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remote work

Why Virtual Onboarding for All Employees is Crucial for Success

Building a great hybrid work culture starts with your virtual onboarding process. But don’t just take my word for it—research shows that 70% of employees believe their onboarding can make or break their experience, and remote employees are 117% more likely to leave if they feel under-trained during the onboarding process. 

It’s crucial to create a positive first impression for remote workers and help them transition seamlessly into your company. Unfortunately, there appears to be a significant disconnect in how companies approach their onboarding for employees outside of the corporate HQ and what their remote and distributed workforce actually needs. 

The Virtual Onboarding Disconnect

A positive onboarding experience will set the stage for your workers to integrate into your company and feel fulfilled in their roles. When their first impression of your team isn’t face-to-face, however, it can be harder to ensure that impression is a good one—and it comes down to having a comprehensive onboarding process.

Where exactly are companies falling flat regarding the virtual onboarding experience? After an uninspired onboarding, remote workers are the most likely to feel undertrained (63%), disoriented (60%), and devalued (52%). 

These feelings are concerning, but companies can address them with intelligent planning. A successful virtual onboarding program should:

  • Include Workplace Technology Training: During onboarding, walk employees through each tool they will use to complete their work. Additionally, explain how they can successfully navigate your virtual workspace, including how to access critical resources. Check out more tips for successful virtual training here. 
  • Extend Onboarding Beyond Orientation: Employees need a clear understanding of what their first day and week will look like at your company. Provide a thorough schedule for their first week, and coordinate video meetings to learn more about their specific role and meet their manager, mentor, and coworkers. Schedule regular check-ins with the employee and their manager to discuss their challenges and ensure they understand their priorities. 
  • Show Them They’re Valued: Remote workers often need additional reassurance and recognition, especially when new to a company. Welcome all new team members through your companywide channels to show them they’re valued. Ensure managers provide positive feedback during every check-in, spotlighting specific achievements or accomplishments. 

Create a Fulfilling Virtual Onboarding Experience

New employees shouldn’t feel undertrained, disoriented, and devalued after they join your company. Following the strategies shared above can address these challenges and give your employees the best experience from their earliest days.

If you’re looking for more guidance on developing a successful virtual onboarding, we have you covered. Download our virtual onboarding ebook to learn the strategies and best practices to ensure your remote workers feel valued, supported, and confident in their new roles.

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Future of work remote work

Why The Virtual Office Is The Next Big Digital Transformation Trend To Shape The Hybrid Workplace

This article originally appeared on Fast Company.

After years of trying to lure employees back to full-time office work, many companies have determined that the future of work is hybrid. 

McKinsey’s The State of Organizations 2023 reports that 90% of companies allow employees to work remotely for some or most of their time, and only 14% of respondents expect remote work opportunities to decrease. Considering that companies can better attract and retain talent through hybrid work—while also boosting employee productivity—it makes sense why hybrid work is here to stay.

Despite the advantages of a hybrid setup, many leaders need help balancing employee needs across both work settings. Teams can become disconnected and disengaged by prioritizing either the in-person or virtual experience over the other. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Leaders can bridge the gap between remote and in-office workers by implementing a virtual office that becomes the hub of both in-person and remote work collaboration.

How Companies Are Failing Hybrid and Fully Remote Workers

Employees overwhelmingly want to work remotely, at least some of the time, for the rest of their career—98% in a study from Buffer—noting that it is easier to do focused work, manage stress, and avoid distractions from home.

However, there are common challenges companies must address to build a truly effective hybrid work environment. Specifically, Buffer’s study found employees working remotely commonly face the following challenges:

  • Loneliness: Although 75% of remote workers feel connected to their coworkers, 15% express feelings of loneliness. This may be because 21% of remote workers feel they stay home too often. Companies should ensure that workers have the equivalent of a virtual water cooler for non-work discussions and offer opportunities for in-person meet-ups when possible. 
  • Time Zone Struggles: Working across time zones is another common friction point. This challenge may imply teams need tools to help them manage scheduling across time zones and additional solutions or procedures to ensure projects are transferred smoothly between colleagues.
  • Collaboration Disconnect: Nearly 15% of remote workers face difficulty with collaboration and communication, which suggests that companies need different tools or processes to bridge the gap between workers across time zones and locations.

Fortunately, there’s a solution already available to help address each of these issues—the virtual office.

How a Virtual Office Fits Into Your Digital Transformation Strategy To Drive Hybrid Work Success

Building a genuinely equitable hybrid work experience requires you to rethink the employee experience through a digital lens. 

Every experience offered to in-person employees should extend to remote workers. Even more importantly, you need to create a shared virtual space where everyone works, even in your office. 

A virtual office is a place where employees can access all necessary work resources and collaborate with colleagues through a dedicated virtual space. The goal is to seamlessly integrate all the information, technologies, and opportunities given to your team through an intuitive and engaging virtual interface.

To help you get started building your virtual office, I recommend your team follow these steps:

Step 1: Audit Your Software And Tools

Take stock of your teams’ various tools and applications. Document every product and speak to your team members to understand how they use these tools in their workflows. As you document your tools, you will likely notice that individual teams use different tools for similar functions like team messaging or collaborative editing. Group apps by their function, and review your employee feedback about how often they use the tools and any drawbacks. This information will help you choose which tools to keep and which to scrap.

Step 2: Create Digital Information Hubs

Workers should be able to access appropriate resources and information quickly, regardless of where they choose to work. Once you’ve optimized your software options, creating digital information hubs that store commonly used documents and templates that can streamline work is important.

Step 3: Onboard Your Employees

Even the best digital transformation strategy will only succeed if your team members understand the strategy behind your changes. Host a recorded meeting where your leadership discusses your new toolset and explains how to navigate the virtual workspace. Encourage questions and embrace feedback as your team adjusts to their new arrangement. To further help employees succeed, save how-to guides and FAQs in a shared digital library for easy consumption. 

