Remote Work and Virtual Collaboration
Embracing the Shift to Remote
How your company culture, resources, and people can work together in times of change
What it takes for companies to embrace remote work
Effective remote work starts at the top
Trello’s guide for embracing remote work calls the shift to remote work and virtual collaboration major - “one where your company culture leaders pave the way.” Employees look to their leaders in ensuring that remote-positive behaviors are cascaded down the line when they “correct non-remote friendly behaviors and put inclusive processes in place.”
Creating a strong team culture that will thrive in this shift depends on a few factors:
A clear set of “rules to live by” that have 100% buy-in across the company.
Your company culture may already have their own explicit values and implicit terms of engagement, but here are a few remote culture rules that you’ll need to draw on:
Empathy is everything. Without the advantage of face-to-face interaction, remote workers have to be more deliberate in the ways they communicate with each other. At the root of your this has to be an assumption of positive intent.
Treat everyone with transparency. Make sure that your communication channels and processes support a transparent and robust discussion.
Expect structure. Establish a process, structure, and agenda around meetings and updates so that everyone can follow along no matter their location.
Pro-tip: Assign a meeting lead and scribe to ensure key decisions are captured in writing.
Keep in mind that your team members are different yet equal. All remote team members are equal, but their experiences differ.
A healthy system of meetings, events, and habits that keep people communicating.
Without the benefit of an office where team members can constantly communicate, it’s doubly important to set up these rhythms for your remote team. Three types of social interaction to consider are:
Company-wide town hall - open forum for questions, discussions, and short team presentations occurring at least once a month
Town Halls work because it’s curated, energized, and democratic
Oh Hey There, Mr Rogers - 15-minute weekly random grouping of team members who connect on a video chat to just chat.
These sessions work because they reveal common interests and spark conversations, provides a break from work talk, and builds personal relationships at a reliable cadence
Pro-tip: apps like Donut introduce teammates to a random colleague for a chat. Use this for social and learning opportunities, no matter where team members are in the world.
Communication is key
Remote team communication requires thoughtful consideration and some adaptations for the virtual office. Your nuanced office conversation doesn’t always translate online. Set ground rules for communication.
Context is King. You never know what your colleague is doing and feeling at any moment - something you would be able to infer in person. Preface communication with your specific context to prevent miscommunication when things are out of the ordinary
Let teammates know when you’re heads down on a project and cannot respond right away
Overcommunicate instead of making assumptions
Establish ground rules. Establish how and when your work tools convey the right information. Tools can mask intention and humanity - due to a lack of verbal and emotional cues, one person may perceive a conversation as an argument while the other perceives it as a discussion.
How do you handle time-sensitive information? Project updates? Quick questions? Brainstorming sessions?
When should employees chat vs. set up a video call?
Leverage on your team meetings. If you want your remote team to bond, then allocate portions of the meeting for chatting about non-work activities, ice-breaker games, and catching up on company gossip.
Keep things positive by including a “Team Kudos” section, where members highlight contributions and celebrate small wins
If you want to avoid meetings where people drone on in seemingly endless monologues, then use a Trello board to create democratized participation and structure. This way, team members know the structure, cadence and expectations of team meetings.
Creating a game plan for massive organizational change
GitLab manages 1,100 employees from 65 countries - the largest all-remote workforce in the world. Their guide for companies transitioning to a remote workforce allows teams to focus on what’s important and set themselves up for success.
Establish a remote leadership team: mitigate the shock of shifting to remote work by rallying a team of experts with remote work experience. Team members should be able to clear a path for the organization and serve as resources for any questions.
Goal: Document and prioritize challenges as they come, maintain transparency, and empower teams to find solutions.
Establish resources and tools to respond to pressing questions and communicate updates: create a single source of truth, for example a handbook or a internal company webpage.
Make sure you’re keeping everyone in the loop regardless of their location, time zone, and level. Document process changes to minimize confusion.
Establish a communication plan: cultivate informal and formal ways of communicating with your team - similar to what your employees would experience at the office.
Keep it simple: focus on important applications to collaborate, communicate, and remain productive. Funnel communication into fewer places to reduce confusion and foster a sense of community. Make sure that everyone has access to these tools.
Champion the cultural shift: company cultural leaders should recognize the shift to remote transition as an ongoing process - one that is as unique as your organization’s unique culture, processes, systems, and workforce.
It is important to foster trust, effective communication, and align expectations on your goals.
Questions leaders should be asking
What is the scope of your remote work policy?
Consider what job types and functions are better suited for remote work. Craft a strategy that takes stock of any eventuality - for example:
Are your team or organization priorities for this quarter aligned with a remote work setup?
What are the protocols for employees who need access to the office in the face of a lockdown?
How should goals and expectations be set?
A Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) puts the focus on what employees accomplish, now how/when/where they do so. This empowers employees to get things done on their own terms and encourages accountability: failure to deliver puts their value to the organization into question.
Prioritize your data. Identify information you need now, then rank by security level. It will typically fall within one of five categories: sensitive, confidential, private, proprietary, or public.
How will data be protected?
