Slack Tips For Remote Workers

Slack Tips For Remote Workers Below is an article originally written by Matt Haughey at PowerToFly Partner Slack, and published on November 15, 2018. Go to Slacks page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn mora.Remote work is increasingly going from a luxury to a workplace norm 43% of employed Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely in 2016, while 70% of the global workforce is now doing so once a week. Then there are distributed teams. As growing firms open new offices, you might be working with people in Lagos, New York City, or Shanghai, as well as across town.Today, many of these far-flung colleagues are working together in Slack. With a few extra considerations, however, remote teammates can not only collaborate, but shorten the distance between them too. The importance of trust and visibilityAfter talking to dozens of people in different industries about how they use Slack across distances, the topic of trust ca me up early and often in our conversations. Working with remote or distributed colleagues requires trust and creative thinking from all parties.In the previous century, managers could track how many hours their employees sat at an office desk near them. Today, those metrics could be replaced by lines of code written, number of help tickets resolved, or number of pieces produced, but its important to figure out ways to accurately and fairly measure the effectiveness of employees, regardless of their location.For this reason, visibility is a key aspect Slack can provide to distributed teams. A well-organized, transparent Slack team with channels arranged by topic and projects makes it easier to see everyones output, even those far from headquarters. When remote workers post as often to Slack as their onsite counterparts, chances are theyre being just as productive.Slack integrations can also help promote visibility among your remote and distributed employeesProgramming tools like Gith ub and Jira let engineering managers see the output of all their developers, wherever they may be.File and document apps like Google Drive and Dropbox let marketing teams keep tabs on everyones work.For those in customer support, tools like Zendesk and Intercom can report into relevant Slack channels, letting managers see how well their help center team is faring around the globe.Meanwhile, things like daily stand-up meetings can give every member of a team visibility and take place entirely in Slack.Shortening distances with videoEvery remote and distributed worker we interviewed relies heavily on video conferencing to maintain face-to-face connections with their team. Slack comes with its own built-in audio and video features. If your team prefers other tools, there are apps available from popular services like Zoom, Google Hangouts, and BlueJeans that also make it easy to start a video conference from Slack whenever you need one. Screen-sharing is a nother aspect of Slacks own video conferencing feature worth noting. You can share your screen with others on a video call and allow them to either draw on your screen or enable a cooperative mode in which other people on a call can move their mouse around and interact with your shared screen. This feature is key for things like pair programming, when two people in different locations collaborate inside a single screen, writing software code together interactively.Help your team connectUser profiles can help employees get to know one another, and once customized for your team, you can share location, languages spoken, current time zone, and direct reports below and managers above, as well as topics of expertise and other relevant personal details. All this information is handy when youre doing cross-functional work with people you dont interact with daily, but its especially the case for those working from afar. It helps them figure out the best time t o schedule meetings and with whom, and even learn how to pronounce names correctly before the next company-wide event.For distributed teams, time zones can be both an advantage and a challenge. In Slack, you may want to denote which channels are shared across distributed teams and set expectations that conversations are asynchronousanswers to questions may take longer to appear as offices come online at different times of day. Stating it clearly in the channel topic and purpose fields is a great way to communicate channel rules to your team. Some teams find that having offices post end-of-day summaries helps distributed teams catch up on activity as they get started each morning.Teams may also want to set expectations around offline discussions that others might have missedsay, a discussion summarized and posted in a team channel after a few members had an epiphany over lunch, or ideas arising from hallway conversations posted into relevant channels. Both are great ways to create a culture of transparency and sharing thats more inclusive for everyone on the team.Set expectations around offline discussions that others might have missed.Its important that we not forget the power of a direct message over long distances. For each time you might think, I should pop by my coworkers desk and ask him about this when youre the same office, you can easily send a DM with your question instead if he