Step 4: Hire A Virtual Office Manager

A virtual office manager is integral to ensuring your employees get the most benefit from your virtual workspace. A virtual office manager’s role will vary based on your team’s specific needs, but commonly helps with planning and managing company events, onboarding new employees, assisting with technical support and setup, and researching new workplace tools and solutions. This Virtual Office Manager’s Handbook provides an in-depth look at a virtual office manager’s typical roles and responsibilities, plus strategies to maximize productivity in your virtual office.

The Office of the Future is Digital

You can only have a truly effective hybrid workforce if you build a digital workspace where everyone can thrive regardless of location. 

Hybrid work is here to stay, but remote workers commonly face challenges when collaborating with their colleagues and building meaningful relationships. That’s why building a virtual office that overcomes these challenges is critical to ensure you provide a consistently delightful experience to all your workers whenever and wherever they are working. 

See what a virtual office can do for your team

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productivity remote work

3 Microsoft Teams Collaboration Problems Everyone Has and How to Fix Them

Personal preferences aside, we can all agree that remote and distributed work is here to stay in one form or another. But, the more pressing issue for leaders and their employees everywhere remains how to support remote collaboration with tools that fit how employees would like to work. 

With over 280 million active monthly users, Microsoft Teams is likely to be a collaboration tool you and your team regularly use or come into contact with. Even with such a huge user base and a respected brand name like Microsoft, there are still many challenges Teams users tend to encounter that can make for even more frustrating collaboration efforts–especially remotely. We identified three of the most common and easily fixable problems and offer insights into improving team collaboration. 

Are you missing MS Teams notifications? 

Find any Teams user, and they’ll likely tell you a similar story about notifications in Teams: they often miss them completely! This isn’t a new phenomenon either–since its introduction in 2017, Microsoft Teams has been frustrating for users of all ages and industries. While direct messages are a bit easier to keep up with in Teams, messages across varying teams and channels regarding different projects can easily fall through the cracks if you aren’t constantly checking all the correct places.

The first way to combat missed messages from colleagues is to head to your personal Teams notification settings. Here you can customize how you receive notifications and update your preferences for notifications from the “Teams and channels” sections. Since teams and channels are not considered direct messages, this is one of the best ways to ensure you are not missing key communication. 

Your next option to make sure you’re not falling behind is to use the Activity section of Teams. By default, this section should be the top pinned section in Teams. Otherwise, look for the alarm bell icon. The activity section aggregates all of the updates, notifications, and activity you’ve missed across all channels, direct messages, and group messages you are a part of.  

Overall, keeping track of notifications can be a game of trial and error, so it is important to establish clear expectations around expected response times and offer leniency and support to new team members as they work to establish a system that works best for them. Clearly outlining what your team considers an urgent notification versus an awareness notification can greatly help team communication prioritization and collaboration.

Poor search functionality in Teams messages and slow history loading

Whenever I get a new meeting invitation to my Outlook inbox, I am always left cursing myself for accepting the invitation too quickly before saving any attachments or reading the details, as the message disappears into the unknown ether of my inbox. Searching for the details in your inbox or Teams history is also a hassle. If you are a fellow Teams or Outlook user, I’m sure you know the feeling! 

So how do you overcome the frustrations of the search functionality in Teams, especially when you’re in a rush? You have a few options:

  • Are you looking for a specific file?
    • Images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and similar file types are the easiest to find. Head to the “Files” section of your recent chat threads or project channels related to what you are looking for. 
  • Are you looking for a specific message?
    • Use the search functionality to search for any keywords you remember from the message and then select “messages.” Here you can filter based on sender, channels, date, direct mentions, or if the message contained an attachment.
    • If you’re still struggling to locate the message, we suggest using single keywords versus a string to maximize the number of search results Teams can return.
  • Are you looking for an old group message thread?
    • This is the easiest problem to solve for! If scrolling down through your messages isn’t bringing the correct thread to you, create a new message and add the people from the chat you are looking for. Once you start adding multiple people, if you’ve been in a chat thread with them, previous messages will populate. Trial and error adding various users can help you find older threads that haven’t been active recently. 

Difficult to work with switching back and forth between different collaboration applications 

As any remote worker will tell you, the one thing you really can’t replicate with most remote work tools is pulling up a chair next to your coworker, setting your laptop down next to theirs, and comparing notes or ideas across your two screens. 

Working together with coworkers in real-time is one of the best ways to get things done and can often be more productive and collaborative than sending updates or versions back and forth to be worked on separately. But, if you’re a distributed or remote worker, this can become a unique challenge to solve for. 

While some tools offer great collaboration abilities, if you’re working across multiple applications simultaneously, Teams only allows you to share one screen at a time during a call. Switching back and forth between shared screens starts to take up time and just becomes an added annoyance. 

Incorporating tools that ease these small but bothersome problems for remote and distributed workers can not only improve productivity, but also improve job satisfaction by removing friction points from day-to-day tasks. For many teams, this can be accomplished by adding Google Docs or Miro into their tech stack to smooth out any bumps in communication and collaboration. 

But when it comes to being on a video call with colleagues, sometimes it would be easier if multiple people could share their screen at once–and not surprisingly, it’s one of the most requested improvements in the Microsoft community forums! Our team decided we couldn’t wait any longer and decided to fix the problem ourselves, and so MultiShare was born. Adding MultiShare to Microsoft Teams allows everyone to screen share at the same time, without worrying about kicking off the other team members’ shared screens. It’s exactly what we’d been missing for so long.

If you’re ready to level-up your next working session, add MultiShare to your Teams instance today. Explore MultiShare on the AppSource marketplace, or book a demo with one of our experts to learn more.

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Future of work remote work

12 Podcasts That Have Their Fingers on the Pulse of Business Transformation

Keeping up with the latest trends and developments shaping today’s workplace can be daunting. Thankfully, podcasts have emerged as an excellent medium for staying informed about the latest in business transformation and the future of work. Since its inception, podcasting has experienced explosive growth, with a total of 464.7 million podcast listeners globally. In the United States, over one-third of the population reportedly listens to podcasts regularly, making them an ideal platform for conveying rich and informative content.

In this blog post, we’ve curated our picks for the top podcasts with their fingers on the pulse of business transformation and the future of work. These podcasts feature expert guests, insightful analysis, and captivating storytelling, creating a unique opportunity to learn from the industry’s most influential and innovative minds.