Do employees who need a computer have access to one? There are several different ways to set workers up but for a more immediate solution, consider these ideas:
Put a policy in place to cover the use of personal devices for work—particularly to establish expectations around safety and security.
Equip teams with laptops or mobile devices at work, or make equipment available to loan.
Do employees have the tools and resources they need to be productive at home?
Identify how teams will stay connected and set expectations. A sudden shift to asynchronous communication can be jarring for anyone who’s used to real-time interactions. How will they get the information they need when they need it? Set expectations to help keep responses timely and predictable.
Create opportunities to connect. Find ways for your organization to stay connected, share experiences, and celebrate even small wins.
Pay attention to team communication channels and stay engaged. At the best of times, good communication means clarifying and adjusting messages as needed to avoid misunderstandings. In a dynamic situation, it’s even more important for managers to answer questions, correct rumours, and listen.
How will distributed teams stay in touch?
JLL has a handy list of questions to ask to measure your workplace continuity readiness. As organizations rapidly shift to a remote work setup, “organizations may want to review existing remote working programs or accelerate the development of new programs and strategies that can enable employees to work productively during the disruption.”
How do we enable business operations if many of our people are sick and unable to work?
What if our employees are unable to commute to our corporate offices for six months or longer?
How can we continue to operate effectively if employees have to work remotely for a prolonged period of time?
Do we have the right resources in place to execute critical business and operational functions?
What plans are in place to mitigate the risk of a prolonged coronavirus outbreak?
What happens if the performance of our business is severely impacted by the coronavirus outbreak?
Have we developed critical planning and communications protocols?
What resources are available to help mitigate workforce/workplace risks?
What resources are required to resume normal business operations after a major disruption to business, such as a major viral outbreak or pandemic
Measure your workplace continuity readiness
Debunking remote work assumptions and misconceptions
Managers should properly communicate their expectations and deadlines - if workers understand what they are responsible for and when it needs to be done and they work accordingly, they won’t warrant the “slacker” title.
On the other hand, without clear expectations, some remote workers may feel that they need to be “visible” in their digital workspaces to “prove” that they are working, adding unnecessary anxiety where workers worry more about how their contributions are perceived than doing any deep work.
Remote work brings a sense of clarity to productivity: the work itself is the yardstick for measuring an employee’s productivity.
Pro-tip: Schedule weekly check-ins via video call with direct reports to answer questions, get updates, and learn of any setbacks
“Remote workers are slackers”
Perception: if you can’t see someone sitting at their desk doing work, they’re not getting anything done.
When organizations move to remote work, you lose spontaneous social milestones like water cooler discussions or the birth of the latest inside joke. These natural social moments can be baked into the remote dynamic.
Pro-tips:
Video meeting tools are essential for building relationships. Set up teambuilding activities over video that plays into the strengths of remote work.
Be deliberate in setting aside time to build camaraderie. Allow a few minutes in your meetings for people to catch up, share a laugh, or just have a conversation.
Remote work means company culture suffers
Just because someone is working from home, that does not mean they are available to answer a quick work question at any time.
Pro-tips:
Set strict working hours and communicate your available hours to your team. Take proper lunch breaks and physically turn off and exit your work space when you are engaging in home life
Track workday availability on a team board
“Remote workers are available all times of day”
Managing a Remote Workforce
Set your team up for success with these tools, tips, and techniques for managing your team virtually
Tools and techniques to manage your remote team
Be available. Communication is pivotal to your team’s success—and that includes creating space if someone needs to talk. Sometimes, people just need to feel heard, whether they have a conflict with a colleague, struggle with working on their own, or are anxious about news in their community.
Create a sense of community. Working from home can be isolating—something that can impact wellbeing as well as productivity. Find ways for your team to stay connected on a regular basis. A daily “coffee break” can give everyone a chance to catch up and talk about their day. A weekly team meeting can help everyone share successes and stay in the loop.
Make your team culture inclusive:
Get people together creatively - think of engaging ways you can keep everyone in the loop such as daily greeting sessions via video. These are the moments when impromptu chats can lead to innovative ideas, and you want to foster that as much as possible.
Meme away - Try to generate shared humor and culture online as a way to bring remote and in-office workers together.
Encourage empathy
Err on the side of over-communication. Particularly while everyone adjusts to new working arrangements, share frequently—whether it’s updates from the executive team or a progress report on current projects.
Set clear expectations, roles, and responsibilities. Reduce duplicated efforts and cross-communication by defining individual roles and responsibilities. For example, you might be the only one with remote access to sensitive customer information; another person may liaise with IT to troubleshoot tech problems. In Basecamp’s iconic book, Remote: Office Not Required, they posit that the true challenge of managing a remote team are employees who work too hard. They write, “A manager's natural instinct is to worry that her workers aren't getting enough work done. But the real threat is that they will wind up working too hard. And because the manager isn't sitting across from her worker anymore, she can't look in the person's eyes and see burnout.”
