2020 is winding to a close, and there are a lot of changes to deal with. Aside from an election over, there’s still the challenge of the rising pandemic numbers that make personal health and safety more important than ever. Technalink is adapting to this new business world as diligently as other companies. One of the safer ways to do this is to let employees work from home and conduct interactions remotely.
But how do you adapt to this kind of virtual business world? When you’ve established a company culture in an office, how does that translate to a WFH context? Here are a few tips to keep your culture going at home.
Have A Visibility Buddy
No one likes to promote or talk about themselves since this can come off as self-serving and even bullying. But what if others do the talking? The “visibility buddy” concept means that everyone gets assigned a “buddy” who does the talking about what they do or how they feel instead of speaking up for themselves.
This is a good way for different people to see and promote each other. It can also be a valuable tool to maintain visibility for people that might otherwise get lost in the static, such as women, minority, or disabled employees.
Video Conference Your Work To A Partner
One thing that is constant in an office is proximity to other people, often while working. The WFH situation can be lonely if there are no others at home. In cases like this, keeping a video chat channel open with a co-worker and work together can make sense.
It might seem like a small thing, but the occasional comment or even just the clacking of keys from someone else while you’re working can completely change the atmosphere of a situation.
Keep Casual Connections
If you’re taking a break, do it with someone else. For example, if it’s time for that coffee or tea in the kitchen, and you’ve got a work buddy in video chat on the laptop, bring the laptop to the kitchen with you and have the virtual equivalent of those “water cooler moments.”
Work interactions and the connections and bonds formed are about more than just the work-related exchanges. An essential part of any work culture is the purely social aspect, and these break moments can help maintain that. I also recently had to open a business in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact), so we used a virtual office service (glasgowvirtualoffices.co.uk) which made that easy and it’s worked just great.
Encourage Video Conferencing
This seems like a self-evident tip, but many companies fall out of this habit because employees don’t like video conferencing or feel that phone calls or social media such as a Slack/Discord chat channel are sufficient. While there’s no discounting these possibilities, video conferencing still brings some crucial gains to the table. And if you’re looking to manage two WhatsApp accounts on a single phone, consider acquiring a virtual number by reading this guide: https://www.yourbusinessnumber.com/blog/two-whatsapp-accounts-on-one-phone. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of effortlessly setting up and using two distinct numbers on WhatsApp, allowing you to keep personal and professional lives separate.
Sarcasm, irony, and even physical cues like smiles, knowing nods, and other nonverbal signifiers can get lost when people can’t see the physical posture and expressions involved in an interaction. While not everyone can participate in video conferencing, there’s a benefit in today’s business world for those who can. If you need help setting up an audiovisual system in your office for video conferencing, you may hire companies like https://www.signalsolutions.com/audio-visual-san-francisco. And if you need a reliable commercial phone service, then you may consider using business voip systems.
Turn Commute Time Into Warm-Up or Decompression Time
If you and your fellow workers and employees no longer have to commute to work, try to turn that time into something else. Casual conversations and interactions can be scheduled for some of this time. Or if things need to be discussed at the end of the workday, this is an excellent time to entertain those needs.
Of course, you can also try something new and turn this time into something you all participate in, such as meditation. Investing in prayer beads and guiding the team through a meditative cooldown is an excellent way to maintain bonds and help people relax.
Lastly, if you have a large group of employees working from home, then you might want to consider providing wireless network solutions for seamless working experience. You may reach out to a Contact Center as a service provider to help you wirelessly connect business applications to people, places, and technology in every type of environment.
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