happens to be far away. For managers and their direct reports, a DM also provides a quick method of private communication without the formality or structure of email.Helping remote teammates helps all teammatesOptimizing Slack for workers near and far certainly helps those who work in different locations, but it can benefit everyone. Using Slack in this way means that parents with a sick child can work from home smoothly. If a manager needs time to recuperate after a broken ankle, she can stay home but continue to easily keep tabs on her team. If someone in your workforce has a disability that prevents him from being in an office space, Slack can offer a way to keep him productive and connected to everyone. A culture of openness, transparency, and public discussions taking place in Slack is going to result in a good team culture at any company, but its also a key to remote and distributed workers feeling like equal members of your team. One of the biggest challenges in almost all industries today is achieving gender parity. Gender diversity provides huge benefits in the workplace. pWhile some industries have made significant advancements in gender diversity, some industries lag further behind... and the construction industry is well-known for being in the latter category. If someone says, construction workers, youll likely picture a group of men in yellow hard hats analyzing an architects plans or laying bricks on top of a scaffold. And men at work signs only help to reinforce this image.pThis stereotype is r ooted in reality. When was the last time you actually spotted a woman on a construction site? Or hired a female plumber or carpenter? Your answer is most likely never. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statisticsreports that only 3.4% of the total of 8.3 million construction employees are women.pBut the construction industry has a lot more to offer than steel-toed boots and hard hats, and it needs women to help advance the industry in this era of rapid change. Here are 5 reasons why women joining the workforce or looking to make a pivot should consider a career in construction.h21. Fuel Innovation/h2pNot only is diversity the socially and morally right thing to do, but it is also actually an excellent business strategy. pResearch presented in the Harvard Business Reviewshows that diverse teams develop more innovative ideas. This is further supported by a study conducted by Gallupon the performance of gender-diverse teams versus single-gender teams, which found that the difference in back grounds and perspectives led to better business performance and problem-solving. h22. Capitalize on Demand/h2pThe construction industry is currently experiencing a labor shortage. The industry itself is booming and projected to be one of the fastest-growing industries, with total spending projected to exceed $1.45 trillion in 2023/a. However, most construction companies are unable to meet the rising demand. pAccording to the Associated General Contractors of America/a, more than 80% of contractors are experiencing difficulties filling hourly craft positions that represent the bulk of the construction workforce.pAnd demand isnt limited to individual contributor roles. Given the industry boom, there are a number of open stable and high-paying roles (any project managers out there?) waiting for the right candidateh23. Leadership Opportunities/h2pAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics/a, women compose only 7.7% of the total 1 million managerial positions in construction.br/pBut giv en the highly collaborative nature of construction work, more women in leadership roles would help drive innovation and enhance productivity.Furthermore, as a woman in construction in a leadership position, youd have the unique opportunity to drive change for the industry and make it a more attractive option for other women.h24. High-Income Potential/h2pSalaries for many skilled positions in construction are on the rise, making a construction career a prime choice for women looking for a high-paying job,pThe 2018 Construction Craft Salary Surveyconducted by the National Center for Construction Education and Research revealed that salaries for many skilled craft areas are increasing. Project managers and project supervisors topped the list at $92,523 and $88,355, respectively. The next set of highest-paying jobs include those of combo welders ($71,067), instrumentation technicians ($70,080), pipe welders ($69,222), power line workers ($68,262) and industrial electricians ($67,269). O f the 32 categories of workers in the survey, 19 positions earned an average salary of $60,000 or higher.h25. Sense of accomplishment/h2p The construction industry can give employees a unique sense of achievement. Yes, the job is stressful and the work can be demanding, but nothing beats the feeling of being able to build something from the ground up. pHow many professionals in other industries can point at a school, a hospital, or a skyscraper and say I helped build that?pThe construction industry has a long way to go in combating gender bias and supporting women in the workforce, but given the current demand for workers, theres no better time to pick up a sledgehammer (figurative or literal) and smash the gender stereotypes plaguing the construction industry.