Culture at a distance: 5 ways to make remote working better
You’re on mute: we live in a world where our organisational culture - where beliefs and behaviours have a common purpose - is more important than ever. And whilst we all work at home, technology proves a double edged sword for the uninitiated.
Working remotely - perhaps one of the most polarising mega trends in recent memory - has its benefits and drawbacks. Almost all of these have an impact on how we as people communicate, work, and live.
When you spend your day muting and unmuting yourself, only to mute yourself once again; searching for the correct link minutes before your 10th Zoom call; or my personal favourite - listening to the incessant ‘bambooing’ (great word) of Slack - you can find yourself lost in a sea of distraction, irritation and unproductivity.
Culture has become the shared assumptions, values and behaviours of a business, and this impacts culture in three major ways:
Individuals and teams have major technology fatigue
The space between work and life is blurred because your bedroom is now your office
Interpersonal issues arise because tone, nuance and casual encounters are now text messages ripe to be misunderstood
So what are the five things we need to do to improve remote working and ensure we have a great organisational culture, even at a distance?
1) We lost our collective thought voice - Set up a town hall
Whether you’re five employees, or 500, understanding the current situation is important. Setting up a monthly town hall meeting where people can share thoughts beforehand, discuss openly the topics that concern them and follow through with decisions is a key drive of culture.
This should be your baseline exercise for culture each month - How are we tracking? Where are we falling behind? Where are we winning?
2) We expect instantaneous responses - Establish Slack etiquette
Whether it’s Slack, Teams, MSN Messenger, even ICQ - you need messaging etiquette. At Aeio, we don’t tag people unless absolutely necessary, we encourage everyone to turn off their sounds, using the Do Not Disturb (DND) function, and not ‘stacking’ people’s Slack at 11pm the night before with their late night thoughts. We also encourage people only to join the channels that are business critical, and make sure the notifications are turned off from their personal devices.
Bonus tip: running a few mins late to a meeting suddenly feels like you’re waiting an eternity. Normalise the phrase ‘we’ll give everyone 5 mins to arrive so feel free to turn off your cams and spend 5 minutes singing to yourself’. Maybe not the last part... but you get it. Just do something other than stare at a screen waiting for someone .
3) We all work at different times for different things - Work in shifts
We’re open about who’s a morning person (me!) and who’s an evening person (my business partner) - so we know how we’re going to spend each day, and what we can ask and expect of one another. All my thinking time and creativity is before 9am, so I get my creative briefs the morning before or over a coffee Zoom. My business partner is the opposite, so I brief him at around 230pm and leave him alone for the evening, and review with a clear head in the morning.
For creative work, distractions are the enemy - and sometimes working outside the 9-5 really gives you the space you need.
4) A tap on the shoulder has turned into a 15 minute Zoom - Pick up the phone
Remember when we used to just dial a number and listen to a voice? These calls are almost always shorter, and get the point across without having to do the small talk with the same people 5 times a day. We all want to be friends but sometimes the ‘obligation of small talk’ can catch up with you and it becomes a never ending story about life in lockdown.
5) We’re lazy with channels - Take a moment
If it’s a sensitive topic, use a channel that allows for nuance best suited for the audience you’re speaking to. And no, that doesn’t mean Zoom. For some, a phone call can be less confrontational, for others, it’s going to be written for reflection - but pick wisely, the wrong channel for the wrong message can at best result in ineffective dialogue and at worst create a situation that results in unwanted repercussions (chances are if your audience is in a bad mood, then whatever you say is going to just add fuel to the fire).
The same goes for frivolous stuff, too - probably don’t book a meeting to show off your latest dog photos. Well, actually, maybe that’s exactly what you should book a meeting - you’ll know best.
Communication, work and life - easy right?
It’s the intersection between those three areas that affect us most deeply as human beings - how we engage with one another, what contribution we are making, and how we exist outside of work - that ultimately make up the factors of how organisational culture impacts us.
Culture is the strategy: and designing that culture is a process (read: journey) that must start with purpose.
Just remember - be generous with your team, be kind to yourself, and walk away from the keyboard.