Keeping your team engaged
Engagement isn’t solely driven by compensation and, therefore, cannot be improved by merely giving out bonuses or promotions. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it’s possible to improve engagement without “spending a dime if you’re willing to put time into paying more attention to your employees and giving them more positive feedback.” Engagement is more driven by non-monetary rewards like knowing where your role fits in the larger scheme of things, having a good relationship with your coworkers, and enjoying your work environment. Companies that invest in their employees’ engagement have found that high engagement makes teams 21% more profitable.
Below are guidelines on keeping your distributed teams engaged:
Ensure easy communication. Identify which communication tools you’ll be using and for what messages.
Align expectations on three things: working hours, expected response time, and methods of communication during emergencies (e.g. this person is unavailable or has an emergency).
Get on those video calls. “Video-first” communication strategies work well for remote teams, placing a premium on video conferences rather than audio-only conference calls. Rhythm Systems writes that “7% of communication is the words used, 38% is the tone and inflection and a staggering 55% is body language. If you are only using email, you lose 93% of the message. If you only use a phone, you lose 45% of the message. Setting up video conferences will allow you to get nearly 100% of the message you would if you were in the room with them.”
Meetings have different dynamics when you aren’t sitting around the same table. Circulate an agenda ahead of time so your team can be prepared, and call on each person so everyone has a chance to speak. Pause frequently so there’s room for questions that may come up.
Recognize achievements and provide more frequent feedback. A Forbes article on why employee recognition will always be important mentioned that recognition “makes employees happy - and happy employees are on average 12% more productive than their counterparts.” Discussions on performance - recognition or feedback - need to be a regular event. Managers should be on frequent calls with their employees to keep the working relationship healthy.
Provide context and clear goals. Employees need a shared understanding of goals, priorities, and strategies - no matter where they are. They need clear short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. Most importantly, employees need to know how their role fits into the company’s larger picture.
In a May 2016 Forbes piece, Victor Lipman points out, “If expectations are completely clear, and preferably mutually agreed-upon, it helps to bring the entire remote working arrangement into clearer focus.” Setting expectations is a motivator for remote workers.
Maintain personal connection. Don’t just check up on employees’ work progress but share individual experiences, too.
Make allowance for virtual water coolers. Informal, casual communication needs to be deliberately integrated into the current system. Create space and time for people to simply catch up and recreate a feeling of office camaraderie.For example, create an online area on your communication app of choice for discussions on sports, movies, hobbies, etc.
Champion your company’s culture and values. Company culture is each company’s unique blueprint - however it must be cultivated, celebrated, and built upon. Company values are designed to be the guidepost for decision-making. Consider how your culture and values can be seen, dismissed, honored, or forgotten in the remote work setup.
Your virtual management toolkit
Employee Morale
Chimp or Champ is an anonymous weekly employee happiness meter for checking the team.
WooBoard is an online employee recognition and rewards platform. You can create reward programs for sending and receiving unlimited recognition. Employees can celebrate their success and initiate conversations through WooBoards social engagement features.
Time Management
Hubstaff is a time tracking software that lets managers keep track track of where employees are spending their time and what tasks they are working on at a given time. Its eye-catchy features include online timesheets, employee scheduling, screen recording, employee monitoring, payroll software, GPS tracking, online invoicing, and project budgeting, and many more.
Accountability and reporting
iDoneThis eliminates the need for daily check-in meetings. Every day, each team member takes a few minutes to reply to an email, reporting what they finished. The next day, each team member gets a digest, noting what everyone did the previous day, and giving them the ability to comment on the previous day’s tasks.
Keeping your team culture alive in times of change
How do we make sure distributed teams thrive as they transition to a wholly different way of working? How do we cultivate an atmosphere that supports team culture and camaraderie? In this section, we share tools and resources for teams to communicate and collaborate in a remote work setup.
But tools and resources are just apps and programs until teams insert their unique culture. Mondayremote shares “five essential ingredients that help your global teams thrive, by making remote work much more enjoyable!
(Read the original article here.)
“Customized profiles. Having the option to add a bit of personality to online work profiles is super beneficial to global teams. When employees customize their profiles, they share a little bit more about who they are and what they like. They become more approachable, and they also feel like their personalities and needs have a place.
Working remotely might make us feel like faceless avatars and electronic-sounding voices. Customize your profile and you can partially replace the subtle human interactions that would take place when meeting: facial expressions, body language, direct eye contact, friendly gestures, and small talk. This can help employees feel closer to each other, even while working remotely.”
“One-on-one virtual coffee dates. Scheduling one-on-one time between colleagues for the purpose of building relationships is a must. After all, good relationships build a strong team, and a strong team grows and succeeds together. When working remotely, a team member might become isolated from the team, and people might rush off after calls to get more work done. Scheduling coffee dates helps bridge those gaps. In addition, these dates help relieve stress employees might be holding on to from working remotely.
With a customizable profile, employees can add a conversation starter section such as, “You can ask me about _____,” and include 3-5 things they’d be happy to discuss. This information becomes useful for when their virtual coffee date comes around to help them start building those more intimate connections!”
“Fun discussion threads. Pre-set some discussion threads such as #watercooler to help get your employees started. Engage some of your employees in the pre-set threads that focus on interesting ideas and topics, and encourage them to start threads of their own.
