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Author: Molly Foulkes

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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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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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productivity remote work

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

Woman sitting at a table with a laptop in a warmly lit room

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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Future of work remote work

Elevate Your MSP and VAR Services Through Differentiation

smiling man sits at laptop in a loft

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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Future of work online meetings remote work

The Future of Work Begins Now—Here’s Who’s Designing It

By now you’ve probably heard this a thousand times: hybrid work is here to stay. People love their remote and hybrid jobs, and everyone has come to the general consensus that workplace flexibility is not something that people will easily forgo. As companies and workers alike look to the future, it’s helpful to keep an eye on the biggest change-makers in the industry. Here’s a look at our team’s round up of the people and organizations to watch as we navigate the ever-changing future of work. 

Nicholas Bloom

Bloom, a Stanford Economics professor, is the foremost expert on remote work and remote work trends, authoring some of the most insightful research on the subject to come out in the last decade. In 2017, when only 8% of the U.S. worked from home, Bloom gave a talk about his research and how leaning into work from home could change the world. Now in 2023, he’s become a key advisor to many Fortune 100 companies, and definitely someone everyone interested in the remote work revolution should keep their eye on.

Katie Burke

As Chief People Officer at Hubspot, Katie Burke has shaped the company’s post-pandemic approach to business and has even shifted how they pay their employees. Compensation at Hubspot is now based on one anchor city per country; for example, New York City is the anchor for U.S. based employees, so no matter where U.S. Hubspot employees find themselves, they are being paid fairly. With this move, Hubspot is leading the way as many other organizations look to become both more equitable and attract top talent—no matter where they are in the world. 

Canva

Canva is an approachable graphic design platform that is changing the way people create and collaborate on visual content. With a user-friendly interface and extensive library of design templates, Canva is empowering individuals and teams to create professional-quality designs without the need for specialized skills or software. This democratization of graphic design is helping to break down barriers to entry for those interested in design and enable more creativity in the workplace across various industries. Furthermore, Canva’s cloud-based platform allows for seamless collaboration and sharing of designs across teams. Canva is playing a key role in enabling remote collaboration, they even bolster a large roster of entirely remote employees around the world.

Cheryl Cran

Cheryl Cran, the founder of NextMapping, is a recognized expert in the future of work and its surrounding thought leadership. She has been at the forefront of the conversations surrounding the future of work, providing insights and guidance to organizations worldwide. Cheryl’s vision for the future of work is one of innovation and human-centeredness, where organizations are able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and leverage the latest technology to achieve their goals. As an acclaimed author of 10 books and an inspiring keynote speaker on the topics of remote and hybrid work, Cran is a visionary thought leader in the future of work. Her insights and expertise have been featured in top-tier publications including Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Forbes as she works to shape the future of work by empowering individuals and organizations to embrace change and create success regardless of their industry.

Frameable

Frameable has brought a new perspective to what it means to collaborate remotely. Developing sleek and easy to use tools for elevating day to day meetings, productivity, and even large-scale virtual events, has positioned them to become a stand out in the remote work space. Their flagship product, Spaces, gives teams a virtual office that is straightforward and easy to use. And for organizations that already use Microsoft Teams, they even offer a built-in application specifically for Teams users to make work more streamlined and collaboration seamless no matter where coworkers are located. 

If you’re looking to take your remote team to the next level, see how Spaces can improve your team’s connectivity and productivity–no matter where they are. Schedule a demo to learn more.

Front

Front provides a shared inbox platform for teams to manage their emails, social media messages, and other communication channels in one place. Its platform offers features like email templates, message assignments, and automated workflows to help teams work together more efficiently and effectively no matter where they are. On top of this comes integrations with top technologies already in use by many, like Slack. By simplifying and automating many repetitive tasks that come with day-to-day work, Front is positioned to keep changing how we work.

Chris Heard

CEO of Firstbase, Heard founded the company that is now changing the way organizations handle the hardware needs of their remote workforce. By giving teams access to the physical items they need to get their jobs done and keeping track of everything in the cloud, Firstbase is making it easier and more efficient for companies to take advantage of going remote. Follow him on LinkedIn where he regularly discusses the future of work and shares conversations from his podcast Against the Herd.

Hive

Hive is a new platform for managing both projects and teams. It offers a centralized workspace where team members can collaborate, track their tasks, and communicate with each other. Hive’s big differentiator is its ability to integrate with other tools that teams often use, such as Google Drive, Salesforce, and GitHub.Its user-friendly interface and powerful features make it a popular choice among teams of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. 

Notion

Notion is the productivity and project management app taking the world by storm. From solo-entrepreneurs to full teams, Notion’s user base has quickly grown and it’s easy to see why: Notion is approachable. Whether a team needs to plan and scope a large project, or a young adult finds themselves needing to create a budget, Notion is straightforward and customizable to users’ needs. This all in one powerhouse that can be a CRM, calendar, note taker, and even an Excel competitor is definitely one to pay attention to. 

