What on Earth is a “Virtual Office” and Why Your Remote Team Needs One
One of the major pain points of remote work is the social isolation we feel when we’re disconnected from our colleagues. This feeling can often negatively impact communication among team members, and hinder productivity as well.
Here at Lark, we’ve developed a helpful tool to help teams stay connected with each other. Within any team chat on Lark, you have a “Virtual Office” button located on the top right-hand corner of the chat window. Clicking this button opens an audio channel to recreate the spontaneous chatter of a normal office.
You can come and go as you please — think of the virtual office as a digital water cooler, where people can stop by to be a fly on the wall, to gossip, or to simply catch up on the latest TV shows.
Why Does Your Team Need It?
Unless you’re a robot, chances are you experience an ebb and flow in your productivity over the course of a normal day. Research has shown that it is during down times, when your personal productivity is at a low, when you’re most receptive to bonding with others. Maybe it’s the caffeine crash, or the need to turn your brain off for a bit that entices us to get out of our chairs, walk over to the next desk, and ask our colleague what they did this weekend.
Unfortunately, when everyone is working from home, these nuanced social interactions aren’t possible. Our bodies don’t release the oxytocin we get from seeing a friendly face, or telling a funny joke to someone in the break room. In the long run, this makes you more isolated and anxious, which is ultimately detrimental to your health.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a manager or an employee — anyone can take a more proactive role in helping to create virtual bonding time.
We understand that the idea of launching a spontaneous group call with colleagues might be a foreign concept to most people. Below are a few tips you can follow that can help create a successful virtual office for your team.
Tip #1 — Set Virtual Office “Hours.”
Let’s start with a simple one. There are certain times during the day when our brains are not fully functional — right after lunch or first thing in the morning are usually slower periods where people tend to congregate in public spaces and chat. You can set light guidelines where your team checks into the virtual office before 9am, and between 1–2pm every day. You can organize your work or files while hearing your colleagues chat in the background as if you were in a real office!
Tip #2 — Fun Entrances!
Try setting virtual office greeting guides like “every time someone enters, they have to give a passcode.” You can also have a sound effect ready and play it when someone joins. That way, you are immediately engaging latecomers, and making them feel like part of the group.
Tip #3 — Themed Virtual Offices.
Remember, the goal is to create a habit for your team to break down the barrier of joining a virtual office. It should be feel like a private club where colleagues drop in when they need a break from their tasks, or when coming out of a long meeting. Break the mold, do something out of the box to really entice people!
Go one step further by creating themed virtual offices, like ones where everyone can only speak in a British accent, or silly ones where everyone pretends they’re using a walkie talkie by saying “over” at the end of sentences.
Give these tips a try when setting up your team’s virtual office — we believe that having a consistent hang out time will be beneficial for any team. Just remember to have fun, that’s the whole point of having a virtual office in the first place!
Lark is the perfect all-in-one remote working solution. Try Lark for free today by clicking here!