Just like with the coffee dates, this is an important tool for building personal team relationships and for creating a fun and friendly work environment.”
“Personal announcements. Did Sarah get married? Did John recently have his 50th birthday? Internal newsletters are great in general, but when you include employees’ personal announcements, it builds deeper connections and takes your global team culture to a whole other level. Personal announcements ensure employees are seen, and that they matter as a whole person — not only because of what they contribute to work. This works the same for remote teams.
Share these announcements across any channel: newsletters, company chats, mobile phone groups, etc. If you can, include a small token of appreciation like also sending over a bouquet of flowers or some chocolate. Most employees love this – and they may even post a photo of the gift in a company communication channel, adding to a culture of appreciation and employee engagement.”
“Emojis & gifs! At monday.com, we love them! Emojis and gifs are a great way to express your individuality and they add a little spice to any casual conversation. They also make the “formal” text writing feel more “informal”, creating closeness between the remote employees and encouraging more connection and collaboration.”
“How-To” Guide for Succeeding in a Virtual Workspace
Make the most of your remote work experience
Remote Work “101”
Keep the same schedule and try to stick to your same routine - if it works for you
Set boundaries. Set up your work space that is quiet and distraction-free, comfortable, and stocked with all your necessaries. If you are working in a shared space, establish focus time (e.g. if kids are given assignments, have then work alongside you as if they were coming to the office with you). Once you are off work, put your materials away and close your laptop
The commute from the office to your home was a transitional period that allowed you to make that emotional journey to distance yourself from office concerns - nurture that.
Schedule breaks
Treat exercise, meals, and stretch breaks as if you would any other meeting: put it on your calendar to establish that routine
Prepare for isolation
Stay in touch with your social circle as you work from home - email colleagues more often, have conference calls, and use chat tools to talk
Avoid these common remote work pitfalls:
Switching gears frequently. Early in our smartphone days, one Stanford research study found that being assaulted by too many streams of electronic information at once made people lose focus and perform substantially worse than those completing one task at a time.
Feeling isolated. If you work remotely and you’re alone most of the day, it’s easy to forget how it feels to be immersed in team camaraderie.
Overloading. Here’s the blunt truth: You can’t expect others to care about your boundaries unless you care about them first. When work is over for the day, or when you conquer that big project, allow it to be over. Leave your email alone. Turn off the devices. Honor your own schedule.
Tips and tricks from experienced remote workers
There are many professionals out there who have thrived on a purely remote working setup for years and have shored up a treasure trove of tips, tools, and techniques for those who are new to this work style. Jessica Roy, who works on the audience engagement team at the Los Angeles Times, shares tips for remote workers to be more efficient, stay connected with colleagues, and find joy in working from home.
(Read the original article here.)
Sleep later. Set your morning alarm back by however long your pre-office morning routine used to take. Add up the minutes you’d use to need for getting ready and commuting to the office and deduct that from your set alarm. Now that you’re staying at home,all you need to do is to be “physically conscious and in front of a computer”.
Get ready for “prime time”. Roy, a veteran of many a virtual conference call, shares the following tried and tested rules:
“Figure out where you’re going to sit in your home when you’re on video calls and do a test run. Make sure whatever is in view is clean and presentable.”
“If you’re using a laptop camera, put it on a stack of books so that you’re looking straight into the camera, not down at it. This is mostly to avoid the dreaded “Dear God, does my chin really look like that?” double take once you’re in the meeting. You want to be able to focus on your coworkers, not your face.”
“Check the lighting. The light source should be coming from behind your computer screen. It should not be in frame with you on camera. If you have a desk lamp with a flexible arm, you can position that right behind your monitor with the light pointed directly at your face.”
“Wear lipstick. Our brains use visual input to decipher what someone is saying. That’s why it’s so disconcerting when the lip sync on your TV is off. Differentiating your lips from the rest of your face will help the people on the other side of the screen tell what you’re saying. (If you don’t wear lipstick, even just a swipe of lip balm will help.)”
“Framing-wise, you want the camera to see from your chest to a few inches above the top of your head. Filling the entire screen with a close-up of your face is bad. So is sitting too far away, which also makes it very difficult to hear you.”
Make your home a pleasant place to be. Make your home someplace you wouldn’t mind being stuck in - because we all are. Sweep behind the refrigerator, cook at least one effortful meal per day.
Staff at Wirecutter, composed of veterans of remote work, shared a list of shared a list of activities that make working from home not just bearable, but even possibly joyful:
Develop a beverage ritual. If you’re the kind of person who needs a jolt of caffeine to wake up in the morning, chances are coffee runs are an important part of your morning ritual. Much like donning armor, wrapping your hand around a hot cup of joe readies you for anything. Developing a ritual that allows you that ritual helps signal your brain that it’s game time.
For others who prefer tea, developing a ritual centered around getting the right amount of heat, water, tea blend, and steep time can be a calming and centering start of your day.
Surround yourself with snacks - but regulate. Writers at Wirecutter say having snacks around helps but warns against mindless snacking: “Just make sure to portion out those snacks—pour yourself a bowl of trail mix, say, rather than keeping the entire bag within arm’s reach—so you don’t accidentally eat more than you’d like to.”