CXOTalk

CXOTalk stands out from the crowd due to its exclusive focus on conversations with CXO-level business leaders from well-known brands and large companies across the globe. Hosted by Michael Krigsman, the show features conversations with C-level executives on various topics, including managing disruptive change, enterprise AI, and the digital economy. With a focus on highlighting the latest trends and strategies to help businesses succeed in today’s fast-paced environment, the show creates a warm, friendly atmosphere that puts guests at ease. 

What makes CXOTalk even more unique is its live format, which allows Twitter audiences to interact directly with guests and ask unfiltered questions. As a result, authenticity and fun are at the heart of every episode, two words not typically associated with the enterprise world.

Future of Work by Allwork.Space

The Future of Work podcast by Allwork.Space delves into the ever-changing landscape of work, featuring interviews with thought leaders and experts in technology, real estate, coworking, and entrepreneurship. As an industry veteran in the serviced office space industry, host Frank Cottle, the founder and CEO of Alliance Business Centers Network brings a wealth of experience to the table. With guests from industry leaders such as Google, Accenture, and FlexJobs, Cottle brings you unparalleled insights into how and why work is changing. The Future of Work podcast covers all the topics that matter in the modern workforce, from the rise of remote work to the importance of flexible workspaces.

Don’t want to sift through episodes to find what you’re looking for? Allwork. Space does the heavy lifting for you by listing bullet points of what you’ll learn from each episode on their website!

Great Leadership with Jacob Morgan

The Great Leadership podcast with Jacob Morgan is a good way to stay current on the latest trends and insights related to leadership, and also provides useful tips and advice from some of the most successful leaders and authors in the world. Host Jacob Morgan is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, professionally trained futurist, and best-selling author, focused on empowering individuals and organizations to become future-ready. 

The podcast centers around the stories from the world’s top CEOs, best-selling authors, and thinkers. The topics discussed on the podcast range from leadership styles and strategies, employee engagement, company culture, diversity and inclusion, and emerging technologies shaping the future of work. The podcast is an excellent resource for anyone looking to enhance their leadership skills, build high-performing teams, and drive business growth.

Exponential View

The Exponential View podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, society, and business. Hosted by Azeem Azhar, an award-winning entrepreneur, analyst, and writer, the podcast offers a unique perspective on the impact of AI on our work and the world around us. Azeem’s ability to translate complex ideas and concepts into easily digestible insights and practical advice sets the Exponential View podcast apart. He engages his guests in thought-provoking conversations, asking probing questions and exploring the nuances and implications of the latest technological advances and trends.

The podcast is a great resource for anyone who wants to stay informed and ahead of the curve on the latest trends and developments in AI and its impact on society and business. Whether you are a tech enthusiast, a business leader, or just a curious listener, the Exponential View podcast is an inspiring listen.

Gartner ThinkCast

Gartner is a leading research and advisory firm that provides insights and advice to help organizations make informed decisions, and ThinkCast draws on this wealth of knowledge to offer listeners unique insights and perspectives on the latest trends and developments in their industries. Episodes frequently feature Gartner research and are focused on how to build a more successful organization, team, and career in the Digital Era. The podcast strikes a balance between being engaging and informative, providing listeners with valuable food for thought that they can apply in their organizations.

The varied content from thought leaders, business executives, and consultants, offers an exciting and diverse format to keep listeners engaged with each podcast. 

HBR Ideacast

HBR Ideacast is a weekly podcast hosted by Alison Beard and Curt Nickisch, two experienced and knowledgeable journalists who bring a wealth of expertise to the table. Together, Beard and Nickisch guide listeners through each episode of the HBR Ideacast with clarity and insight, asking thoughtful questions and facilitating in-depth conversations with guests. Their expertise in the business world makes them highly credible and knowledgeable hosts, providing listeners with actionable advice they can apply to their own careers and organizations. With a focus on the latest trends and developments in the business world, HBR Ideacast is a great way to hear from leading thinkers.

HBS Managing the Future of Work

The Managing the Future of Work podcast, produced by Harvard Business School, is a weekly podcast hosted by HBR professors Bill Kerr and Joe Fuller. Each episode features in-depth conversations about specific topics. Recent episodes have discussed gender equity, emerging business models, and AI. The podcast draws on the wealth of knowledge and expertise of Harvard Business School faculty and industry leaders, providing listeners with unique insights.

Hosted in a conversational and engaging style, the podcast is easy to follow and provides listeners with valuable takeaways to apply to their careers and organizations.

Humanising the Future of Work

Deloitte’s Humanising the Future of Work podcast series delves into the pressing questions surrounding the future of work and what it means for individuals and organizations. Hosted by Daniel Hind, a member of Deloitte’s Human Capital practice, each episode features discussions with Deloitte experts on how organizations can reimagine work in the face of disruption.

What sets the Humanising the Future of Work podcast apart is its focus on the human side of work. The conversations center on how organizations can create more compassionate, empathetic, and inclusive workplaces while still harnessing the power of technology and innovation. The podcast is ideal for anyone interested in understanding how the world of work is evolving, and how organizations can create more humane and sustainable workplaces that benefit both employees and businesses.

The New Way We Work

The New Way We Work podcast, hosted by Fast Company deputy editor Kate Davis, explores the dynamic and evolving nature of work and what it takes to create a better future for ourselves and our workplaces. Through insightful interviews with thought leaders and innovators, the show delves into various topics such as leadership, management, productivity, and the impact of technology on work. The show features unique and enticing episodes such as “5 Leadership lessons from Pop Culture’s Worst Bosses” and “Is it possible to have HR that employees don’t hate?” creating an engaging and thought-provoking listening experience for the audience.

The New Way We Work podcast also allows listeners to read expanded articles based on each episode on the Fast Company website, providing additional insights and information for those who want to dive deeper into the topics covered on the show.

