SELF IMPROVEMENT ADVICE

How to Maintain Communication Productivity

When taking time to build relationships, collaboration becomes more interesting, insightful, and productive

Frequently, confusion and disagreement can occur between a person working from home and the home office because there is no clear set of rules about how their work will be monitored and how to communicate with each other.

If we work for a company that has an established track record and history of having employees who work from home, odds are they already have a set of ground rules and policies in place. If so, then it is wise to take a moment and read those policies once or twice to understand what is fully expected. If it comes across something unclear, take a moment, and ask the supervisor a few questions to ensure the condition.

However, many companies are transitioning to having employees work from home, especially smaller businesses. In these situations, they may lack established ground rules. If that is the situation, scheduling a meeting with the supervisor to go through and find out what they expect while working from home. Here are a few areas that might need to be discussed with them to clarify what they want.

1. Determine ground rules

“Have a conversation about working hours”

What hours of the day do they expect the workers to be online and available? Many of those who work from home are on salary. If that is the case, we likely have greater flexibility in the schedule, yet there may be an unwritten rule from the company about when they want us to be available. Find out if there is an expectation about the hours when they wish workers around. If that overlaps with the personal schedule, ask how often they expect that conflict to occur.

Also, email response time is a common area of confusion. If the supervisor sends an email, what is their expectation of how soon we need to reply to that email? When everyone shares the same workplace, we might see whether the coworker is out of their desk, but when at home, they may wonder why no reply as soon as they would have hoped. Discuss how many hours is reasonable to expect the other person to reply. Getting on the same page about this will help to know what kind of email checking schedule need to establish in a day.

Additionally, consider the expectation of text messaging or online chat apps. Many people who work from home also connect to the office with instant messaging of some sort. Typically, the response time expectations are different than for email. Discuss how quickly they want to respond and what hours of the day they want to leave that instant messaging app open. By the way, if the expectation is that they always want to have that app open, it might not hurt to open a dialogue with them and suggest that perhaps could have times of the day where have it shut down. That way, we can do focused and uninterrupted work and get the best results for them.

They may not agree to it, but having the conversation opens the possibility in their mind. In the long run, having down hours, hours in which people do not interrupt each other is far more productive than being always online. Finally, have a conversation with them to determine what need to do to put their mind at ease. Many leaders are worried about having people work from home because they think their people will be less productive when they do that.

The study found that the opposite is reasonable.

People tend to work harder while at home. However, the fear is still there. Attempt to figure out what is the criteria that they have that determine if it is useful while working from home. Taking a little time upfront to establish these ground rules¹ and expectations with each other will go a long way toward increasing productivity and reducing conflict in the future.

2. Use virtual meetings productively

“When working from home, most of the meetings will be through video or phone conferencing”

We must treat these virtual meetings with care and respect². How to engage with coworkers in these meetings often determines the quality of the working relationship. Consider a moment the things that would do and would not do if having a face-to-face meeting with them. For example, give full attention to coworkers, arrive on time or early, and make eye contact with people. Make sure that we can hear and see people, show up and be prepared, and show people the work so we can collaborate. Everything listed is things that we can still do in a virtual meeting.

When talking with people, shut down any window that might be open that might distract. If having an email open in the background, it is hard to focus on the person, and they will sense that we are multitasking. Prepare to arrive early and do a technical check-in to make sure that there is nothing that’s going to get in the way of having a productive meeting with this person. Set up the camera so that it is as close as possible to their virtual face, thus improving eye contact. Ensure that we can share our screen with them and show them anything that we are working on to make it easy to collaborate with. Now, there are a few extra things to consider when working from home.

Try as much as possible to reduce any background noise.