Advanced Facilitation Techniques for Virtual Meetings
Meetings are a necessary and important part of working with others. In times of crisis, HBR writes that they, “help individuals form a coherent whole that is more adaptive, resilient, and self-directing.” When managed well, they are opportunities for groups to cement social foundations, engage in meaningful debate, and push the company forward.
Facilitating these meetings means more than simply sending an invite and setting an agenda. A few key roles facilitators play include establishing an environment of inclusion and engagement and managing the flow of the agenda and personalities within the room. They are also in charge of making sure that everyone has opportunities to engage. Finally, facilitators navigate different opinions, concerns, and emotions to make sure that a resolution is reached.
As companies shift to remote work, the challenge for meeting facilitators is to accomplish all this in a virtual, complex, and socially-distant environment. Oak and Reeds has a few tips for leaders looking to strengthen their facilitator tool in this new, virtual landscape.
Facilitator characteristics, skills, and roles
Effective facilitators rely on certain behavioral rules to ensure the meeting’s success. These qualities make sure that a conducive environment is establish and nurtured throughout. Seedsforchange, a workers’ co-op focused on training and community development, has curated a list of these qualities in this handy guide. They include the following:
Good listening, clear thinking, and observation. Meeting facilitators need to be fully present and listen beyond what is being said. It’s important to pay attention to implicit concerns and observe the underlying dynamics between participants. This includes strategic questioning to understand where everyone is coming from instead of letting others make assumptions.
Understand meeting goals and make sure you keep participants on track.
Assertiveness to know when to intervene and give direction to the discussion
Have genuine respect for all meeting members and an interest in what they bring to the table
Neutrality. Examine your biases and be mindful of them as you facilitate the discussion, making sure to avoid taking sides or manipulating the resolution to your desired outcome.
Seedsforchange recommends either making it clear when you’re expressing your own opinion and when you’re intervening as a facilitator. Another option is to let someone else facilitate if you are heavily invested.
Facilitators take on several roles before, during, and after team meetings. SessionLab, which provides workshop planning tools and resources, shares three important roles every facilitator must take on in this guide:
“A ‘catalyst’ for discussion. Facilitators enable the transformation of input (ideas, opinions) to desired outcome (refined ideas, decisions, strategies, etc.) without being an active part of the conversation.”
“A ‘conductor’. Facilitators synchronize all the group participants, guiding the use of their expertise, ideas, and input toward the desired result. As the “conductor” guides the participants, their efforts enable each person in the “orchestra” to create something greater than themselves.”
“A ‘coach.” Facilitators help the group form a constructive way of working together, identify needs and wishes, and reach the outcome they would jointly like to achieve.”
Facilitators can also delegate roles during their meeting, empowering teammates to take an active role behind the scenes. The following are co-facilitation roles shared by seedsforchange.org in their short guide for meeting facilitation.
Read the original article here.
“Co-facilitators can take turns facilitating and support each other.”
“Taking hands: the job of keeping track of whose turn it is to speak next and of giving appropriate time limits to speakers.”
“Vibes-watchers pay attention to the emotional atmosphere of the meeting, They watch out for individuals' feelings and intervene if necessary.”
“The timekeeper keeps track of the time and the agreed time frame for the different agenda points, negotiating extensions if needed.”
“Notetakers or recorders take minutes or notes, collect reports, and also draw attention to incomplete decisions - e.g. "who is going to contact so and so, and when?".”
Make sure to talk to your teammates and secure their buy-in when assigning these roles.
How to reach a group consensus
Decision-making is a result of members reaching a consensus that works for everyone. Here are a few tools and techniques to help the group engage in a meaningful discussion, find common ground, and work together to find solutions.
Read the original article here.
“Active Listening. When we actively listen we suspend our own thought processes and give the speaker our full attention. We make a deliberate effort to understand someone's position and their underlying needs, concerns and emotions.”
“Summarising. A succinct and accurate summary of what's been said so far can be really helpful to move a group towards a decision. Outline the emerging common ground as well as the unresolved differences: "it seems like we've almost reached agreement on that element of the proposal, but we need to explore this part further to address everyone's concerns". Check with everyone that you've got it right.”
“Synthesis. After discussing the issue freely move on to finding agreement on what needs to be done. During this stage, sometimes called synthesis, you need to find the common ground, find connections between seemingly competing ideas and weave them together to form proposals.
Start with a summary of where you think the group and it's different members are at. Then start building a proposal from whatever agreement there is. Look for ideas on how the differences can be resolved. Focus on solutions that address the fundamental needs and key concerns that people within the group have. It's not unusual for people to be willing to give way on some things but not on others which affect them more closely. The solution will often be found by combining elements from different proposals.”
Advanced facilitator tips for virtual meetings
HBR has spent years studying virtual training sessions to understand what factors cause meetings attendees to get bored and disengage. Their findings show that meeting leaders need to create voluntary engagement, or structured opportunities for meeting attendees to engage and collaborate.