Remotely Possible

Remotely Possible is brought to you by Frameable and is dedicated to exploring the future of work and how remote work and distributed teams are changing our lives. Frameable CEO and host Adam Riggs speaks with business leaders who’ve embraced remote work, the people building and selling technology to make remote collaboration as seamless as working in the office, and the workplace researchers and experts exploring how to create inspiring and inclusive workplaces.

Whether you’re a remote worker, a manager, or simply curious about the future of work, this podcast is for you. Join us as we navigate the exciting world of remote work and explore how we can shape the future of work together.

The Rework Podcast

The Rework podcast is all about improving the way you work and manage your business. Hosted by the co-founders 37signals, the team behind Basecamp, the popular project management app, the show explores a better way to work and run a successful business. The podcast delves into bootstrapping, staying small, and growing slowly, featuring stories from business owners who have embraced this approach. The show frequently features listener questions, taking a community-driven approach to sharing insights and advice. By going behind the scenes at 37signals and sharing real-world experiences and insights, this podcast offers valuable lessons for anyone looking to build a successful business without sacrificing their values or quality of life.

21st Century Work Life

The “21st Century Work Life” podcast, presented by Virtual not Distant, focuses on remote work and distributed organizations, providing insights into leading and managing remote teams and online collaboration. Founded in 2016, Virtual Not Distant is an organization that works with leaders, managers, and HR professionals to develop a more adaptable, future-focused, and connected workforce. They champion an “office-optional” approach to work, promoting the idea that strong ties can be forged between colleagues while working remotely.

Hosted by Pilar Orti and featuring a variety of guests and co-hosts, the podcast delves into the most pertinent themes and news related to the modern knowledge worker. In addition, the show offers practical tips and strategies for individuals and organizations navigating the challenges of remote work and offers insights into the benefits of distributed teams. Tune in for illuminating conversations that will help you navigate the changing landscape of work in the 21st century.

Explore the Future of Work

In a rapidly evolving world of work, staying informed and adapting to the latest trends and developments is crucial for success. These top podcasts provide a gateway to a wealth of knowledge, allowing you to tap into the minds of industry experts and gain valuable insights.

If you are a visionary, a disruptor, or a trailblazer in the realm of remote work and distributed teams, we invite you to apply to be a guest on our podcast, “Remotely Possible”. Share your expertise, ideas, and success stories as we explore how remote work changes lives and revolutionizes the workplace.

Listen now and apply to Remotely Possible

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Future of work remote work

A Manager’s Checklist of Opportunities to Build Meaningful Connections in Virtual Offices

Building a healthy and collaborative workplace culture requires a consistent strategy, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

Employees who feel connected to their company’s culture are much more likely to thrive and stay. And those happy employees can even be up to 20% more productive than those who are dissatisfied. The key is to help employees build genuine relationships with their peers to foster healthy communication and overcome potential conflict—and that’s easier said than done.

Managers play a major role in building connections in virtual offices and reinforcing the company culture. For those who may be new to managing virtual teams, it can be challenging to know where to focus your effort to drive the best results. Let’s explore the main opportunities for managers to connect employees, regardless of where they are based.

5 Ways to Connect Employees Across Your Distributed Workforce 

To perform their best, virtual and hybrid workers need a clear understanding of their “purpose at every level.” This means that everyone—from your entry-level employees to executive leadership—should feel confident that they are working toward your mission with purpose.

Rallying virtual employees behind your company mission requires a different approach for each level, and relationships will make or break your experience. Implement these strategies for building relationships in virtual teams to strengthen your culture:

  • Prioritize Your Virtual Onboarding: Your company needs to make a solid first impression on all new employees. To do so, create a virtual onboarding plan that provides a smooth transition into your company and clearly explains how new hires can succeed as part of your distributed team. Onboarding is also the ideal time to get to know new hires and encourage them to share their outside-of-work interests and previous work accomplishments. Not only does this help new hires start building their own internal network, but it also gives leaders more insight to connect employees based on their commonalities and shared hobbies. 
  • Establish Mentorship Programs: Pairing early career professionals with mid and senior-level employees can be incredibly effective for building relationships and breaking down potential cultural barriers. New employees can more quickly learn about your company’s culture and understand their potential career progression with guidance from their mentor, and both the mentor and mentee will benefit from the new relationship. 
  • Create Space for Non-Work Conversations: In the physical office, a company’s water cooler or kitchen was a hub for quick conversations and friendly banter. Likewise, virtual workspaces should also offer places for employees to chat about matters not related to work. Consider creating dedicated channels in your communication tools for employees to talk about personal hobbies and interests, and offer open networking rooms where employees can catch up throughout the work day.  
  • Start Meetings With an Icebreaker: Team meetings are a key opportunity to check in with employees. At the start or end of your meetings, host a quick conversation where everyone can share something about their week or personal life or recognize each other for their accomplishments. Taking a few minutes from each meeting to focus solely on your employees as humans can spark connections and help them build and find commonalities. 
  • Live By Your Values: When implementing the above strategies, your team needs to live the values you are trying to nurture. Encourage managers to dedicate time each week to actively work on building relationships within their team, and openly discuss the challenges that people are facing. 

Start to Build Employee Connections on Day One

There are challenges—and distinct advantages—to building genuine connections in fully remote, distributed, and hybrid teams. Try out a few different tactics, and find out what works best for you and your team. But ask for ongoing feedback and be open to adapting as your team grows and develops. 

One of the most important times to help an employee embed themselves into your culture is during their new hire onboarding. The onboarding process presents many key opportunities to connect employees and establish a healthy foundation that will help them overcome any challenges they face in your virtual workspace.

To bring a new-found sense of community to your virtual or distributed team, add Spaces to Microsoft Teams and see what a virtual office can do for your team’s productivity.

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remote work

Five Virtual Office Pitfalls to Avoid For Stronger Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

diverse group of people working at a table with laptops

In the classic 80s movie Heathers, a popular clique—comprised of three teenage girls named Heather—let in a new member, Veronica, and sets about bullying her to conform to their norms or face returning to her prior status of a nobody. 

To the dismay of many managers, that’s what the traditional workplace felt like for many employees.

