’ for a while.
Overall, try to have as much social interaction and fun in the virtual environment as you would in an actual office. It keeps you sane, helps the flow of vital information and builds trusted relationships.