Ever since shelter in place orders have gone into effect every company has been forced to make drastic changes to the way they work.  For many that has been a shift to remote working for employees that were accustomed to going into an office every day.  But for others – especially those who work in tech, the shift to distributed teams happened long ago and while they’ve had their own challenges over the last few weeks, they’ve been able to share some great hacks and tools to make the transition smoother.

Tips from Savannah’s ‘remoteforce’ community

(mostly shared in our ‘remote-but-not-alone’ channel in the SavTech Slack channel)

 Kevin Lawver, CTO @ Planted

Tips on involving introverts in meetings:

I always warn introverts first via text or slack if I’m going to ask them for their opinion in a meeting… it’s usually one of their goals, to speak up in meetings. I guess it depends on the person. Some people get more nervous is they know something is coming.

I’ve worked with some real introverts, who were super smart and not getting recognized for their contributions, so I would game plan with them before a meeting and say, “OK, when we start talking about this thing (because it’s on the agenda), I’m going to ask you for your opinion on this part of it, so be ready.”  Then, they knew it was coming and were prepared.  I’ve done it w/ juniors on video calls to, where I’ll send them a message in Slack and say, “OK, we’re getting to the CSS on this part, and you built it, you cool w/ me asking you to explain it?”  or something like that.

We also started doing retros a little differently too because the introverts weren’t saying anything, so we created a shared doc a day before the meeting and then everyone had time to think about it and put their comments in ahead of time.  They then had to say them out loud, but they weren’t drowned out and had space to be involved.

It’s also sometimes as easy as asking them how they’d like to contribute to a meeting.  Some people don’t like speaking in meetings, so you can have them do prep for the meeting by writing up something that someone else reads, or they can take minutes.

We had a few folks on the CSS WG who almost never spoke, but took amazing minutes.

I’ve also had folks who would rather be surprised so they don’t have to dread it, which is way more fun for me.

It’s also good to go over the “sit back / lean in” rules with everyone, which is always a good reminder for the extroverts to leave space for folks to join the conversation and “sit back” when they’ve been dominating the meeting.  It’s a gentle way to tell someone to STFU or to speak up.

Emily Shario, Internal Strategy Data Consultant @ Gitlab

Hey! Are you concerned about transitioning to remote? I’ve had a couple of conversations with people and the biggest fear I’ve heard is isolation/loneliness. If this is you, here are three things I’d suggest:

• be intentional about getting out of the house. You may be WFH, but that doesn’t mean you’re not leaving your house. Walk your dog or just go for a walk. Get the mail from the mailbox every day. Don’t become trapped in your house.

• try setting up a virtual coffee chat with someone for 30 minutes every day. Or a virtual lunch. Zoom is free for 40 minute long calls. Just because you’re home, doesn’t mean you can’t socialize! 

• repurpose your commuting time into something fun: an extra hour per day? read a book! start a new hobby! do a yoga routine from youtube! the possibilities are endless!

Want to read more?  Check out Emilie’s full blog post on working from home.

Resources from our community

A few useful articles and resources posted to the slack remote work channel from our community:

 

Download the FREE Remote Playbook from GitLab, the world’s largest all-remote company

Remote-first teams work better: productivity lessons for co-located and remote-friendly teams

Your team has communication problems. You just can’t see them because you all sit in the same room. Techniques that work well for co-located teams break down once remote workers join a team. The local team dials-in the remote to make them feel part of the team, yet remotes still feel disconnected. They don’t feel like they have an equal voice in meetings. They feel like they’re missing key conversations from the hallway track. And having an ad-hoc, impromptu conversation usually requires booking a meeting room.

What if we are approaching this problem the wrong way? What if the issues are not about remotes but rather latent issues exacerbated by being remotes?

An environment with everyone in close proximity encourages synchronous communication. You will learn how asynchronous communication and systematic documentation offers a far more inclusive environment and more accountability.

An open office makes it easy to break into impromptu brainstorming sessions. You will understand why fostering the distraction-free environment that remotes enjoy can also benefit your co-located team and let them get into the zone.

This talk will uncover how to improve your team’s productivity by learning from remote team best practices. By approaching team collaboration from a remote-first perspective, you can gain insight into your co-located teams’ inefficiencies.

How to build social connections on a remote team

Toptal’s Suddenly Remote Playbook