How we keep our morale high while working from home
We were ready to go remote from day one. That doesn’t mean we knew what it would be like. Here’s what helps up keep the team’s spirit high.
We are a company that creates innovation and often that means that we work with startups; we often like to say that we are a startup ourselves. This is quite true, actually, because we work like a startup in many ways. One of those is each of us has to work remotely every now and then: Filippos, when he had his knee operation; Maria, when she spends the day with our loyal customers, attending hours-long meetings; John, when he spent almost an entire month at the other side of the globe (he brought back delicious toffees); Dimitris, almost always.
The truth is, however, that we had never worked remotely as a whole. Getting the whole team to work from home was easy in theory: all our files are stored in the cloud, we work on laptops, we use online tools that can be accessed via a browser or an app. Nevertheless, having to stay at home weighs a heavy toll on people’s psychology. No ones likes to be confined within the walls of their apartments, not being able to hang out with colleagues and friends. Working on our own was strange and discouraging for many (yes, we have introverts in our team — they are a completely different case…).
This won’t be a post about working from home tips. There are plenty of excellent guides already out there. This is about keeping the team in a good mood.
Sticking to the routine
All the experts give the same advice: do what you would normally do if you had checked in to your office. Prepare your daily cup of Joe, check your emails, clean your keyboard; whatever helps you kickstart your day.
Every day at 10am sharp, one of us would log in to Slack and shout out “Kalimera” (‘good morning’ in Greek). Everyone replied with words or emojis. George would share the playlist of the day. This creates a feeling that you are not sitting alone inside your house, checking your emails; a dozen of other people are also drinking their morning coffee doing the same.
When at the office, we usually take a group lunch break. This would be kind of awkward to do over the Internet, unless you are Asian (no offense). So we just posted photos of our plates and discussed what was for lunch for everyone, right about the time we would be having lunch. That was also a good motivation to cook something nice and ‘instagrammable’ for yourself.
Communicate, communicate, communicate
We used simple, everyday tools for our team meetings: Facebook Messenger was our choice for one-to-one quick calls or small team brainstorming sessions, while Microsoft Teams was used for conferences with clients. We used services like Zoom and others to keep delivering workshops and educational sessions. Lastly, we turned to Google Hangouts (no particular reason — we just wanted to try something different that wouldn’t feel like a work call) for a goodbye video call at 6pm.
That goodbye call started at first as an all-girls chat (we do have our own Slack channel at the company, and we know the guys do too, although they won’t admit it…). Then we thought it should become more fun. One day we agreed to do our hair in double buns (we call them ‘meatballs’); the next, we applied a face mask (the call had to last no more than 10', for practical reasons); on another, we wore our most extravagant hats; then a dress we had only wore at one wedding; on the second week we did face painting — there were plenty of ideas for more days to come. It turned out to be something we all anticipated for daily. We occasionally sent the boys a screenshot, just to make them jealous and evoke a smile or two.
Celebrating small victories
To celebrate the end of our first WFH week, we invited everyone. The theme of the hangout was BYOD, as in “bring your own drink”. Everyone had to join with a glass of wine, bottle of beer or cocktail in hand; mocktails were also accepted. It was the best way to end the working -albeit from home- week and to share the message that we are all together in this. It became a weekly habit and we soon started searching for games we could play during the calls, just to spice things up a bit and celebrate Friday evenings the right way.
Staying fit
Before the lockdown, we used to workout twice a week after work, as a group. Thanks to apps like Down Dog and HIIT, we were able to continue our practice at home, even individually. On Slack, we encouraged each other to keep working out and shared tips about online yoga classes and free sessions we found (celebrity services like Kayla Itsines’ and Chris Hemsworth’s were on high demand). We even tried to organize a synchronized workout session. That was way too optimistic, though :-).
Did everything go smoothly — you’ll ask. Of course not. The first day was a total disaster. We had to do so many web calls to get things running, that we even had double bookings. At the end of the day, most of us had a headache. (We later learned that it has a name: Zoom Hangover.) But as everything fell into place, it was business as usual.
In times like that, all people come together in strange ways. In times of social distancing, we thankfully have technology — and enough bandwidth.
What do you do to keep your team’s spirit high? Give us your thoughts in the comments.
