Working from home.
For some, it’s a dream. For others, it’s their everyday. Whether you love it or hate,
sometimes you just don’t have a choice. Be it a global pandemic, or a sore back, many
of us are fortunate enough to have most of what we need to be productive wherever we
are.
Now while working from home offers many conveniences, it also comes with a set of challenges that
are unique to being separated physically from your colleagues and clients. And since these
challenges are largely centered around communications and social topics, we couldn’t resist digging
in.
Perhaps working from home is not something you do regularly, but nonetheless, it’s
important to have your remote collaborative communication skills up to snuff. You never
know when the need will arise.
Plus, much of what we discuss today is not only crucial when working from home, it’s
also just good practice as our teams and clients become increasingly distributed around the
work. Even if you are in the office, the people you engage with may not be, meaning these
strategies still apply.
So enough prefacing – let’s dive in.
What’s up Explearners. Mary Daphne here of explearning.co where we believe social
skills are the key to the Good Life. What’s the Good Life? It’s where you call the shots,
you have a crew you can count on, and you’re on a mission you care about.
Before we jump in, I wanted to let you know about a great free resource we’ve created
for the Explearning community. It’s a comprehensive small talk guide. If you find yourself grasping
at thin air when you’re in unfamiliar social situations, then our small talk guide is for
you! Click the link in the description box below to get the free downloadable delivered
straight to your inbox. Alright, without further ado, let’s jump
into some effective strategies for working from home:
(1) Overcommunicate
Yes. You heard that correctly. We want you to communicate way more than you’re used
to in the office.
When you are speaking with people face to face, you may not realize how much extra information
you are conveying with your body language and facial expressions. When that communication
switches to phone calls, email, and project management software, all of that extra information
gets blocked by the barriers of technology.
For this reason, it is on you to provide far more detail in your remote communication than
you may be accustomed to. Don’t make assumptions. Spell things out. Leave nothing up to interpretation.
If you are frustrated, or you think the other person might be concerned, get clarity on
that before proceeding.
You don’t have the luxury of seeing their non-verbal signals, so you’ll need to get
them to articulate those instead.
I know that we often talk about keeping emails short. That still applies. But don’t confuse
short with incomplete. Make sure you convey and collect all the information necessary
for your team to operate effectively.
You might be surprised at how much others appreciate this extra level of detail. It
will show you care about things going smoothly.
And if you worry that the recipients will view it as excessive, feel free to caveat
your communication by saying something like “You probably already have a good understanding
of this, but for the sake of clarity, I’m just going to spell it out to ensure we are
on the same page”.
(2) Make space to make small talk
When you are in the office, it’s easy to catch up socially with your teammates. It
could be as simple as leaning over to say “Hi”. Or you catch them on your way to
the snack room. Or you might duck out for lunch or coffee with them. Offices are designed
to create these kinds of informal interactions that help develop a sense of team camaraderie
and belonging.
When you’re working from home, all of these little moments to connect informally with
others disappear. You don't have the proverbial water cooler to hang out at. For that reason,
you’ll need to be much more deliberate about making time for making that human connection
with others.
If it's the first note you're sending someone in the day, try opening up with “Hey, how's
it going? Did you catch that latest episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?” Or if you
haven’t spoken with the colleague in a few days, you can say something like “Wow, I
feel like it’s been ages since we last spoke!”
If you’re sending a dense email, you might not want to muddy it with personal side-chatter.
Totally understandable. In that case, consider sending the recipient a personal note on the
side with a warm greeting and letting them know a beefy no-nonsense email is on the way.
G-Chat or any instant messaging tool you use in the office works great for this.
Adding a bit of personal flare to your communications can go a long way toward humanizing your interactions.
It reminds everyone that we’re not just robots and that we care about each other’s
feelings and lives. You’ll find that doing so engenders more fluid communication and
better project outcomes.
And let’s be honest, it just makes work a lot more fun, so why not?
(3) Clarify Your Availability
This one is easy to overlook. When you are in the office, it’s obvious when you are
available. People can see if you are on the phone, or out for coffee.
When you are working remotely, your availability is much less visible.
Your boss might send you an email, or try to call you, and if you don’t respond within
minutes, they might start to panic. Meanwhile, you get back from walking your dog to find
your phone exploding with frantic notifications. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s not fun.
There are a few ways you can tackle this.
The best way is to set expectations with your team. Let them know that when you aren’t
in the office, there is likely to be a bit more delay in your responses. As long as everyone
on the team agrees to the same set of expectations, this can work really well.
In addition to expectation setting, you should check if any of the productivity software
your team uses has a “Status” indicator. Often, you can set your status as “Away”
with a custom message like “Toilet just flooded, be back ASAP”.
Or if necessary, directly reach out to those you know will want you on a moment’s notice
to let them know you are heading out for lunch.
The reality is that when you aren’t in a controlled environment like an office, there
are things outside your control that will impact your short-term availability. That’s
completely understandable. It’s just important to make sure your team is on the same page
about that so that there is no confusion as to how easy it will be to reach each other.
When it comes to remote work, patience is a true virtue.
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So there you have it, three effective ways to level up your remote collaboration skills.
Let’s recap:
1. Communicate way more than you are used to, ask the questions you need to ask, and
leave nothing open to interpretation. 2. Make space for being human because the
computers and smartphones won’t do it for you.
3. Set clear expectations about everyone’s availability while they are out of the office.
There’s no need to be criticized for missing a phone call because you were cleaning up
some spilled coffee.
The reality is that remote collaboration is the future of work. Sure, we’ll always have
physical spaces where we all meet up, but as technology improves our ability to stay
connected wherever we are in the world, the shift to remote work is already taking place.
My advice to you is to embrace it and take note of the strategies we discussed in order
to equip yourself for success!
So now that I've shared our thoughts, I would love to hear about how you collaborate remotely.
What’s been working? What challenges have you encountered? Share that with me and the
Explearning community in the comments below. And, if you loved this lesson, please be sure
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Email this video to a friend or coworker who also wants to supercharge their social skills.
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as well! And remember, the writeup of these lessons
are always available on our blog at explearning.co/blog. With that, have an awesome week, Explearners.
Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you next time for your next Explearning
lesson. Happy Explearning ⚡