Here are five rules that have led to better meeting outcomes:
The 60-second rule. you cannot engage a group in solving a problem until they empathetically understand the problem. In the first 60 seconds of your presentation, do something to make your attendees experience the problem. Consider sharing shocking statistics, anecdotes, or analogies to illustrate the issue at hand.
The responsibility rule. In entering any social setting, people will tacitly work to determine what their role is. Going to the movies? You’re an observer. Going to the gym? You’re an actor who is there to work out. A huge threat in virtual meetings is having people slip into the role of observer.
Create an experience of shared responsibility early on in your presentation.
Nowhere to hide rule. Give people tasks that they can actively engage in so that there is nowhere to hide. Define a problem, assign people in groups of two or three, give them a medium of communication (use breakout rooms if you’re using Zoom conference call). Give your participants a limited time frame to accomplish this highly structured and brief task.
The MVP rule. Don’t overload your team members with slides filled to the brim with data points and text walls. To create engagement, mix facts and stories.
Determine the Minimum Viable Powerpoint (MVP) deck you would need to inform and engage your team - not a single slide more.
The 5-minute rule. Don’t go longer than five minutes without giving the group another problem to solve. Sustain the expectation and meaningful engagement so that they don’t slip into the observer role.
InSync Training’s lead facilitator, Karen Vieth, shares three advanced facilitation tips she’s created after nearly two decades of experience.
Read the original article here.
“Become fluent in your environment”
Share where participants can actively engage in your meeting by indicating consensus, dissension, and interaction. Have visual aids that show where the chat box is and how to use nonverbal signals to participate without disrupting the discussion. As new tools appear in the meeting, spend time to explain how they are used and how participants can engage using these tools
“This approach respects adult learners’ personal experiences and encourages them to share meaningfully and engage more deeply with the content on an intellectual level.”
Survey your group ahead of the event
“Advanced facilitators honor the wisdom in the room, and build engaging learning programs around it.”
Make sure to encourage collaboration from group members with experience or vested interest in the topic. When dividing participants into breakout rooms, assign participants to groups based on their experience and personality for best results.
Print your agenda out before the session
“Sounds simple right? The roster offers a surprisingly powerful tool facilitators can use. Reference it later on in the event in ways like, ‘When Lisa mentioned this point earlier, it led us to what we will talk about next, which is….’
”This process “connects the dots of the content and enriches the learner experience and your delivery approach.”
“Advanced facilitators emotionally connect with the learner, and create emotional ties to the content, translating it to real work.”
Rick Maurer advises facilitators to remove distractions and avoid squeezing multiple topics for discussion into a single meeting.
Another challenge in facilitating these virtual meetings is making sure that participants remain engaged and connected to the discussion at hand. Seedsforchange has listed a handy guide of facilitation tools to keep everyone interested:
Prepare and share the meeting agenda. HBR recommends sending out a half-page in advance to report on key agenda items. During the meetings, make sure time is spent on value-adding discussion by spending time on this agenda only if “people need to ask questions or want to comment”.
HBR recommends that this pre-read has to be required reading before the meeting: “It has to be assumed that everyone has read the pre-read. Not doing so becomes an ethical violation against the team. I use the word “ethical” because it’s stealing time from the team — and that’s a disrespectful habit. The leader needs to set the tone aggressively that the pre-read should be done in advance.”
Read the article here.
Excitement sharing. Have your team members share something good or exciting that has happened to them recently. This is effective at the start of meetings as it creates a lot of positive energy and helps humanize those thumbnails on a page.
Set ground rules. HBR’s sums up these ground rules neatly: “If you wouldn’t do it in person, don’t do it virtually.”
At the beginning of the meeting, group members reach a consensus on what behavior will help make the meeting a safe and respectful place for everyone. This may include things like: switching off phones, muting microphones when the person isn’t speaking, having everyone’s video on, only one person speaking at a time, etc.
Facilitators can recommend a standard set of meeting etiquette for everyone to review and agree to. Here is a handy list from Inc.com:
Do be courteous to other participants
Do speak clearly
Do keep body movements minimal
Do move and gesture slowly and naturally
Do maintain eye contact by looking into the camera
Do dress appropriately
Do make the session animated
Do be yourself and have fun!
A strict ban on multitasking is encouraged. If participants spend time during the meeting answering other emails or other work, that completely eliminates the possibility of lively, engaging discussion.
HBR recommends these tips for ensuring that multitasking is fiercely discouraged:
“Use video: It can essentially eliminate multitasking, because your colleagues can see you.”
“Have the meeting leader call on people to share their thoughts. Since no one likes to be caught off-guard, they’ll be more apt to pay attention.”
“Give people different tasks in the meeting, rotated regularly. To keep people engaged, have a different team member keep the minutes of the meeting; track action items, owners and deadlines; and even come up with a fun question to ask everyone at the conclusion of the meeting.”
Roundtable discussion - meeting members take turns to speak without interruption or comment from others. This activity helps gather opinions, feelings and ideas as well as slowing down the discussion and improving listening. Make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak.
Use nonverbal feedback. Enable your nonverbal feature on Zoom. This allows participants to place an icon beside their name to communicate with everyone without disrupting the flow of the meeting.
Raise a hand when you wish to contribute to the discussion with a general point.