In almost every workplace, cliques create a perceived “in” group, leaving many employees wondering where—if anywhere—they belong. Louder voices speak over or silence their less assertive peers during meetings, depriving the team of valuable perspectives. And employees that need time away from the office to address personal and family needs may be seen as disengaged—and subsequently passed up for promotions.

It’s no wonder that women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities are more likely to leave a company if it doesn’t offer hybrid work. Virtual and hybrid work arrangements can alleviate many of these issues and give all employees a more level playing field to work, collaborate, and achieve their professional goals. 

Of course, remote and hybrid workplaces face diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) challenges. But they aren’t that difficult to overcome—here’s how.

5 Common DEI Challenges and How to Overcome Them in the Virtual Office 

The good news is while remote and hybrid teams are not immune to the DEI challenges associated with in-person work, these challenges can be easier to overcome thanks to the innate characteristics of hybrid work. Let’s look at five of the most common DEI challenges associated with remote and hybrid work and how to overcome them. 

Relationships and Trust Are Harder to Build Virtually

When teams don’t trust each other, internal conflict is more likely. And unless you’ve been an online gamer for most of your life, it is harder to build relationships and earn trust with colleagues when you primarily engage through a screen. This is one area where workers from large companies with distributed workforces have an advantage—I had direct reports in Denver and Phoenix (and no travel budget) in the late 1990s, so it can be done even without the latest collaboration and communication tools.

Building trust in hybrid teams starts with communication. Managers need to set clear expectations about each person’s role and responsibilities. Provide a deadline to all team members for their contribution to a task or project. If someone is struggling, encourage them to be open about their challenge and have the team brainstorm solutions. Over time, this will help teams build trust as everyone demonstrates a shared commitment to helping the team succeed. 

To build relationships, start each meeting with a short icebreaker activity or ask everyone to share something about their personal life. This intentional sharing allows everyone to learn about each other and identify commonalities that can be the base of a relationship, regardless of their culture or background.

Networking and Mentorship Require Conscious Effort

There are often limited opportunities for networking and mentorship in the workplace—including virtual or in-person environments—which is especially harmful to underrepresented groups.

As Deloitte recommends, your team should establish cross-generational mentorship opportunities where seasoned professionals can mentor early career professionals. This enables newer professionals to learn more quickly about the company culture and gain an advocate to mentor them on their career progression. Encourage mentors to meet with their mentees at least once a month, and include a budget for in-person meetups when people live in the same city. 

In addition to mentorship, other ways to foster connection within your hybrid team include:

  • Host local meetups for employees that live near each other at least once a quarter.
  • Plan optional monthly virtual networking and team-building activities.
  • Coordinate “lunch and learn” sessions that spotlight team members and their knowledge or work.
  • Encourage employees to form Employee Resource Groups aligned with a shared purpose or identity.

Your Corporate HQ Design Can’t Provide Cues for the Company’s Culture

Many companies lean heavily on the design and decoration of their physical offices to telegraph their brand values. From having lots of collaboration space to projecting the values on the walls, many employees live the company culture daily through osmosis from being surrounded by it.

Without those visual cues, there is potential isolation and disconnect from the company culture. And these feelings can be amplified for remote workers based in different locations than the bulk of the team. 

That’s why you must actively shape your company culture. Positive company cultures will rally team members behind a shared mission and sense of togetherness, encouraging healthy dynamics and conflict resolution. On the other hand, toxic company cultures result in high turnover because employees lack direction and often face hostility or unfair working conditions.

To build the foundation for a healthy culture, start by hosting a virtual all-hands meeting to align your team and explain the reasoning behind your hybrid or remote workplace strategy. Reinforce your mission and values, and invite questions from team members. The goal of this meeting is for every employee to clearly understand your company’s purpose and how everyone can work together successfully.

Reinforce your culture by providing all current and future employees with company swag and materials that detail your culture and the qualities that team members should exemplify. From there, you need to reinforce those values in every meeting and through day-to-day work—managers should provide models that employees can emulate. 

Employees will feel connected with your company when they feel recognized. Regularly acknowledge their achievements in public channels and celebrate them on birthdays, holidays, and important milestones. 

It’s Easy to Misinterpret Virtual Tone and Body Language

Understanding a person’s tone or body language when messaging or speaking on a video call can be tricky. There is plenty of room for miscommunication, misunderstanding, and unconscious bias. For example, not everyone agrees that using a thumb’s up emoji is considered disrespectful, or that they aren’t engaged if they don’t have their camera on for a video meeting.

Setting virtual communication guidelines will reduce these types of misunderstandings. For starters, create an explainer illustrating how it can be easy to misinterpret tone and body language online. In it, provide examples of how your team can communicate in a respectful and healthy way.

For example, explain what emojis will mean at your company and when it is appropriate to use them. Reinforce how team members can communicate deadlines, such as what to do instead of saying that something “must be done ASAP” or using bold and capitalized words to convey importance. 

When a misunderstanding eventually arises, encourage employees to speak with their manager about the situation. Managers can help team members overcome their virtual communication challenges and stress the importance of patience and understanding. As a former marketing leader I worked for always said, it’s important to assume positive intent. But for that saying to become reality, it takes work on everyone’s part to earn each other’s trust.

Multiple Time Zones Create Scheduling Hurdles

Time zone and cultural differences can make coordinating meetings, collaboration, and work schedules challenging, leading to potential exclusion or marginalization of specific individuals or groups due to differences in working hours or cultural norms.

For teams that do not have significant time zone differences, it’s best to schedule meetings and events for times when everyone can join, which is often in the middle of the work day. But if your organization has a distributed workforce in various time zones, this simply may not be possible.

Before scheduling an event, conduct a poll that solicits the preferred time(s) to hold it. If you see one or two clear preferences, host two events, if possible, based on its goal. Even after taking this step, ensure that the preferred dates are not ones of cultural and religious significance or regional holidays that span your team’s geography.

Host social events and networking activities on different days and times to include people each time who could not attend the previous event. 

Despite the Challenges, Hybrid and Remote Work Deliver Some DEI Advantages

Overcoming the above five remote work DEI challenges becomes easier as you continue to prioritize employees as individuals and foster spaces where their voices are heard.

