Valuing conversation on non-work topics
Informal communication is essential, as it enables friendships to form at work related to matters other than work. Those who feel they have genuine friends at work are more likely to enjoy their job, perform at a high level, feel invested in the company, and serve others within the organization.
For all-remote companies, leaders should not expect informal communication to happen naturally. There are no hallways for team members to cross paths in, no carpools to the office, etc.
Devote time to fostering relationships.
In all-remote environments, more emphasis should be placed on carving out time to get to know one another as humans. To connect and bond as empathetic beings with interests, emotions, fears, and hopes — people, not just colleagues.
Suppose you've spent any length of time in a corporate setting. In that case, you've probably seen a company institute a weekly or monthly "happy hour" designed to gather employees in a shared space to converse about topics unrelated to work.
For colocated companies, the occasional team offsite — to take in a sporting event, to enjoy a shared lunch, etc. — may be enough to supplement naturally occurring informal communication in the office.
Below are a number of intentional facets of Novu’s culture, created to foster informal communication. We welcome other all-remote companies to iterate on these and implement as desired.
- Social call: A series of optional calls once a month on a Tuesday, to which everyone in the organization is invited. We have no set agenda, but items can be added to the linked document. This is just a time set aside for everyone to talk openly, where everyone is a moderator.
- Offsites: An in-person event where we bring the entire company together in one location to get to know each other better.
- Coffee chats: Get together with another company member (or members) to have a casual conversation. Find more details below.
- Social hours: Informal social calls are organized within our immediate teams to get to know each other more personally.
- Local meetups: Co-located team members are encouraged to organize their own meetups, whether it's a co-working space or getting dinner together.
- Discord: We use Discord channels for informal communications throughout the company, whether it's a team-specific channel or a channel dedicated to sharing vacation photos with other team members.
- Gather calls: Not only do we get to know our coworkers better by seeing them in real-time during video calls, but we also get to know their pets and families too. This visual engagement helps us relate to each other more personally, so when we meet in person, we already know each other.
Coffee chats
We understand that working remotely leads to mostly work-related conversations with fellow team members, so everyone at Novu is encouraged to dedicate a few hours a week to having social calls with anyone in the company.
It's a great chance to get to know who you work with, talk about everyday things and share a coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage. We want you to make friends and build relationships with the people you work with to create a more comfortable, well-rounded environment.
Scheduling a Coffee Chat
Novu Team Members can easily schedule a Coffee Chat on Gather. Simply search for the person on Gather, and send them a private message with a coffee invitation. It is fun when the person you want to talk to is also available, but it might not always be the case, so you can use one of the options below:
- Send a team member a calendar invite to have a coffee chat sometime in the next few days. Scheduling allows both of you to consider each other’s schedules.
- Alternatively, send a message on the dedicated coffee Discord channel if there is no specific person to contact. We usually meet in the “kitchenette” area on the ground floor of the Gather virtual office.
Conferences and events
Remote teams tend to savor and anticipate in-person engagements. As in-person interactions are less common in a remote role, this presents an opportunity for leadership to maximize the utility of conferences and events.
Leaders should consider sending teams to conferences as an efficient way to organize a dense series of chance meetings, with each person returning to saner spaces to process, distill, and put effort into newly seeded ideas.
Using emojis to convey emotions
Though emojis have commonly been reserved for personal conversations that occur outside of the workplace, all-remote employees should feel comfortable using them in everyday discourse with team members.
Emojis can create a more inclusive communication environment. When you're working with colleagues where the de facto business language isn't someone's first language, more universal indicators (e.g. "eyes" for "I've seen this" or "smile" for positivity) can reduce the mental burden of deciphering a message.
