Creating Watercooler Moments for a Remote Team
The psychology behind remote innovation
But platforms like Microsoft Teams give us everything we need to foster a collaborative environment online. We just need to pay attention to human psychology in choosing how we use these tools to communicate.
The time we spend collaborating with others has increased 50% in the past 20 years, according to the Harvard Business Review. As work became increasingly knowledge based, the office evolved into a more open, inclusive space designed to promote the sharing of ideas.
Remote working can feel like the anathema to this collaborative shift. It lacks the spontaneity of impromptu chats in the break room or chance meetings in corridors.
More ‘good’ stress, less of the bad
The first step is motivation. Some people thrive when working from home. Others can find it a struggle when they’re surrounded by unfinished domestic chores and extra-curricular temptations.
Once a clear brief has been given, the social chat in Microsoft Teams can be an informal way of touching base throughout the day to maintain a sense of momentum – and share any supporting information – without it feeling like micro-management.
Stress can be a powerful tool for lighting a fire in someone. Job insecurity, confusion about responsibilities, and red tape are all motivation-sapping “hindrance stressors.” This type of stress will actively get in the way of productivity and employee happiness – so business leaders need to be both aware of them and actively removing them from the workplace equation.
But “challenge stressors” like sizable, challenging workloads, and varying responsibilities, can make people want to rise to the situation – and boost creativity while doing so.
Introverts vs extroverts
It’s often said that extroverts rule the open office. But in a remote environment, there are a lot more opportunities to create a more inclusive space for introverts to thrive.
Introverts tend to prefer smaller meetings, in a pre-determined timeframe and format. They like having the space to think. Extroverts thrive in high-energy environments with constant communication.
Hybrid working offers an opportunity to get the best out of both.
Regular, frequent catch-up video calls and a running communal social chat can keep extroverts on their toes. Ensuring participation is voluntary – and that important decisions are left for scheduled meetings – can leave introverts space to breathe without excluding them.
Flattening hierarchies
Informality is essential for collaboration. Without it, ideas tend to flow one way: Down. Informality flattens hierarchies and generates dialogue – the lifeblood of innovation. But innovation doesn’t just happen. And it becomes increasingly difficult in isolation. Protecting the creative energy which leads to positive change is possible through cultivating human connection. Empathy, comradery, and trust is harder to establish or maintain in a remote work scenario but being mindful of innovation blockers is important.
For example, emails often come across as too formal. In particular, feedback delivered over email can feel too much like a ‘telling off’. And it leaves little room for the kind of low-level praise that catalyzes improvement and takes the sting out of constructive criticism.
Absent the office ‘quick word’, managers can use social chat to deliver feedback in bitesize, informal chunks – both positive and negative. For bigger conversations requiring more nuance than writing, one-on-one video calls can revive chattiness without the feeling of rebuke feedback can carry when given in front of others in a meeting.
Carving out time
Ironically, one of the hardest challenges of remote working can be too much communication. Freed from the constant chatter of the office, we are instead shackled to incessant streams of notifications.
Our best ideas often come when our minds have the space to wander. As such, it is essential to build in creative time for remote workers – blocking a couple of hours in their shared Outlook calendar as ‘do not disturb’, synced in Microsoft Teams to pause their notifications.
Equally, teams should set creative days aside, or even the odd hour for brainstorming, where they’re free to laterally approach a problem without a defined agenda – and without distractions.
Ultimately, the hybrid workplace has space for everyone to be their best, it’s just about finding ways to create and maintain these spaces.
Find out more about how you can create a new culture of work in your organization with Microsoft.
