We spent time with dozens of digital-first teams who have successfully moved into their virtual office and couldn’t imagine working any other way. We asked them what went well, and... not so well. From these conversations, we pulled out the most important tips that helped them move their remote teams into a new virtual office.
Moving Into a Virtual Office: Top Do’s and Dont’s
Do
- Add a 2 hour "in-office" collaboration block to the team calendar 1-2x a week.
- Work from the office yourself. Share your plans with your team so they know you're in the office.
- Move small batches of your team into the office first. Start with ~5-10 teammates who already work together frequently.
- Start small but mighty with one team-wide change. Pick just 1 regular team-wide meeting and start running it in your digital office.
- Start with your own meetings. Move all of your 1x1s and small meetings into your digital office. This gets the team in, without asking them to change (yet).
- Identify champions. They're often the more collaborative teams/teammates. Help them succeed in the new office, then share their stories.
Don’t
- Require your team to work out of your digital office full-time in the first week.
- Expect your team to work from your digital office if you don't.
- Move too many people into your digital office all at once.
- Immediately require all meetings get moved into your new office in the first week.
- Skip the integrations. Leverage any calendar or Slack integrations to help swap old video conference links with a link to your new office.
- Expect too much, too soon. Change takes time. Start with the changes that benefit your team the most, the rest will come.
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Dying to see a virtual office in action?
Just make sure to wipe your feet at the door, plz. Our cleaning crew hates having to mop 😆
