Starting a New Job and Building Important Relationships Virtually — Lessons Learned in a Year of Covid
2020 was surreal. I’m sure we all have war stories about 2020 and how at times we barely made it out by the skin of our teeth. The important thing is that we did make it to the other side. But that doesn’t mean pinching our eyes and blocking out lessons we learned along the way. As with everything in life, we should hold on to the good, learn from the challenges and let go of the bad. Sometimes this means holding on to the lessons we learned about managing challenges well enough while working to make it to the good side again.
Lockdown Looms
I had been working as a UX writer for a tech company based in the Netherlands when the first lockdown of 2020 hit in March. My contract was up for renewal in May, and my manager at the time let me know that the company (which was heavily reliant on travel clients) wasn’t able to renew my contract. With the prospect of finding a new job that would be able to cover my visa in the Netherlands just as the world was going into lockdown seemingly unlikely, I resisted the urge to give in to my panic.
As it so happens, I’d been talking to a great company based in Portugal since December the previous year, on LinkedIn. The pandemic was still a distant mystery, and I was still doing good at my Dutch company, so the initial discussions didn’t progress much further. But we kept the door open, and I promised to get in touch if anything were to change in the future. Boy, did it ever.
I’d had my contract discussion on Friday, March 13, 2020, and on Monday, March 16, the Netherlands went into lockdown. I basically had April and May to try and secure another employer that would be able to match the minimum salary needed to qualify for a skilled foreigner work permit, just as the country (and the world) entered into one of the most bizarre times we’d ever seen. People and companies weren’t sure what would happen, hire freezes kicked in almost immediately, and everyone was wondering if they’d be furloughed or laid off. Not the best time for securing a new gig.
After finally breaking down and telling my mom what was going on on the phone, she comforted me virtually, then advised me to check in with the Lisbon-based company, OutSystems, again. I did, and to my delight, they were still keen on taking the process further. And so goes the story of me landing a great role at a fantastic company, in the middle of lockdown, amid a global pandemic. But, I had to fly back to South Africa first to take care of the visa bureaucracy since my Dutch visa was running out and the Portuguese embassy in the Netherlands was to remain indefinitely closed to visa applications. After repatriation flights and quarantines, I made the move to Lisbon in October 2020 and haven’t looked back since.
Introvert in a New Office, With no Office at All
As an introvert, I had developed hacks to make it in a big office. I looked forward to finding quiet corners in the office to take my breaks and make work friends who could provide similar energy, insight, and support. Having the corporate world go remote suited me much better than it did the extroverts, I’m sure. As I started a new job in a new country, I knew that to be successful, I would need to start building those meaningful relationships with my new team.
I was forced to make those connections in the traditional office. Now I had the tempting opportunity daily to close my computer and recoup my people energy on my own time. But it wouldn’t do anything to help me achieve success in my new role in an extended team. I didn’t come to these insights overnight. It was a journey, and one I’m still on.
These lessons helped me build the important relationships I needed to establish myself as a value-adding thought leader and team member among the teams I work in as a UX writer. And after my latest performance review, I’m happy to report that I received feedback that I greatly improved my presentation skills, people interaction, and relationship building. I’m proof that these lessons worked for me, perhaps they can help you too. Here’s how I learned to build essential relationships while starting a new job, in a new country, in a pandemic.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable
Vulnerability is scary, isn’t it? It’s also human. No one relates to a robot. If you show vulnerability, it makes you more relatable. During our quarterly team retrospective, one colleague mentioned that she really appreciates my vulnerability, how I’m honest with the challenges I come across, and the struggles I face. I didn’t even realize that my comfort level with my nuclear team had progressed to this point, but it’s true. It says more about my supportive team than it does about me.
Obviously, each team is unique, and I’m not advocating for you to use every team interaction as a therapy session. But showing vulnerability, admitting you don’t have all the answers, asking for help, and being open to receiving support will only humanize you to your colleagues and show them that you operate with a high level of self-awareness. People relate to fallibilities; it makes us human, and we can all relate to being human.
Embrace the awkward
You won’t get every joke, you won’t understand every cultural nuance. This is especially true for those who, like me, started a new job in a new country, with a foreign language and a really interesting but unfamiliar culture. I gave myself a lot of slack here and knew going in that I wouldn’t get it all.
Instead of beating myself up about it, I leaned into the awkwardness. I knew it wouldn’t be fun for others either and that it would be, well, awkward. So, I started calling it out. I would break awkward silences before meetings start with random conversations and even comment about how ‘awkward’ has become the language of the new digital era. Oftentimes, just having someone acknowledging the awkwardness in the room is enough to break the ice and get everyone to expel their nervous laughter and get on with the meeting.
You’ll drop the ball
When starting a new job, save yourself a lot of grief and just accept that you’ll drop the ball, that you won’t have all the context needed to contribute valuably to every conversation, and you probably won’t always say the right thing.
While learning a (new to me) system at work, my immediate superior, a valuable relationship I was nurturing, tagged me in a comment in a work doc. I never saw the comment and so never responded to the query. Nearly two weeks later, my manager asked me why I didn’t reply. It wasn’t fun for me to explain why it never made it on my radar. Faux pas are a part of life, even for the most seasoned operators among us. If you adopt a “just carry on and do better” attitude, the mistake itself won’t define you.
Be intentional
Working remotely rules out any random office interactions — those important micro-interactions that strike fear into the heart of most introverts. When starting in a new team, you could always count on striking up random conversations with new colleagues as you’re waiting for meetings to start or when queueing in the cafeteria line or riding the elevator. Remote work put paid to that. I realized it’s on my colleagues and me to schedule time for intentional connection.
It doesn’t need to be anything formal; I used to log in to meetings slightly earlier when I could, and I’d use those two or three stolen minutes to make small talk with whichever teammates joined me before the meeting started. Don’t underestimate the impact those conversations can have. It usually left many of us wanting more and taking conversations offline in Slack chats. It also made it easier to set more formal ‘team social’ calendar blocks as we got to know each other better.
As companies grow, the ‘getting to know each other’ phase never ends, and we’re always working on it. Focusing on this makes getting to know each other intentional, which is what’s needed to break down the virtual walls that fleeting Zoom interactions build up.
‘Always on’ camera policy
We don’t have any specific team policy about keeping our cameras on during meetings, but early on, I made a personal rule of adopting an ‘always on’ camera policy when possible. I believe it’s important to bring your whole self to the meeting, and this includes your face. Whatever your views on the 7% rule, I knew that it would be more difficult for me to establish those key relationships early on if people only had a picture of my face and a Zoom voice to go on. It’s not always convenient, but it also helps keep you honest about meeting attendance.
Remember, we’re all in it together
No one’s there with the mentality to do each other in. I can’t begin to tell you the number of times I’ve witnessed crossed wires over Zoom calls and Slack chats. Usually, it plays itself out, but there are instances where it could’ve escalated. Most times, colleagues or I jumped in to uncross those wires and saved relationships from unnecessarily damaged. If you succeed at your job, the team succeeds, and the company succeeds. We’re all in this together.
What’s the Big Lesson?
I learned that the most important thing is just to show up. And keep showing up. After the good days, and the confusing days, after the infuriating days, the best days and worst days. We need to show up. We need to be present, and we need to be consistently ourselves. Hopefully, like me, you’ll feel part of the virtual furniture before you know it.
