Treasure 118 – Remote work

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What are the basics for successful home office? How do I communicate at remote work? How do I get my remote team in rhythm? Since the topic of home office and remote work is hot these days, I dug up a few nuggets on the topic. Also here on the blog there is a large pool of nuggets and own articles. No matter if you defy Corona in the office or at home. Hopefully you are prepared for the next days and weeks.

Nugget #1 – What are the basics for successful home office?

I find it exciting that the topic of remote work gets a real boost because of COVID-19. However, I fear that through the spatial distance really a social distance happens. Where it depends on teamwork, this can have a negative effect on the results. A few organizational and technical basics for remote work can be found in the article of Bastian Wilkat. For those who want to go deeper and anchor remote work as a real alternative in the company, I recommend my seven-part blog series or the numerous nuggets on remote work. (4 min, text, German)

Social Distancing: Tips for successful home office in times of COVID-19 (and beyond)

Nugget #2 – How do I communicate with remote work?

Actually I don’t like articles that are titled “The biggest mistake…” or “The 7 best…”. But the content of the article from Andreas Weck is very valuable. Because the topic of communication is one of the biggest difficulties in the home office or remote work.
In my opinion there is no single miracle tool. A phone call is in many cases certainly the better alternative to an email. Especially if it is a dialogue. On the other hand, a pure telephone call cannot replace a dialogue in the office. I cannot see whether my colleague is enthusiastically accepting my suggestion or whether she is frowning. In this case, a video call makes more sense. Every mobile device today has a camera built in and the corresponding app, such as Facetime, is already on board.

In my article about digital communication, I explain what synchronous and asynchronous communication is and the principle of media richness. With this, I can put together my own toolbox and I can use the right medium depending on the situation.
(4 min, text, German)

This is the biggest mistake employees can make in the home office

Nugget #3 – How do I get my remote team in rhythm?

A true master of remote work is Wade Foster. His company Zapier is a full remote company. In a presentation at Business of Software Europe, he opens the hood and shows how the engine of a remote company can run smoothly.

Two new inspirations for me were in the part about culture:

  • For example, I like the Slackbot Donut, which randomly brings two people together for an informal Zoom Call. I have already reported here about the Connecting Lunch in my current company. But doing the whole thing across locations is a great idea and worth trying.
  • I also like the Friday update. In the office the question “And what do you do on the weekend?” is very common. But I rarely asked my colleagues in other time zones this question. Another point worth trying.

But now have fun with the video. Alternatively there are slides and Transcript. (60 min, video, English)