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How do you connect remotely to a team?
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Jenny Sahng
We have a lot of fun channels on Slack, which I've found to be a nice way to share slices of life that you don't get as much in a remote team! Things like #random, #current-events, #pets-and-babies etc.
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We've got people across three time-zones and tbh it can be hard as a remote first company.
For comms / messaging we use Slack. With a bunch of functional channels, so this includes things like #wins, #alerts, #github, #research etc.
For meetings, we switch between Zoom and Google Meet. We're also testing out some tools like around.co so if people have ideas would be curious.
To make sure people aren't feeling left out or stranded, we have also set up some basic rituals that make it a lot easier and to ensure people who are remote are involved things like:
- virtual lunches (tz permitting)
- Friday board games with the whole team
- daily co-working Google Meets where people can just chill and work together / pair
- every fortnight we have lightning talks where people share something interesting outside their work
We also (covid permitting) commit to having quarterly in-person meetups as a team so people can hang out and chill in person!
We also track and monitor how long people are waiting for things like feedback and working out of hours in their respective time-zones to make sure team well being is going well!
I've found that there are a couple of parts to it - the rituals & the tools.
Rituals:
- Making sure everyone is aligned on when is no-meeting time and when to connect. Some people might like to call to talk through things, or just hang together in the coworking space.
- Creating the space for async connections similar to what @jenny_sahng said - having slack channels for #misc memes/banter and hobbies like #book-club, #gardening, it could even be a spotify playlist sharing thread!
- Documenting things well so people that might not be live at the call can catch up - Doist has lots of great blog posts on writing for asynchronous work environments.
Tools - so many great apps in this space! We recently tried:
- Thursday which was fun and fast-paced for a quick hangout
- We also tried Around 3.0 that's a nice way to collaborate on calls and even play games like Codenames. We did find that around can be so fun that it's a bit distracting though, so maybe not a one-size-fits all calling tool.
- Donut is a great way to make time to regularly connect with team members, especially people that you don't usually chat with. We currently use this with Slack and GCal.
- Gather Town is another way to call and chat! It's nice that you can go in and out of discussions based on how close your character is to others, so you can move around and switch easily. Lots games there too!
Been working full remotely since 2018.
Usually, use slack for communication, project management can be jira/notion/asana and google meet/slack huddle for calls.
- Standup through either through chat / call with teams
- Online fun activities (games with random teams from other dept_
- 1 on 1 session
- Company engagement where all
It's my opinion but I think turning on camera on remote work do make people feel closer
@dapeng_ni Does Slack have a meeting platform like Zoom, MS Teams, or Google Meet?
My team uses slack and meet exclusively. It has been working pretty well for us!
Slack, MS Teams, and our project management solution.
We have managed to reduce the live meetings to a minimum which is great for productivity and instead gather for social occasions once in a while.
@garbanea my question would be how much duration are you on calls? And how much is the actual time gone into working?
via Mareel VPN (business account). Any member of a team can access company assets like servers, slack, drives, etc. by the virtual network. The VPN encryption already takes care of the security measures.
We primarily use Slack for written communication and Google Meet for virtual meetings.
As for Slack, we have lots of functional channels, but we also have a #fun channel where we add memes, tips, music, or some fun stories. It's crucial that if the convo dies down, the chat leader makes a comeback or the channel key holder.
For Google Meet, we have smaller meetings for our growth team daily as well as a whole team meeting weekly. These are half an hour-long calls that help us track where everyone is at, it helps balance out the remote feeling.
@nabeel_amir Couldn't agree more! It's often overlooked as fun is not the primary goal.
The sooner we realise that this balance needs to exist, we will create better functioning teams that love to be a part of such companies, don't you think?
Feeling connected with the team and building culture remotely are pretty challenging. Great communication and conversations are often key.
We use Slack and Zoom for work related things. And we also use our own product - Thursday - to connect casually with each other, play some games or even brainstorm.
Through google meet & zoom for video calls and google chat for written communications.
i am interested in tech and web designing and this is my website
https://jangritech.in/
It depends on what project we are working on but we primarily use Trello Boards to track our tasks, Google Meet for meetings, Skype for instant messaging, and Google Drive to share files.
