Running office hours as a remote friendly company requires a different approach than physical office hours, however it is an opportunity to reset and build upon the experience.
Why Host Office Hours?
Office Hours are an exceptional way for executives and leaders at companies to effectively hear from an organisation.
Think of Office Hours as the 21st Century equivalent of the “my office door is open” policy.
It doesn’t need to be only the CEO or executive team either: the wonderful thing about Office Hours is that they’re optional and non-intrusive to those not interesting in participating. This means companies should spread the net wider than normal when encouraging people to host office hours!
Some of the most effective and valuable office hours come from roles you may not expect, such as:
- Facilities and Office Experience
- Product Managers and Leadership
- Customer Service and Success
Office Hours in era of Remote Work are an opportunity to do better Office Hours!
Let’s be honest, Office Hours are often a real hassle. It’s hard to find time for the person hosting to be accessible, and it’s even harder for participants who may have important questions to also be free at that time.
They’re also incredibly unfriendly to remote employees, as office hours typically happen in Kitchens or on the sofa!
Which is why we love remote friendly Office Hours — via Slack! It’s the equivalent of a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” except centred around your workplace.
How to Host Office Hours in the 2020 era of Remote work?
We recommend making a channel specifically to host Office Hours in — for example #officehours — and then coordinating office hours from that.
There are three stages to hosting Office Hours:
Announce in Advance
- An optional Google Calendar invite to the company or department is a fantastic way to do this. (“Join me in #officehours at 3PM PST on Friday!”)
- Also posting in #general or #announcements to raise awareness.
Be sure to post not only the day of the Office Hours, but in advance too! We typically like 3 and 1 days in advance.
Host via Slack
24 Hours before the office hours, host a Jellyfish Session with an appropriate title such as:
- I’m Peter Clark, Co-Founder of Jellyfish — These are my office hours!
… and watch questions, upvotes and comments roll in!
Time of Office Hours
Then, when it’s time to host your office hours, you can simply go through Jellyfish questions and discuss and answer questions within Slack.
The best thing about this is that questions can be asked at the requesters convenience, and you can answer them at your convenience. No longer do you both have to be free at a specific time to ask a question!
