The OPTIZMO™ Blog

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By Tom Wozniak, Head of Marketing – published on Forbes on 9/1/21

ince the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, we’ve seen more companies adopting remote working strategies. For some, these were temporary, while others are likely to become permanent. Many companies already had some type of remote work policies in place, while others scrambled to get their team members ready to work from home. While the success of remote work has varied from one company and industry to the next, it’s safe to say the pandemic accelerated a shift that was already happening for many people — a shift to allowing remote work at least part of the time.

Companies that have found success with a remote workforce have likely experienced or identified benefits like more satisfied employees, people actually working more hours and the potential to reduce overhead by eliminating or downsizing physical office locations.

But with every benefit comes drawbacks. Not every employee thrives in a remote work environment, communication within the organization may become more difficult and even the most successful remote employees may still feel disconnected from each other.

So, as companies continue to leverage remote work practices, here are a few tips to help address the communication and team-building challenges that can naturally arise.

Video Conferencing

Let’s start with one practice that many of us have a love-hate relationship with: video conferencing. On one hand, you can get a large group of people together, screen share a presentation or other visual information, see each other “face-to-face,” and generally try to approximate an in-person team meeting without anyone actually being in the same room (or possibly even the same state). Conversely, the larger the group, the more likely it is that you’ll have at least one person who has technical difficulties like logging in or getting their microphone to work. Teams that are new to video conferencing may also run into issues where people try to talk over each other.

Challenges aside, video conferencing is a key part of maintaining regular communication with remote teams. There are also various tactics you can use to get the most out of video meetings.

1. Be sure to have some meetings that are camera-optional and others where using cameras is mandatory. This allows people to enjoy a more “relaxed” dress code on some days while still seeing each other’s faces on a regular basis.

2. Don’t overdo it. It is easy to overcompensate by filling up everyone’s calendars with video calls. Remember that too many meetings can be a drain on productivity, so don’t try to get too much of a good thing.

Read the rest at Forbes.

Tom Wozniak heads up Marketing and Communications for OPTIZMO Technologies.

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