So we’ve been doing the remote work thing for a few months now. And at first, we all thought, “We’ll only have to do this for a little bit, and then things will be ‘normal’ again’.”
But now, we’ve all realized that working fully remote is the new ‘normal’. And if this is a shift for you, you’re probably grappling with some growing pains.  Luckily, we’ve got some remote work tips for you.
We’ve been running a remote-only business for years now, so we have some experience when it comes to ways to make venues like Slack less of a ghost town.
If you’re interested in some tips for more engaging remote collaboration, we can offer you some advice in this video below, and you can find even more videos where we offer advice or ideas on our Youtube channel. 


We all are tasked with communicating pretty much fully online right now. So whether you’re used Slack or some type of IM chatting system with your fellow employees or fielding a lot of Zoom calls every day, you might find some of our general advice to be helpful in livening up the online environment.
Below, we cover a few main ideas.

How to Facilitate Collaboration

One thing you’re going to want to do so your remote work environment feels connected in some way is to facilitate that connection and collaboration. Some of these ideas might feel a little hokey to you, but they’re pretty easy and also pretty tried and true.
So one of the things that you might do is to just kind of have in your back pocket some kind of innocuous memes, or, you know, bits of comedy that aren’t controversial things that you can share. If you share stuff like that people will react and comment, and that’s a good way to get engagement.
Another thing that you can do is actually prepare a backlog of discussion questions. And then just queue one of those up a day in a channel where people gather to discuss. An example would be, “What is your favorite hobby?” That type of stuff.
If you brainstorm some things like that in advance to get people talking and socializing, you can begin to foster some water cooler talk online. This can help lead to discussions and interactions that people might have in their downtime, instead of just tumbleweeds in there.

Say Hello

This one is so simple that it’s clever. When you start working in the morning, say hello. And when you sign off in the evening, say goodbye, just like you would if you were a physical office.
That’s going to get people in there and talking and it’s going to sort of spurn normal conversational dynamics that you’re used to and that everybody’s comfortable with.

We’re in the Age of Emojis, People. Use Them.

Be liberal with the emojis and reactions. So if somebody says hello, or somebody says something, then at least you know, throw an emoji or a reaction on what they’re saying.
It doesn’t create a good experience or encourage people to collaborate if they share a thought and it’s just crickets. It’s like shouting into the void.
Also, emojis lighten the mood AND they express your mood. They’re versatile. They’re expressive. You can use them for reactions, and you can use them in messages. So try to incorporate them more! But don’t overdo it. You don’t want your slack channels to look like hieroglyphics.

Get Creative

We’ve seen plenty of people use Zoom with their family members or have Zoom happy hours, so what’s stopping you from trying to do more of those with your fellow employees? It looks like we’re in this for the long haul, so hopefully, these tips are helpful for you to have a successful work-from-home life.