This means that, if possible, give a heads-up to people who share our living space and let them know we will be in a meeting for the next hour. Do not mean to tell them we need to be quiet. Instead, please give heads up of when the meeting will occur. If they are aware, most people will try to do something to help accommodate, such as going outside or doing their work quietly. Also, remove any visual distractions from the other participants. This means that awareness of what the video looks like behind us. Avoid having a monitor or television on behind, or being in a high-traffic area where people will be walking back and forth.

Additionally, as a general rule, make sure that we have a clean, stable internet connection to the people that we are working with. Much of this depends upon the type of internet connection and the internet service provider that we are using. Arrange the best internet connection or ask the employer to help provide that. Having a reliable connection also means shutting down any background program that may interfere with the meeting.

For instance, a file synchronization service should usually be paused or turned off during this time, because it may try to sync during the meeting, which will disrupt the flow of traffic. Occasionally, break virus protection during the meeting, and then re-enable it afterword.

Final note, ask for the dress code.

If no rule, there may be at least an unspoken standard of how people dress while at work. While there is no need to dress very best when in a virtual meeting, we certainly want to be respectful of the people we are going to meet. This means that if we know how they usually dress at the office, it is good to make an effort to match that standard address. If everyone at the office wear is a button-up shirt and we show up with a graphic T-shirt, we may create a bit of a disconnect between the culture at work and home.

Try to make a small effort to show that we care and want to be a part of the company culture even thousands of miles away.

By putting a little thought and care into how we prepare and arrive for these virtual meetings, build a stronger relationship with coworkers, and ensure that working together as productive as possible.

3. How to work across time zones

“When working from home, one common time management issue is when working with coworkers who reside in different time zones”

We will likely experience one or two occasions when people show up at the wrong time or experienced other confusion. Here are a few tips³ to reduce these kinds of issues.

First, prepare a second clock or even a third clock when working with multiple time zones. These show the times of the coworkers when doing a meeting. This simple thing helps continually be aware of the cycle of coworkers’ day. Having these clocks and showing that we have them to our coworkers helps them feel that we respect them.

Additionally, when scheduling appointments, try to do it from their perspective. When suggesting possible meeting times, always show it in terms of their time zones. This shows more respect for the other person, but it reduces the likelihood of making mistakes. In that same vein, it is good to use a shared calendar that automatically makes those time zone changes.

Most modern workplace calendars, such as Outlook or Google, already have this built-in. It might be wise to run a test or two to make sure that the group calendaring tool automatically accounts for time zones.

When working with people across multiple time zones, mainly if the time zones are incredibly different, it may be necessary and appropriate to have more than one start time, and more than one finish line each day.

For instance, say that we have coworkers in Denver and Beijing, yet need to interface with them both. We may have a start time at 10 a.m. each day and work until the first finish line at 3 p.m. and focused on doing work with more local coworkers. Then, start again at 10 p.m. and have a finish line at midnight, giving a window to interface with people on the other side of the world. This is just a rough example, but it shows how to work with people worldwide, but have boundaries that we respect.

While working with people all around the world, we should be available 24/7. This kind of setup leads to health issues, productivity decline, and increased stress. Take some time to set up expectations and systems with coworkers around the world to find a productive pattern to collaborate and get work done.

4. How to respond to quick questions

“The issue of quick questions becomes magnified when someone is working from home”

Think that the separation of not being together in a physical office would reduce these kinds of things. Some studies⁴ found the opposite to be accurate, mostly because team members do not know what their home-based counterparts are doing, and they rarely hesitate to interrupt them at all with a quick question.

We need to avoid this situation.

Quick questions force us to switch away from whatever we are working on, answer the question and then switch back. Do this enough, and pretty soon, our whole day is just putting out small fires, but never getting any real work done. There are a few additional things that home-based workers can do to deal with quick questions.

First, establish a consistent one-to-one meeting schedule. This one-on-one should primarily be dedicated to responding to and asking quick questions. This meeting schedule helps people get in the habit of queuing up these questions and asking them in a focused way during the meeting, rather than peppering each other throughout the day with quick questions. Will this get rid of all the questions? Of course not. However, what it does do is create a stopping point in mind and coworkers’ minds.