Thumbs up/thumbs down for participants to indicate their agreement with statements made or in response to the facilitator asking if they have any questions
You can also Zoom’s agree/disagree function
Go slower/go faster to ask the speaker to adjust their speed or elaborate more
Clap when you hear an opinion that you agree with or want to commend someone. This saves a lot of time as people don't need to chip in to say "I'd just like to add that I agree with..."
Ideastorming gathers a large number of ideas quickly. Start by stating the issue. Ask people to write whatever comes into their heads into the chat box as fast as possible - without censoring or discussion. This encourages creativity and frees energy. Write down all ideas for later discussion.
Parking space for when someone raises a point or concern that, while valid, is not relevant to the discussion at hand. Visibly write down the idea or concern and deal with it at an appropriate time later. This allows you to stay focused but reassures participants they will be heard.
Use Zoom’s whiteboard feature. Participants can annotate on the board together. Instructions here.
Small Groups create safer spaces for people to contribute to the meeting. They can also make meetings more efficient - any topics are discussed more effectively in a smaller task group, and different groups can discuss different topics simultaneously. Explain clearly what you want groups to do. Write up the task where people can see it. If you want feedback at the end, ensure each group appoints a notetaker to report back.
Paired listening creates a space where everyone is heard, so participants can explore and formulate their own thoughts and feelings on an issue without interruption. In pairs, one person is the listener, the other speaks about her thoughts and feelings on the issue. The listener gives full attention to their partner without interrupting. After a set time swap roles within the pairs.
Use Zoom’s breakout rooms to assign members to teams, visit each time to check in on their progress, and call everyone back to the main meeting page once they are done.
Throw back to the group - many facilitators feel they have to deal with all the problems that arise in meetings. Where possible, let the group do the work. If someone asks a question, you don't have to answer it so throw it back to the group. Get them to make the major decisions about things like time, and priorities for the meeting.
Essential Tools and Resources for Remote Work
Power up your remote workspace with these tools and resources
Staying productive at home
The Basics
Noise-cancelling headphones
Decent WiFi connection
A computer that meets your needs
Reliable mobile phone
Advanced tools
Todoist allows users to create tasks, subtasks, projects. You can also create projects, add notes, upload files, set reminders, flags, and include a productivity chart
Evernote is where you can share any notebook or note in the Work Chat and discuss it with your team, whether on mobile or desktop. Your team can edit the note, or just view and discuss it.
Tools for Virtual Communication and Collaboration
Connect with your team via video call or chat:
Slack is a collaboration hub that can replace email to help you and your team work together seamlessly. It's designed to support the way people naturally work together, so you can collaborate with people online as efficiently as you do face-to-face.
Social features like GIPHY allow members to communicate more naturally
Read how to make the most out of Slack here
Zoom is for enterprise video conferencing with real-time messaging and content sharing. It allows simplified video conferencing and messaging across any device. This app can handle hundreds of participants in company-wide meetings.
You can use fun custom backgrounds as a great conversation starter
Need Zoom tips for video meetings? Read them here
When you need to share how-to’s or instructions for complex tasks:
Loom is the best software for recording your screen and voice as you teach colleagues how to navigate complex tasks. Sending a Loom is more efficient than typing long emails or spending your day in meetings having conversations that don’t need to happen in real-time.
Schedule meetings across different schedules and time zones:
Calendly allows users to plot out their availability and makes it easier for your colleagues, clients, or partners to block off time with you. This app removes the back-and-forth in scheduling meetings.
Manage your projects seamlessly
Basecamp’s core functions include task management, messaging & collaboration, file sharing, scheduling, reporting, and a universal search function that makes everything easily and quickly retrievable. Basecamp is $99 per year with unlimited users.
Advanced Zoom tips and tricks for virtual meetings
Zoom has shared some tips to make the most out of your remote workspace.
Use noise-cancelling headphones to cut out distractions.
Make sure that you’re well-lit. Avoid being backlit - which is when you are being illuminated from behind, which usually means your face is not visible.
Use virtual backgrounds to start conversation (“I’m calling in from space”) and to hide clutter and other visual distractions.
Unless you are speaking or presenting, put your microphone on mute. You can hold the space bar to temporarily unmute on Zoom.
Enable “Touch Up My Appearance” to enhance your video - this reduces under-eye baggage, mild skin blemishes, and gives you a smoother look.
Stick to your routine:
Get dressed: Get up, shower, and get dressed as if you were going to the office. This way, you’re always ready for any impromptu meeting
Stretch! Stop your video and stretch yourself a little bit every hour. Take a lap around the kitchen in between calls.
Communicate your availability: Publish your calendar so others can see it and quickly understand your commitment. You can block off time for work on projects, set reminders for important tasks, and even reserve a time to get dinner started. You can also toggle your Zoom Chat status to busy when you need to be heads-down on a project.
Eliminate distractions: Shut the door to give yourself some privacy and separation, especially at home. Even hanging a curtain to separate your space can help.
Stay connected to your social circle. Human beings are social creatures - get creative with your bonding sessions by scheduling a “group lunch” or even having dinner and drinks together over Zoom.