By building a healthy company culture that enables everyone to thrive, you’ll be on the fast track to enjoying some of the best benefits of remote and hybrid work, like access to a diverse talent pool that spans geographies and potentially reduced bias and discrimination in your hiring and promotions.

Most importantly, flexible work arrangements allow people to work from the comfort of their homes. This helps them work in a way that suits their needs and alleviates uncomfortable feelings or exclusion they potentially face in a traditional office setting. 

Often, one of the best solutions to improve your hybrid strategy is to hire someone dedicated to the task: a virtual office manager. Download our virtual office manager e-book to get started building a virtual office environment where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.

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productivity remote work

Do You Have the Right Technology and Tools to Support Remote Work?

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By now, we all know that remote and distributed work will remain a part of many of our lives in one way or another. Whether your team is deciding to go remote to save on real estate costs or because you believe it is in the best interest of your employees to give them the flexibility that remote work offers, providing your team with the proper tools to maximize the benefits of remote work is crucial for both your success and theirs. 

For over five years, our team has been working together from all corners of the U.S. and the world, and we’ve come to discover what is most important not only for productivity’s sake, but also for supporting all aspects of our team’s work and lives. A recent Harvard Business Review survey discovered 59% of workers feel their collaboration tools are not aligned with how they and their teams prefer to work. Just like providing employees with the flexibility of remote work increases employee satisfaction, giving your team the tools they like and need to be productive and collaborative is equally important.

Our fully remote team has compiled a list of tools we use daily to show you what a people-driven technology suite can look like for your team.

Here’s a peek at our team’s collaboration stack:

  • MultiShare
    • Frameable MultiShare is our new app that we designed to make working together as a remote team easier. Born out of our other product, Spaces, MultiShare allows for simultaneous screen sharing by as many users in a call as needed. Just like pulling up a chair at your coworker’s desk to work back and forth between your respective screens, MultiShare gives our distributed team the flexibility they need to get things done faster than ever. Everyone can follow along and toggle back and forth between shared screens without slowing down a meeting or verbally passing along screen-sharing permissions one by one. It’s been a productivity game-changer, especially for our developers and designers, and during big working sessions and brainstorms with many ideas flowing back and forth.
  • Spaces
    • Frameable Spaces is our flagship product that houses all of the add-on features we make to enhance collaboration within Microsoft Teams. Spaces is our team’s virtual office inside of Microsoft Teams, allowing us to see ongoing meetings, join project rooms to collaborate, and view everyone’s status and availability so we always know who to contact with a pressing question. For a distributed team like ours, having a virtual office space that provides more transparency across departments and teams, has given us a greater sense of connectivity and made ad-hoc collaboration more seamless as we crush our goals.
  • Google Workspace
    • Google Workspace offers a wide range of features and functionalities that enable seamless teamwork and enhanced productivity. Our team particularly relies on Google Docs, where multiple team members can simultaneously edit and contribute to a document in real time, fostering collaboration and eliminating the hassle of version control. Google Sheets allows for easy data sharing and collaborative spreadsheet work, enabling teams to collectively organize, analyze, and update information. With an easy-to-use interface and real-time updates, Google Suite is perfect for any team, and essential for a distributed team. 
  • Figma
    • Figma is the primary tool we use for design-centered tasks. Figma makes design approachable and its elegant interface is great for cross-team projects involving both designers and non-designers. Being a distributed team, Figma’s real-time collaboration capabilities are top-notch, enabling multiple designers to work simultaneously on the same project. Figma also creates more increased visibility into what others are working on, meaning if one team member is out on vacation it’s easy for another to pick up right where they left off. Being a web-based product also means Figma projects sync across all devices automatically so designers never have to worry about accessing the correct, most updated version of a project.
  • Microsoft Teams
    • Since we built our products to integrate with Microsoft Teams, it’s no surprise our team also employs Teams for instant messaging and video conferencing. We love using Teams since it seamlessly integrates with our in-house products, and has a familiar feel to the rest of the Microsoft Office suite. The best part is that you can access chat, video calls, your calendar, and group messaging threads within a single application. Our team loves that we don’t have to switch back and forth between different applications for messaging, calls, and collaborating.
  • Jira
    • Having a centralized project management tool is something every remote team needs. Jira provides a centralized platform where team members can collaborate and track progress on tasks regardless of their physical location. It enables efficient communication and eliminates the need for lengthy email threads or scattered information across different channels. Jira’s comprehensive features, like issue tracking, task assignment, and workflow management, allow remote teams like ours to organize efficiently. Team members can create, assign, and prioritize tasks, set due dates, and monitor progress in real-time, ensuring everyone stays aligned and accountable. Jira offers transparency by providing visibility into the team’s work and progress. Being a remote team, it’s essential that members can access the latest updates, view project timelines, and generate reports from anywhere. Lastly, Jira integrates seamlessly with other popular collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Confluence, and Trello, making it easy to add into your suite of tools.

If your team is ready to stay ahead of the curve and stay connected, finding a group of applications that work best for your team is imperative for your success. For those with the means to survey your team on their preferences of collaboration software, this is a great opportunity to gather their feedback on how they like to work best, and provide solutions to make them feel both heard and supported. 

Finding the right tools to support a diverse and collaborative team is a constant effort from all parties, especially leaders. Explore how MultiShare can bring back the collaborative energy your teams want without sacrificing the value and benefits of remote work.

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Future of work remote work

8 Trends in Employee Benefits and Perks for Remote Workers

The remote work revolution has already drastically changed the job market landscape, what people expect from their jobs, and how they want their jobs to fit into their life. Now, with such a hot remote job market, people are taking a closer look at what companies offer beyond the salary and expected benefits to ensure they are joining an organization that values their skills and them simply as people. What does this look like in practice? We’ve compiled a list of some of the best perks remote workers receive as a part of their employment agreements and some companies redefining what it means to take care of your employees.

