A tip to improve communication while working from home
By Albert Schümperli • published May 5, 2021 • last updated February 4, 2022
Embracing video calls
During COVID times and possibly continuing in the future, we are living in the reality that more and more of us work from home. When you are apart of a team, daily communication is still essential to work effectively together. At a traditional office setting you can stop by a co-worker’s desk to discuss an idea or pose a question. Now with many team members working remote, we lean more on written communication which tends to often to fail at getting your idea or point across clearly. This is why talking to someone directly can be more efficient than trying to type to them.
Call anyone at anytime
One suggestion is to allow calls to anyone in the company at any time. You can enable a comparable sense of access to your co-workers that you would get when attending a traditional office setting.
You don’t have to pick up
Now just because you are working from home doesn’t always mean you are working while you are at home. Having the ability to decline a call helps maintain some amount of control when you want to maintain your focus.
Always turn on Video
Today we have access to a multitude of communication tools (Slack, Skype, Teams, WhatsApp, Google Meet, Webex, Zoom, Facetime) and most have video capabilities. Turning on your video makes the remote work feel less remote. Seeing the faces of your co-workers is essential for humans to connect. Reading facial expressions and hearing the verbal cues, we can piece together a closer picture of what your co-workers may be trying to express. This can often can get lost or misinterpreted in written communication.
By opening the opportunities to connect with your co-workers, you can improve communication, reduce the feeling of being remote and away from the team, plus help you make and maintain a connection with your co-workers. This will ease some of the stress from working remotely at home and reduce miscommunications.