How working apart brought our team together
Historically, I haven’t been the biggest advocate of remote working. Sure, my team worked from home occasionally, but I always believed that in-person collaboration was vital for development teams. I thought the best way to solve a roadblock was a quick brainstorm or an impromptu chat. But when the current environment forced us all to embrace remote working, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my team adapted.
Staying kind and putting each other first
As soon as the decision to close the office was made, leaders across the business made it a priority to check in on the health and wellbeing of their teams. In my area, we made it ok for teams to deprioritise anything that wasn’t essential, taking the pressure off as they settled into working from home full time. This was especially important for those juggling childcare and homeschooling — if you’re a parent you’ll know it’s impossible to fit a full working day into what’s considered ‘normal working hours’!
Offering flexible working hours is one thing, but we also wanted to make sure we didn’t have people slogging away into the night. Something we started doing — which I can recommend — is letting each other know when we’re signing off for the day. For some reason, telling other people that you’ll be switching off gives you some accountability and also stops your home life and work life blending into one.
It’s actually one of the elements in the ‘remote commitment’ agreement that my team developed. The agreement is a document that we created when we started working from home, and it’s been an essential pillar of our remote working success. Other principles in the document include strong communication, keeping cameras on during meetings (if bandwidth allows) and letting each other know when we’re unavailable. It not only keeps us accountable, but also helps us put each other first.
Using the right collaboration tools
Using the right tools has made the process of working from home so much easier. We started by identifying which channels we wanted to use and made sure everyone understood how to use them. The phrase ‘you can never over communicate’ became our new mantra and meant that everyone in the team was on the same page. I was so happy to see teams embracing this and really levelling up their communication, because it made my job so much easier and gave teams clarity on their work.
These days, Slack is even more important for our everyday communication. If I’m taking my dog for a walk, I can quickly update my status to let the team know. We also have wellness reminders set up at 10.30am every day, to encourage us to get up and take a walk or play with the dog.
Miro, a virtual whiteboard, is another standout tool. We use it for our daily standups, workshops and quarterly planning. The real-time aspect means we can work together as if we were at a real whiteboard.
Along with tools to help us do our work, we’ve also been using 15Five to gauge how the team is feeling, capture any concerns and send teammates high fives. It’s a performance management tool that direct reports can use with their manager to stay in touch, record priorities for the week and highlight items to discuss. We’ve found 15Five improves the quality of one-on-one meetings, because you tend to focus less on what’s happening, and more on solving problems and celebrating success.
Socialising with the team
There are so many moments of shared camaraderie you miss when you’re not working alongside each other each day — but we’ve managed to keep these alive and well by getting creative. Before going into lockdown, many in the team went out and got themselves a cactus, and we’ve been giving each other updates on how our cacti are growing. We call it 30 days of cactus. Of course, this has now changed to 60 days of cactus. 😀
We also start the week with a virtual coffee meeting — where the team is encouraged to bring along a drink so we feel like we’re having a coffee together. And we end the week with a social call, to decompress, do a quiz together, have a laugh and sometimes play jackbox.tv games. Then there’s hump day dinner posts, where we share what we’re having for dinner on a Wednesday evening. They sound silly, but it’s really kept us connected during isolation.
The benefits of socialising with your team go beyond a bit of light relief — taking the time to get to know your teammates can improve your working relationship with them over the long term, and builds trust and happiness among the team. I’m lucky in that my team enjoys spending time with each other, so morale has stayed high throughout the pandemic (which is pretty extraordinary, given the uncertainty of what’s been happening).
Adjusting to the new normal
Even without the opportunity to chat in person, our 30-strong team across New Zealand and the UK has leaned in and made the most of our new ways of working. We’ve been able to maintain that all important human contact, keep the team culture strong, and actually improve the quality of our communication. People get to the point faster. Meetings run on time. Everyone prioritises the wellness of themselves and their teammates. These are things I want to see continue beyond lockdown.
Of course, even when we return to the office, it’s unlikely we’ll be crowding into meeting rooms or working shoulder-to-shoulder anytime soon. But after seeing the way my team has banded together and embraced remote working, I know they’ll quickly adapt to the new normal. As for me? I’m well and truly convinced that remote working is an effective way for teams to function, and know it’s something I’ll be open to in the future.