Common Remote Work Stipends

  1. Home Office Stipends
    1. At this point, most remote first organizations offer some form of a stipend for their employees to furnish their space and update their equipment. 
  2. Wifi Stipends
    1. In addition to home office stipends, stipends to go towards wifi bills have been growing in popularity for remote organizations to offer to ensure their employees have a strong internet connection for their home office.
  3. Wellness and Wellbeing stipends
    1. We’ve seen organizations offer stipends and reimbursements for gym memberships, health clubs, massages, other needs to help take care of your physical health. 
  4. Coworking Memberships 
    1. Getting out of the house during the day helps employees feel like a part of their local community, and feel less lonely. Bonus points if it also means they get the chance to work alongside colleagues that live in the same area more regularly. 
  5. Continuous Learning Stipends
    1. We’ve seen this type of stipend offered as lump sums, yearly allowances, or monthly subscriptions to various services that provide online courses and education.
  6. Blanket “Remote Work” Stipend
    1. Many organizations, regardless of if they operate under a fully or partially remote work model, offer some form of general monthly or yearly stipend. These funds help cover some of the costs associated with working from home, and let their employees determine how best to spend the grant based on their current needs.

Perks for Remote Workers

  1. Mandatory Time Off in Addition to PTO. 
    1. A few years ago, news of organizations offering unlimited PTO was everywhere, and it was a groundbreaking concept—employees could take off as much time as they wanted, within reason. But companies started to discover that the social pressure around not taking too much time off was stopping employees from even taking as much as they had been when their days off were capped (such as three weeks per year). Some organizations have company-wide or mandated weeks off where employees are required to log off and recharge. Others require employees to take a certain number of days of PTO each quarter or year to maximize their bonuses and to encourage a healthy work-life balance.
  2. Work From Anywhere
    1. Many remote-first companies, such as AirBnB, have embraced a work from anywhere policy, allowing remote employees to do their jobs wherever they’d like. Such workplace policies can manifest in various ways, such as working from a remote cabin for a month or from a different co-working space every week. The only stipulation most organizations have with this rule is that you have to stay in the country where you are based—otherwise it’s up to you!

Including all of these perks might not be a fit for every organization. But it is a great reminder that taking care of your employees helps them take care of you and your organization. Keeping a remote team feeling both connected and fulfilled is no small feat. When it comes to getting stuff done, see how a virtual office integration like Frameable Spaces for Microsoft Teams can enhance your day-to-day workflows and improve both team morale and productivity. Book a demo today and start experiencing a better way to work.

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remote work

Take Remote Work  More Seriously Starting with Supporting Their Office Design

Woman sitting at her home office laptop in a cozy room

In the absence of a physical office location, what does ‘office design’ mean for employees who work from home (WFH)? There are two ‘spaces’ that combine to make up a remote employee’s workplace. The first is their physical location, where they’re actually sitting at a computer doing their work. The second is their virtual location, which can be defined as the platform or collection of programs that an employee uses to complete their work online. For companies seeking to support their remote staff, a consideration of both spaces will be necessary. 

The Physical Office

Start with embracing what WFH is
When home space becomes a workspace, it’s natural that one will inevitably affect the other. In embracing WFH culture, we must normalize and embrace that there are variables at play in every employee’s environment that employers cannot and should not try to control. 

  • Interruptions
    There will be interruptions—dropped internet connections, kids screaming in excitement, cats sitting on keyboards, etc. Acknowledging this reality and having defined procedures for dealing with these inevitabilities will keep things stress-free and efficient. If there are important meetings that management particularly wants to keep uninterrupted, communication is key. Being flexible in scheduling may allow an employee to capitalize on naturally quieter times during their day, and planning ahead will allow the employee to temporarily adjust their environment or location to suit their work needs. 
  • Decor
    While it would be ideal for all remote employees to have spacious, private offices in their homes, that is simply not the reality for most. Many remote workers have gotten impressively creative with some WFH desk setups, as shown in this 2020 CNN article. As varied as these home workspaces are, they have one thing in common: they all work!

    So long as an employee’s work is getting done on time and to satisfaction (and there is nothing on display that could be potentially harmful or offensive), there is no need to question or comment on what their workspace looks like. If a role requires high-level professional meetings or face time with current and prospective clients, providing a good camera light, external mic, and coaching on best practices for virtual backgrounds is appropriate.
  • Location
    With the line between home life and work life blurring with remote employment, it is important to understand appropriate boundaries regarding work requests. Limiting where and when an employee can travel hampers future open and proactive communications from taking place. Instead, let your employees take responsibility for ensuring they can connect effectively and complete assignments to the proper standards, no matter where they choose to do their work. 

Recognizing and accepting these eventualities are minimum requirements for employers of a remote workforce. Furthermore, embracing flexibility can be linked to better mental health, work-life balance, and increased workplace satisfaction for everyone–including those in leadership positions. 

So what can be controlled in a remote employee’s physical workspace? There are several things employers can do and provide to support their remote employees and set them up for success- wherever that physical location may be.

  1. Standardize tech wherever possible
    For employers constructing a remote office, it can save time, frustration, and money to ensure all employees are equipped with the same brands and models of equipment wherever possible. Not only will this standardize the employee experience, but it will also enable employees the opportunity to troubleshoot issues together rather than relying solely on the office tech support specialist.  
  2. Provide home office stipends
    No two remote employees will have the same work from home setup. Some will be better equipped than others, while some will have significant barriers in their immediate environment to working in comfort. A home office stipend is a payment given to employees to use towards investing in their remote workspace. Whether spent on ergonomic chairs, an air conditioner, or a rented desk in a co-working space, a home office stipend empowers remote workers to equip themselves as needed to do their best work comfortably and efficiently.
  3. Accommodate special needs
    Standardizing equipment and providing a stipend are great ways to level the playing field for your employees. However there may be a few individuals who need additional flexibility and support to shine their brightest. Keeping regular communication open and working together to create solutions to specific needs can positively impact an employee’s day-to-day work, producing a happy and productive team member. 

The virtual office

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a virtual space does not need the kind of management and structure that a physical office space needs! If anything, a virtual office space requires even more explicit communication and coordination to ensure that individual employees and the organization have what they need to perform.

Improve remote work with a collaborative virtual office platform

Luckily, not all of the foundational work of establishing a remote workplace will fall to organizational leadership. Post-pandemic, there are now a wealth of remote work platforms that organizations can choose from to get them started. 

