The modern world is rapidly moving online. And one of the trends is the transition to remote work. Moreover, this trend is easy to understand. If you look from the employer's side, then:
you can reduce office costs (both reduce space and choose a “simpler” location);
You can reduce labor costs, because why hire a person from Moscow if you can from Astrakhan, where the salary level is lower? In addition, by hiring people remotely even within your region, you can save up to 30-40%. This creates value for people and they are ready to go where they pay less, but they don’t have to go to the office;
employee loyalty increases.
If you look from the employee’s side, there are also many advantages:
you can work in whatever is comfortable;
no need to waste time on the road, and this is time for sports, games, relaxation, and you just get less tired;
flexibility of working hours;
lack of control when looking over the shoulder;
the structure of communication increases, “useless” conversations almost completely disappear, everything is to the point and nothing distracts. An introvert's paradise.
But is everything so wonderful? Or are there problems? Why is it so difficult to build remote team collaboration? And why do many companies ultimately want to give up remote work? And most importantly, what to do? Let's figure it out.
And here two key problems can be identified:
people burnout;
communication breakdown in the team.
Both problems lead not only to a decrease in productivity, but in general can lead to the collapse and degradation of the team. We won’t touch on the problem of burnout, but we’ll look a little deeper about communication. The basis for this article is a series of articles on communication.
Communication channels
Before we dive in, let's remember a few elements of communication, namely channels, emotions, and barriers.
Channels
A person has several channels for perceiving information.
Visual - the visual channel of perception predominates: shape, location, color.
Auditory - the auditory channel of perception predominates: sounds, melodies, their tone, volume, timbre, purity
Kinesthetic - tactile sensations predominate, as well as gustatory senses: touch, taste, smell, sensation of textures, temperature.
Digital - logical thinking, analysis of meanings and numbers dominates.
And for any person, all channels work, but there is a dominant one.
Emotions
Emotions are the most ancient way of communication. Emotions and working with them are what make us human, what distinguishes us from robots. And all marketing strategies are based on selling the right emotions.
Working with emotions is one of the key skills of a manager. And the higher we climb the career ladder, the more important it is to work with emotions; without this it is impossible to form a stable and effective team and overcome crises.
Barriers
Well, in conclusion, let’s remember what barriers to communication exist:
psychological (different perception of another person, lack of contact during communication);
semantic (phonetic and speech);
physical (inappropriate or uncomfortable environment and time, violation of comfort in the process of communication).
Psychological barriers to communication
Initially distorted perception of another person:
social stereotypes and prejudices, including cultural and ethnic ones: “all men”, “these non-residents”. This also includes labels - a negative assessment assigned to a person: “loser”, “hysterical”, “he’s kind of strange”;
own attitudes and scale of values: for example, a negative attitude (“the glass is half empty”);
Causal attribution: attributing good things to oneself and bad things to others.
Lack of contact during communication:
differences in temperament, age, cultural and ethnic differences;
emotional excitement, resentment, desire to throw out emotions or put others in their place;
inattention, inability to listen, desire to speak oneself;
violation of comfort during contact: closedness, loud voice, sudden movements, too close a distance, touching.
Semantic barriers to communication
Speech barriers:
the use of words that are incomprehensible to the interlocutor: professional jargon, inserts from other languages, terminology;
too much information transmitted;
unstructured presentation of information;
a large number of filler words and garbage.
Phonetic barrier:
speech rate is too fast or slow;
unclear pronunciation of sounds, poor articulation;
monotony: no semantic pauses or accents;
features of the voice or pronunciation that distract from the meaning of speech.
What is digital communication?
So how does interaction in the digital world differ from the real one? Digital communication is interaction through digital channels using:
voice transmission;
video transmission;
demonstration of materials (screen / presentation / mind map / text).
And the indisputable advantage of digital communication that we see in projects is that it becomes structured. According to our observations, the transition to digital interaction reduces the amount of “garbage” communication to almost zero.
Underwater rocks
But as you already understand, you can’t do without pitfalls. There are no ideal solutions or systems in nature.
And let's ask ourselves a few questions.
Does the video camera of a smartphone or laptop allow you to transmit video with all the details, with facial expressions?
Are there any interruptions and interruptions in communication, or is everything always stable?
Does the audio channel convey our voice without distortion, with all shades and intonations?
Is it possible to ultimately count the emotions of the interlocutor or interlocutors? Or do we have cut channels?
Is it easy to observe etiquette, pause and not interrupt anyone when there are delays in signal transmission?
Are people focused on us during online communications, or are they busy with their own business?
But what to do when it is only an audio call, when 90% of the information is not transmitted at all?
As a result, during digital communication we lose most of the information. That is, we confidently fall into the trap of what is already the most difficult direction in management and run into barriers.
What to do?
In our experience, the optimal solution is a hybrid version of interaction and following the rules of interaction in the digital space. This way we gain efficiency and maintain high-quality communication, a sense of belonging and teamwork in the team.
In summary, we recommend the following set of rules:
If possible, hold a face-to-face team meeting once every 1-3 weeks: discussion of projects, informal meetings, trainings with cross-interaction.
Choose a single space where all work tasks will be and structure the workflow either on the board itself (Kanban) and/or with color-coded labels. It is important that you understand what is happening and can identify deviations without the need for unnecessary meetings.
Describe the rules of engagement on the department's main board so that they are clear and visible. There was no understatement or sense of injustice.
The name of the work tasks must contain a verb in the indefinite form indicating what needs to be done. And the task itself consists of at least 5 words.
Review all tasks once a week with your subordinates. Optimally - offline. Talk through all questions and let employees speak.
Form groups in chats to discuss work issues and “smoking rooms” for “garbage communication.” This will make it easier for people to leave work chats with notifications (after all, only the important ones are there), and enter the “smoking rooms” at will.
Focus on maintaining etiquette and politeness. Use 1-2 emoticons per message.
Combine texting with voice and video calls. Avoid bending.
Ask clarifying questions to avoid misunderstandings.