WFH FTW: Staying Connected When You're Working Remotely

by Kate Vazansky

Salesforce supports a lot of remote employees, and with our recent announcements around reducing the spread of coronavirus, there are a lot more people working from home full time. I’ve been a remote employee since 2012, both at Salesforce and elsewhere, so I worked with a few of my peers in engineering and product to put together some tips for success for anyone who finds themselves quarantined or unexpectedly away from their home office for awhile. Hope they help, and please comment here with any suggestions (or questions) of your own!

You’ll need to set up more meetings to have conversations with people.

• It’s a fact: the level of effort is higher to talk to people, unless its on a real-time chat app. Do not stop having conversations. In fact, we’d encourage you to have more conversations!
• For those “face to face” conversations: video calls count as face to face, because you get to see one another and the non-verbal cues. Telephones do not count as face to face but can be a lot more reliable, connection-wise.
• Slack and other chat apps are your friends: create a room or channel for water-cooler/hallway talk and use it.
• Virtual “happy hour” is a great thing. Make the time to talk with your coworkers just like you would in the kitchen - about weekends, etc. These can be ad-hoc or planned on a regular cadence, and you’re probably going to be across multiple time zones, so in our experiences, these are rarely booze-centric. You can have tea, coffee, cake, ice cream, salads (why salads, probably not salads, we were just trying to think of something healthy)... you get the idea.

Seeing faces matters! A lot!

• Keep that video on whenever possible. Your voice is one of 100 ways you are communicating with your co-workers, and keeping your camera on increases your communication bandwidth. Frowns, head-tilt, squints, laughing, crying! It all counts, and it’s all important.
• Put about 30-60 minutes of attention to the lighting for your work area and make sure your face can be seen on camera. Move lamps if needed.
• If you do turn off your camera, tell people why — imagine coming into a meeting room full of people, but everyone had on masks that were their profile pictures. (Actually this would be a funny team Halloween theme...)
• This is also an accessibility matter — you may have coworkers who need captions or read lips!

Say hello in the mornings, and “brb” when you’re out for a bit

• Say good morning in your team’s (or watercooler) chat channel when you start in the morning.
• Since people don’t know if you have have left your desk to go make lunch or are running a longer errand: let them know (via chat) when you will not be reachable.

Get some really comfortable headphones or earbuds.

• You’re going to be using them a lot and the plastic earbuds tend to hurt after awhile.
• Try to avoid, if possible, relying on your laptop’s mic and speaker. The echo tends to be higher and you are frequently harder to hear on the other side. The mic on your computer usually offers less filtering, so you’ll hear a lot more "life noise."

If your team is still in the office, send them this post, because once one person is remote, everyone has to adjust.

• If half the team is co-located in the physical office, but the other half is working from their individual homes, the entire team should act as if there is no co-location when communicating; use chat apps for everything, even if the initial target of your message is sitting just to your left.
• This prevents accidentally leaving folks out and maximizes awareness around seemingly innocuous but sometimes important pieces of information
• When a majority of people are remote, allow for a couple of minutes of non-work-chatting when you are all in the same meeting. Social banter is important.
• Ask your manager to help with promoting remote inclusion.

It can be really easy to get caught churning in your own head. Be aware of this, and actively check yourself.

• This goes back to the “have more conversations” point. Without the office vibe and the shared space with interruptions, there’s nothing to check yourself against and it can be harder to break up a mood. So take care of yourself: it is easy to go many hours without a break. Set a timer to remind yourself to get up and walk around.
• Related to that: figure out what works for you, your life, and your team. It might take a few iterations to nail it. For example:
  • You might need a designated space where you can shut the door and walk away at 5 PM until you come back online at 9 AM next day.
  • Or: You might need longer breaks throughout the day, and choose to pick your work back up in the evenings.
  • Or: You might flip back and forth between both, because life is like that.
  • Point being: despite what “experts” say, there’s no formula or “right” way to work remote. Give yourself the space to find what works for you.
• Streams of big events, or a long series of meetings where you are just observing, can be especially draining and disconnecting since you’re removed from the activity. If your mood starts to tank, take a break and go do something you enjoy — you’ll be happier and more effective that way.
• Remember that a significant routine change like this affects those you live with too, so be extra kind to yourself and others.
• If you’re worried about being “forgotten” while working remotely, it doesn’t have to be that way! Apply these tips to continue building your personal brand and remember that, at least right now, we are all in this together as we work to flatten the curve of virus spread.

Any tips you’d like to share? Please comment here! And if you want to learn even more, check out the Virtual Collaboration module on Trailhead.