Many of these platforms vary widely but have similar core offerings that are now considered necessary office tools for modern work, such as cloud storage, video conferencing, and instant messaging and email capabilities. The decision on which to choose is an important one that organizations will want to weigh carefully.  “Technology and workplace tools are, for all intents and purposes, the new workplace,” says the Harvard Business Review. “As such they’re becoming central in attracting and retaining new talent, fostering workplace culture, creating productivity and more.” 


Whatever platform you choose, it will be essential to offer onboarding training and self-serve resources for further education and reference.

Meta work: proactively prioritize organization and communication

Even with a virtual office platform, employees can still be at a slight disadvantage. For example, it can be difficult to obtain quick clarifications when they’re in a work-from-home situation. Remote employees must rely on the timeliness of instant chat, email, or phone and video calls for all of their communications. Depending on their colleagues’ schedules, this could have them waiting much longer than they would in a physical office. Proactive organization and communication can resolve many of these time-consuming clarification requests.


Some easy first steps towards better organization and communication include: 

  • Write clear meeting descriptions or agendas into your meeting invitations
  • Create a central place where all important organizational resources are stored and accessed 
  • Implement naming conventions for saved files to make them easy to find
  • Document workplace conduct rules, communicate them and stick to them
  • Schedule regular check-in’s with direct reports to ensure there is no uncertainty about work responsibilities and roles

Creating and adhering to best practices for communicating and providing a clear, organized structure for company documents and resources saves employers time and money and allows employees to work efficiently and effectively. 

Office enhancements 

Keeping up with the newest technology enhancements and tools is important in the ever-changing landscape of virtual work. There are additions to the established platforms that improve on existing functionality and break down communication barriers that are still present in even the most efficient remote work teams. The Frameable Spaces integration in Microsoft Teams combines the structure of the Teams environment with added ability to work transparently, meet and communicate with teammates easier. Learn more about how the Frameable Spaces app can transform your Microsoft Teams experience today.  

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Future of work remote work

Elevate Your MSP and VAR Services Through Differentiation

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In today’s fast-paced and technology-driven business landscape, it’s more important than ever for organizations to optimize their IT operations and stay ahead of the competition. This is why the managed services market is experiencing explosive growth, with more and more businesses turning to MSPs to provide a comprehensive suite of IT services tailored to their specific needs. As a result, the global managed services market was valued at $179.33 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $393.72 billion by 2028. The highly saturated market showcases the need for differentiation to stand out.

The importance of differentiation

It has become increasingly difficult for VARs and MSPs to differentiate themselves. With over 1 million global information service providers, most of which offer Microsoft 365 products, there is often a significant overlap between offerings. A recent study determined that over 80% of VARs and MSPs offer the same services. As a result, VARs and MSPs need help to stand out in a crowded market and attract new clients. They must now focus on offering unique value propositions, such as specialized expertise in a particular industry or technology, personalized customer service, or innovative solutions that can solve specific pain points for their customers.

Ways to differentiate your services

If you are a VAR or MSP struggling to differentiate your services from the competition, there are several strategies you can employ to set yourself apart in the market.

  • Become a thought leader
    • Becoming a thought leader effectively allows VARs and MSPs to differentiate their services and establish themselves as experts in their field. By sharing their knowledge and expertise with potential clients, VARs and MSPs can build trust and credibility, increasing business opportunities. One way to do this is by publishing blog posts that offer insights and advice on industry trends and best practices. VARs and MSPs can also share their expert advice on local media outlets and podcasts to increase their visibility and reach a wider audience.
  • Offer flexible pricing and packaging
    • Pricing is a crucial part of MSP’s profitability and revenue streams. There is no “one-size-fits-all” model. Kaseya’s 2022 MSP Benchmark survey respondents indicated billing model data is relatively evenly distributed. Offering flexible pricing and packaging options can give MSPs an advantage in a competitive market. By tailoring pricing and packaging to fit their customers’ needs, MSPs can create more value for their clients and make it easier for them to do business.
Predominant Billing Model for MSPSAll Respondents
Combination of per user and per device22%
Per user (all-in seat price)21%
Per device17%
Value-based (fixed fee subscription) managed services15%
Tiered bundles for managed services12%
A la carte11%
Other2%
Kaseya, 2022 MSP Benchmark Survey Report: MSP Industry Trends.
  • Invest in marketing
    • Marketing is a valuable aspect of any business; VARs and MSPs are no different. Create content that is useful for your ideal customers and that helps your current customers get more out of your offering.
  • Expand your product offerings
    • Consider expanding your product offerings to differentiate your services and provide more value to your customers. One way to do this is by adding a virtual office integration to your product suite. With more businesses adopting remote and hybrid work, virtual office integrations offer a great way to upsell current offerings while opening up recurring revenue streams. In addition, a 2021 survey identified managing remote workers as one of the biggest challenges for MSP clients. 

Communicating your differentiation

It’s not enough for VARs and MSPs to differentiate themselves—they must also effectively communicate their unique value propositions. This can be achieved through targeted marketing efforts, including social media campaigns, email newsletters, and website content highlighting their expertise and showcasing what sets them apart. By taking the time to understand their clients’ unique needs and challenges, VARs and MSPs can offer tailored solutions that provide maximum value.

VARs and MSPs can also leverage customer testimonials and case studies to demonstrate their differentiation in action. These resources can be used to showcase successful projects and satisfied clients, providing evidence of a particular VAR or MSP’s value to a business.

Differentiate your offerings with Frameable Spaces

In today’s remote work environment, businesses rely on digital collaboration tools to stay connected. As an MSP or VAR, you have the opportunity to differentiate your offerings and stand out from the competition by providing innovative solutions that enhance the remote work experience for your customers.

Frameable Spaces offers a powerful Microsoft Teams integration to help you achieve this goal. Our app allows you to expand your product offerings and increase retention by providing a valuable add-on to Teams. Connect with us today to help your clients communicate and collaborate more efficiently while delivering advanced collaboration features, visibility, and analytics.

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