Power up your Slack workspace
Working on a project together? There’s a Slack channel for that. Create channels for projects and tasks to centralize communication and collaboration.
Pro-tip #1: Slack uses channels in place of their weekly status meetings. Consider identifying a specific time of day where every team member should post their project status. Other teammates can create a thread for questions or comments.
Pro-tip #2: Create Slack channels with partners, vendors, and customers. Use the app to collaborate more effectively beyond your organization.
Slide into their DM’s. Use direct messages to talk to your teammates, pick their brains, and check in on them. Moving to a remote setup means you lose opportunities for authentic, spontaneous discussion - team members have to be deliberate in reaching out.
Explore different ways to get the message across. Moving to a remote setup opens up a lot of opportunities to communicate with colleagues in creative ways.
Need to explain a process or program to your team but you don’t want to write down all the instructions? Loom has got you covered. Walk your team through your explanation by recording your screen and this app will provide a shareable link of your how-to video.
Sometimes we need to get back to basics. Sketch out your ideas on paper and simply take a photo to send to your team - much faster than creating a slide deck.
Show your face. Without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, you lose physical and verbal cues that play an important role in navigating conversations. Prioritize video calls, especially for nuanced or delicate situations.
Using emojis and reactions on your Slack channel can make conversations feel more natural.
Tools for communication and documentation
Confluence (Internal) Can be used to outline policies, taking meeting notes, or writing a blog to share a team, helps teams share ideas, build community, and get work done all in one open and shared workspace.
Google Docs (External) allows users to collaborate with people outside of the company, to simultaneously edit, comment, and chat back and forth, and robust permissions settings make sharing private and public information a breeze.
Additional Readings
Loom has released a curated list of helpful readings and resources for remote work. These references offer great advice and information on reputable organizations’ journey through remote work.
REMOTE: Office Not Required: This bestselling book from the team at Basecamp shows employers and employees how they can work together, remotely, from any desk, in any place, anytime, anywhere.
OMG I'm working remotely, now what?! This blog post by Benedikt Lehnert, Director of Product Design for Microsoft’s Mobile Experiences, compiles best practices and tips to keep you focused and boost your productivity while working from home, “because distributed teams are a reality and remote work is the future.”
Why Great Teams Embrace Remote Work: This downloadable guide from the good people at Trello compiles tried and tested strategies from the world's leading remote companies.
MiroBlog | A blog by Miro: Rather than any one post, Miro’s entire publication is dedicated to the future of distributed teamwork and includes specific insights on product development, agile management and experience design.
5 tips for ramping up on remote work in a hurry: This post from Atlassian’s “Work Life” blog is well worth the quick read.
Working across land and sea: Tips for remote communication: This post on the “Inside Intercom” blog focuses on effective remote communication to ensure positive working relationships.
Working from Home — a Guide: Charles Patterson, senior designer and editor of InVision’s “Inside Design,” relays the lessons he’s learned over five years of working remotely.
How to lead a distributed team: Jennifer Dennard, Co-Founder of Range, offers four tips for managers whose teams are suddenly split across two or more locations.
Working Remotely: Tips from 100+ Remote Workers & Leaders: Help Scout has been writing about and advocating for remote work for a long time, and this resource compiles all of those learnings throughout the years.
The software you need to lead a distributed engineering team: Cathy Reisenwitz outlines what to consider when adopting software for distributed engineering teams — the categories of software distributed engineering teams find helpful, which features to look for, and questions to keep in mind as you consider your options.
Remotely Managing: This Medium publication is the brainchild of Stella Garber, the head of Trello’s distributed marketing team. She shares remote work insights from a management as well as individual standpoint.
What’s Your Company’s Emergency Remote-Work Plan? This HBR piece outlines five steps business leaders can take “to not only flexibly respond to this potential disruption, but also to use it as an opportunity to reimagine work broadly.”
Techniques for Virtual Meetings by NOAA
Seven Secrets to Successful Virtual Meetings for Project Managers by the Project Management Institute
Sources:
“Best Practices for Rapidly Adopting a Remote Work Strategy”, Upwork (blog), https://community.upwork.com/t5/Content-Corner/Best-Practices-for-Rapidly-Adopting-a-Remote-Work-Strategy/m-p/713329
“How to Embrace Remote Work”, Trello (blog), https://info.trello.com/hubfs/How_To_Embrace_Remote_Work_Trello_Ultimate_Guide.pdf?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.trello.com%2Fremote-work-team-success-guide%3Futm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dtrello-mar2020-newsletter1
“Leaving the Office Behind: A Guide to Remote Work”, Highfive (blog)
“Five Amazing Tips to Effectively Engage with Remote Employees”, Engage for Success (blog): https://engageforsuccess.org/engage-with-remote-employees
“6 Tips for Managing Remote Employees: How to Maintain Productivity and Engagement”, Forbes (blog): https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2020/03/10/managing-remote-employees/#53596f4a69c3
“6 Little-Known Facts Research Tells Us About Employee Engagement”, SelectOne (blog): https://www.selectonellc.com/blog/employee-engagement-statistics-research