Fellow cosonauts: my office is hiring someone to be on my team who will be joining us remotely. I strongly believe in the candidate, but this is a new experiment for me/us.
What advice do you have for me as team lead for on-ramping a remote teammate?
Our whole team is remote. There is a lot of trust involved. Basically, our boss trusts us to get the job done. Only one of us has the phones, so she does have set hours. But we're pretty flexible. We have a staff meeting weekly by Zoom so that we can make sure we're all on the same page. Otherwise, we call or text each other when we need help or info.
@whonat There will be a couple of weekly online meetings that this person will be a part of. I think that will give us the bulk of integration we need.
We are conversant with multiple online channels, too.
But you raise a good point with the phone bit -- I need to research if we can use our internal office phone system to reach out to a private line as an extension. There must be a way.
I've worked mostly or exclusively remotely for more than a decade.
The biggest thing that helps is creating space for casual conversation in online meetings. It's those little things that come up when people are chatting that keep remote workers feeling connected. It also makes it more likely that little things get addressed as people mention things, and gives people a chance to bounce off each other.
@tyghebright @whonat That's great advice!
This person is social -- it's really important to me that they feel part of the team, not just like they're a cog in a distant machine.
@tyghebright @whonat We're generally *pretty* good at that, but it definitely happens more around the water-cooler than in our online meetings.
Being extra intentional about this is going to be crucial.
Exactly. It just takes a little more intentionality.
@tyghebright One of my interview questions was asking what the candidate could initiate to foster a sense of team. (In this context, I was proud of the question.)
I could see the wheels turning already, even though the answers were a bit tentative. I sense that there is a mutual ownership of this concern, so I *think* we're in decent shape.
My boss and I often call each other for one thing, and then just put our phones on speaker while we work. Then we can just talk as we need to, just like being in person. My family will walk through the room and yell “hey!” Sometimes we add other people to the call and that often turns into non-work related catch-ups. We see each other in person at least once a year.
@sumpnlikefaith @whonat
Also, if you're their manager, then one on one calls or meetings with no set agenda are essential. Every other week is good.
And it's fine if that calk ends up just affirming that everything is fine, and then chatting for 20 minutes.