Remote work and old habits

Remote and hybrid work is a trend of recent years that has only accelerated through COVID. Asynchronous communications and distributed global teams are going around the world. Remote work tools have come a long way in making them convenient and efficient, and new communication rules are emerging. But the old problem, when people do not keep up with technology, has not gone away. To balance experiences and expectations and overcome past habits while working in a big company, I propose to you a communication culture. Of course, this is not literal, something I could add later 🙂

1. Call only by prior arrangement. This distracts and forces you to interrupt your work. And if a person is without a headset, the hand is busy with the phone.

2. Put your phone in silent mode 3 years ago.

3. Questions that cannot be answered "yes" or "no" are not resolved by phone.

4. Do not send audio messages on work issues. If it's convenient for you, it's hell for others.

5. Use a separate messenger to work. (Slack, Google chat, etc.). Eventually, everything is mixed with 100,500+ channels with cats and private messages "buy milk" and lose its meaning.

6. Do not duplicate the same messages in the mail and messengers, and do not call immediately after sending messages to receive a reply.

7. Do not send a bunch of small messages one after another. Instead, gather your thoughts and write everything you wanted in one message. There shouldn't be many of you in the chat.

8. Arrange appointments in advance and immediately add them to the calendar. If you made it to the calendar at the last minute — do not be surprised that no one came, or the result of the meeting will be nothing.

9. Make an understandable description of the meeting in the calendar with the topic of the meeting. It should be clear what we are talking about, which will allow everyone to prepare.

10. Think twice about the composition of the people in the meeting, and why you invited each of them. The meeting is a costly pleasure for the company.

11. Send meeting materials in advance in digital form. The meeting is not the meaning of collective reading of materials. Instead, it is a place where decisions and tasks come from.

12. Meeting without a protocol like a holiday with children - does not exist. Send the minutes after the meeting to all participants. If the meeting is repeated — add everything to the previous Meeting Notes.

13. The best meeting is the one that didn't happen. Most of the issues can be resolved in regular communications.

14. Add a link to the online meeting immediately where it will take place, instead of throwing a link in the messenger before the meeting.

15. Do not interrupt, but speak in turn. Waiting for your turn to speak and listening to others are different things.

16. When preparing to show your screen, turn on no-notification mode and create an additional screen for demonstration without extras and tabs.

17. Add your photo to the avatar. Except for your face in normal condition, there should be nothing.

18. Do not add to chats and meetings without prior consent.

19. Don't write "hello, how are you?" Or "can you speak?" and wait for an answer. And to write at once the essence of a question.

20. If there is correspondence, click "reply to all."

21. Answer in the same channel where you were approached.

22. Use your full name in messengers. You can use Artem_Drumbass82 on Discord, but it doesn't work.

23. Tag specific people in shared chats by addressing them, and if possible, reply to messages within a particular branch with a quote from the message.

24. In case of disconnection during the conversation, the caller redials.

25. Write and respond to personal topics in personal messages, not in public.

26. Try to avoid letters with attachments. Making an online document and linking it to the letter is better. This will allow everyone to be sure that this is the latest version and work together on the file. "Send me the latest version" should disappear from the lexicon.

27. When editing Google Docs, do not change the font or highlight it with color. Instead, use comments and tag those responsible.

28. For people who use the combination CTRL+C - CTRL+V is a separate boiler in hell. Then there are documents with 10+ types of fonts with 50 shades of gray. Insert only values, no formatting.

29. Put yourself on the mute when you're not talking.

30. Be cats, not toxic, bossy, and go to the office to chat with colleagues!