Communication - we all do it. All day long, from the moment we wake up and greet our closest, to the people we encounter on our commute and finally to the people we work with. But what happens when those people you work with aren't people you see each day, or ever?
Remote work is a great way to work, but as pack animals we mustn't forget how important it is to converse with those who we surround ourselves with daily, even if it's only virtually.
If you think about what you do every morning when you arrive at the office. Normally you greet your colleagues each morning. This is difficult to translate into the remote work life. People work across time zones, time periods and days, so I believe it's more about an effort to treat your remote work colleagues like you would office colleagues, as people to get to know.
This helps build strong working relationships, and also improves communications skills with those people. So when you have to have that difficult conversations about a project, or you need to communicate what you need doing, you already understand how your colleagues communicate and less is left for misunderstanding.
Why not start saying hello and you never know what conversations might begin?
When working as a remote team member across timezones and around significant cultural differences, it can be a challenge. Successful remote workers work to be communication ninjas. “Communication is hard, remote communication is a lot worse.” “It’s safer to assume you’re speaking a different language than the opposite. Bad communication is everywhere. The tiniest slip of the mind or finger can undermine a carefully planned communication strategy: the more complex it is, the faster it will fall to the wayside,” said Liz van Dijk, VP of Business Services at Percona.
