Remote First

Remote working best practice

This guide is to help you understand best practices for working remotely - what you can do when you are working away from the office and also how to make things inclusive when you’re co-located but others aren’t.

Firstly, it’s important to trust each other and trust that the intentions behind working remotely/flexibly are good ones aimed at increased productivity - let everyone manage their time responsibly and deal with those who don’t as individual cases rather than imposing unnecessary rules on all.

Working as a co-located team makes communication really easy, whereas remote working requires more effort and proactivity from all to make it a success. In order for remote working to really work it has to have a balance that works for everyone. Communicate with each other, say if something is bothering you, make recommendations for how to improve remote working and take responsibility to give feedback about what is and isn’t going well.

Best practices for if you want to work remotely - things you can do

Before you work from home for the first time, test you can! Make sure that you can access systems, know how to connect to pulse (if you need to), have working equipment so that you can make calls (whether via Jitsi/Bria or Slack and Hangouts), and anything else that is required for your role.
If there are certain things that you can’t do away from the office then it is your responsibility to make sure that either it won’t be required of you on that day, or someone else is available to pick this up instead. (Make sure your manager and team mates are aware of and happy with your plan - don’t make assumptions that it will be fine).
Make sure you communicate your whereabouts with your team (each team may have different ways of doing this whether that’s google calendar, slack status’ etc - so agree this up front), so that they know if you are working away from the office, what hours you are working etc.
If you are stepping away from your laptop while working remotely (e.g. for a personal appointment, lunch, school run etc.) then make sure your team know not to expect a response from you for the next X minutes.
If you are going to be working unusual hours then communicate this ahead of time with your manager and team, making sure they are comfortable with the plan and you must take responsibility for your own calendar and meeting invites.

Best practices for working with people who are remote - things everyone can do

Be inclusive. If you’re going to have someone in your team working remotely then it’s really important to include them in anything and everything you do. It’s really easy to have team discussions or chats over the table and forget that not everyone is there, but that can leave people feeling excluded. Try to keep team discussions on team chats whether it be in Slack/ hangouts etc
Try to make activities remote friendly where you can. Can that team chat be turned into a call to involve everyone? If you’re planning a team event, can you arrange for your remote workers to attend or for them to take part from home?
It’s important to remain visible, if you leave to go to meetings and aren’t going to be responding then let people know - if they are working remotely, they can’t see that you’re not at your desk.
If you’re having a slack or hangouts text conversation that’s becoming long winded it’s often better to jump on a call and talk it through. You run the risk of miscommunication without tone of voice or body language, so instead of typing out conversations, ask for a quick chat instead.
Be “visible”. When working remotely or working with someone who is remote, it’s really important to have profile pictures that are accurate, as there’ll be occasions where you’ve not met the person face to face. Being able to put a face to a name is really helpful!

Tips on how to have great remote meetings

One remote? All remote. It’s really difficult for someone who’s remote in a meeting to feel like they can have an equal voice when they’re trying to talk over a room full of people, it’s tough to tell when someone wants to say something without the aid of body language. To have everyone on a level playing field it’s best to go fully remote and everyone dial in to the meeting separately. It’s generally found to have better quality, better engagement and better results from the meetings.
Remote champion. When you’re not physically in the room, you can’t use body language to signal intent to talk up, so finding the right time to interject can be tricky. Dedicating one person in the room to be the remote champion, ensuring that everyone has opportunities to contribute and that everyone is visible on screen at all times (alongside any docs etc that need sharing) is a great way to combat this.
Smile - cameras on! In order to create an inclusive meeting it’s great to have everyone’s cameras switched on. It reduces the risk of things being misinterpreted because you can see people's expressions and body language while they are talking.
Not talking? Mute it! There’s nothing more frustrating than being on a call and being able to overhear conversations in the background, laughter, or even the coffee machines! If you’re in a noisy area then when you’re not talking make sure to mute your microphone. It avoids distraction for everyone on the call and means that focus is on one person speaking. Similarly, unmuting your mic then signals intent that you want to talk, and is easier to identify than just cutting over someone. This can be done by either the mute button on the call, a keyboard shortcut, or the physical mute button on headsets.
Technology fails! Sometimes connections will drop whilst you’re on a call, so this one is more of a common sense thing to do, but where possible plug in to an ethernet. This should mean that there’s a more stable internet connections and better video/ sound quality for the duration of the call too.If there’s a consistent issue with the technology, it’s vital that you report it to IT. If they don’t know it’s broken, it can’t be fixed!

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