When a quick question comes to mind, can this wait until a scheduled one-to-one meeting? If someone interrupts in the day with a quick question, the first thing to suggest is, asking that can this wait until our scheduled one-to-one meeting.

If the answer is no, then the issue truly is an emergency.

It needs to respond quickly. However, when we slow down for just a moment, we realize that most of the things that we think are emergencies are not emergencies. They are merely impatient. Impatiences are counter-productive. Have that consistent meeting time, and we will reduce many of them. Also, establish different expectations for different channels. If a question asks via email, it is reasonable to expect a wait time of at least one business day until we get a response.

A channel, such as instant messaging, should be reserved for true emergencies, which need fast, immediate responses. Also, consider response times to phone calls or video message calls. It is better to have a reserved, open amount of time on the calendar when coworkers can schedule themselves for brief conversations.

This dramatically reduces interruptions. Rather than playing phone tag, we can open up a shared calendar online and schedule themselves for a quick phone call. This allows 100% of the attention in the conversation. In the end, responding to quick questions is about respect and boundaries. By establishing limitations with coworkers, we will promptly deal with issues and be better able to maintain focus.

5. Productivity and coworker relationships

“When having a long-distance work relationship, it can be tempting to view those work within a transactional manner”

Meaning that rather than seeing other people as human beings with a unique personality, begin to view them as names with email addresses and human vending machines that will get a particular result back if we put in a specific input. This mindset is almost counterintuitively unproductive. It may be helpful to be quick and get to the point for lots of small tasks.

However, when it comes time to collaborate with others or get their buy-in for ideas, if not taken just a bit of time to build and maintain a relationship with them, it is likely to find the communication to be slow and painful. We may even find ourselves at odds with each other because of an underlying lack of respect.

On the other hand, when taking time to build relationships, collaboration becomes more interesting, insightful, and productive. How to build professional relationships⁵ when working from home, and other people are miles away? Here are a few tips that used and seen other use successfully.

First, be aware of the obvious things, including coworkers’ birthdays, anniversaries, and other significant life events such as the birth of a child. Try to get this information and put it into the calendar. Create a reminder a day or two before coworker has an important date upcoming. When that reminder pops up, think some surprise that we can do about it.

Honestly, it is not much, and perhaps could make more of an effort, but at least it is something. When comparing that to the interactions that most other people have in their life, it is likely doing something very exciting and out of the ordinary.

A second tip related to this is to be aware of cultural or national holidays. If working with people of a different nationality or religion, it might not hurt to look up what holidays they celebrate or even ask them to learn about them. In this way, we can be sensitive to their needs for a little time off, and at the very least, recognize the holiday and wish them a happy Canada Day or whatever that applies to them.

Last, looking for loose bricks. A loose brick is a personal hobby or interest that allows us to move past the sterile, professional wall and get to know someone personally. In virtual meetings with coworkers, try to take a little bit of time to get to know them personally. Something like hobbies, things that they are interested in, and their families. While maintaining a professional relationship with people, we believe that there is power in adding an aspect to it where awareness of what they are interested in and try to do something for them around that.

For instance, if we have a coworker interested in antique cars, share with them if we come across an article online about cars. These little gestures do not take lots of time, and typically not a lot of money. When working from home and seeking to build a long-distance professional relationship with coworkers, these things make an enormous difference.

Conclusion

When making even the smallest effort, we will find that the times come together to work to create things that will go more smoothly. This will develop a new friendship, even if it is with someone many miles away.

References

¹ 7 Work-at-Home Ground Rules to Boost Your Productivity ² Strategies for Productive Remote Meetings ³ How Our Remote Team Manages Collaboration Across 9 Time Zones ⁴ Six Lessons From Three Years Of Working From Home ⁵ How to Build Strong and Meaningful Relationships With a Remote Team