By now, most of the world is homebound due to coronavirus pandemic. And anyone who can work from home is working remotely and some are home-schooling their kids. Business owners are focused on keeping their operations running, albeit remotely. Embed is in the same boat (literally) doing everything virtually. Below are some of the tools used by Embed staffers to keep working at lightning speed, continuing an uninterrupted stream of awesomeness.
Staying Connected With Your Team
Communication is key when working in a team, working remotely doesn't change that.
Having new team rituals can be a great way to replicate the normal day in the office or at your FEC venue. For example, instead of the morning coffee run, you can have a virtual catch-up over coffee at 9:30.
For work purposes, having regular updates on the progress of projects is important. A daily wrap-up is a great way to set a deadline day and ensure staff are meeting the targets that are set. This is also useful reinforcing bonds for your team and an effective way of signaling the end of a day.
Best Ways to Interact
There are a number of ways that you can create a line of communication throughout each of the remote workplaces of your staff. Whether it's a team
Zoom
You need to have regular meetings, and need effective and efficient communication amongst your team, replicating a real work environment as much as possible, Zoom is exceptional.
It has all the bells and whistles: crystal clear video display clarity, you can share your screen and/or share files, use text chat (muting attendees if necessary), and suitable for huge numbers of attendees (like Embed's Lunch & Learns), plus you can record sessions and share the audio or video later. It doesn't drain the battery life and works well (even with a poor wifi connection).
Unlike other solutions, Zoom is intuitive, stable and idiot-proof.
Slack
Slack is great for both text and video chat, calls (less video conferencing features than Zoom). More powerful than WhatsApp, you can attach large files (WhatsApp has a 12-megabyte file limitations) to messages and group channels and use internal hashtags. You can create dedicated channels for specific working teams, for example, marketing and finance having a separate channels. As an FEC you you can have a channel for the whole organization to keep every employee updated on critical updates and dedicated channels for team-specific updates.
There are reports of Slack not working as well on Apple's IOS platform.
Workplace
Made by Facebook, Workplace has similar features to Facebook with a group chat that supports video and voice calls and screen sharing. It ensures no one misses any notifications. Anyone familiar with Facebook and its interface can easily use this..
Google Hangouts
If you already use Gmail or Google Drive, then Google Hangouts is a great option given its complete integration with existing Google apps. Google Hangouts is a team video conferencing platform with increased capabilities and convenience linked to its integration across the google platform.
Conclusion
While we're settling into the "new normal" of working from home during these unsettling times, don't settle for tools that don't work as hard as you do. We are working hard to get through this, together. And together, we will.