Okta

Okta provides identity and access management solutions. With a cloud-based platform, it allows organizations to securely manage and authenticate users’ identities across different applications and devices. Okta’s platform is highly scalable, allowing businesses to easily integrate it into their existing infrastructure. As remote, hybrid, and work-from-anywhere models continue to grow, the need for secure and efficient identity management solutions is definitely not going anywhere.Their continued expansion of capabilities has positioned them to become a new leader in the industry.

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online meetings productivity remote work

19 Tips for a Successful Sales Kickoff (SKO)

Make your next  SKO a success

Whether you are kicking off a new fiscal year or a new quarter, it’s imperative that you set the right tone for your team. An effective sales kick-off can make all the difference for maximizing your team’s energy, effort, and optimism when it comes to the upcoming season. 

Starting off on a positive note is crucial. But how do you do so without sounding cheesy and disingenuous? Doing this effectively requires setting both reasonable first milestones and not starting off on a negative note or creating an association of fear with the project or quarter. 

However, this doesn’t mean you have to avoid talking about gaps or areas for improvement entirely. Just be sure to round out any mentions of potential blockers by talking about how you will help alleviate them and ways that leadership can support your team. You want your team to leave the sales kickoff feeling invigorated!

The Essential Hybrid or Remote Sales Kickoff (SKO) Checklist

Our diverse team of experienced remote work professionals compiled a checklist of the best steps to take (and the order in which to take them) to make sure your remote or hybrid team’s project, quarter, or yearly SKO is a great success!

Enable Your Hybrid SKO’s Success with the Right Technologies

Of course, every team is different, and no checklist is one size fits all. But incorporating many or all of the above steps will ensure your kickoff is enjoyable, memorable, and tee’s up your next chapter on a good note.

Whenever and wherever your team works, Frameable has all the tools you need to make your next kickoff customized, fun, and functional. To discover how you can bring this same excitement to the way you work, learn more about Frameable Spaces for Teams and book a demo to get started.

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remote work

4 Small Ways to Show Your Remote Team You Appreciate Them

Just because your team works remotely doesn’t mean you can skip out on employee appreciation. When working as a distributed or hybrid team, it’s important to develop a variety of avenues where you can publicly show your team how much you value their contributions. Research has continually shown that teams who feel valued and appreciated are more engaged, confident that they will be treated well in the future, and are less likely to quit.

Establish A Culture of Communication

If your team is fully remote,  it is unlikely that you will have the opportunity to walk down the hall and say hello or good morning to everyone. Because of this physical separation, make a point to check in occasionally about things outside of work with different members of your team. Offering your team members this point of unstructured regular contact with you can help them feel supported. This can also be a great time to offer up positive feedback. If you noticed something they did well recently, these small moments are great for offering up those pieces of feedback.

HBR reports that it’s best to offer positive and constructive feedback as soon as possible, but not together. So when you have positive nuggets to share – make sure you share them! 

Create Opportunities for Wider Recognition and Appreciation

While it’s important to give praise one-on-one, it’s also important to do things for your entire team to show them you care.

Do you have weekly or monthly all-hands or other team meetings? Have different members showcase accomplishments, successes, or promotions within the team. Get multiple people involved in the announcement and make a point to recognize contributions from all corners of the business. Making sure people feel seen for their individual contributions and for the impact they have on the team as a whole. These small celebrations are also a great way to remind everyone what you’re working towards and that their contributions are important to the entire team’s success. Two great options our team recommends are TinyPulse and Achievers.

Send Care Packages People Actually Want to Receive

In a remote work environment, throwing a pizza party or bringing in donuts isn’t something you can easily do, and introductory swag boxes are more often than not seldom used by new members for long. Instead, send your team something that they would actually love and use. 

Every team is different, so it may even help to send out a survey every year or during your onboarding process to help you get a sense of what your team members would love to receive. Packages could be something to accompany a remote event or activity or be just by themselves. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Team sweatshirts 
  • Wine tasting or mixology box for a team happy hour or activity
  • A nice meal for their family, like steaks or sustainable seafood (no shellfish!)
  • A box of candy or cupcakes for their birthday
  • A house plant or flowers for the holidays
  • A card or gift card for those welcoming a baby
  • A gift card to order lunch during the team all hands
  • A craft box for a team activity

Remember when sending food or consumption-based activities that you are aware of any dietary restrictions or allergies team members may have. No one wants to receive a care package they can’t enjoy!

Be Flexible

The idea of offering more flexibility to employees in our current remote-forward age is not new, but it does bear repeating! Many note that being given the opportunity to flex working hours is a huge sign of trust and recognition of a job well done from management. Consider if there are times of the day you could offer as flex-time to your team. Flex-time refers to an arrangement where employees can adjust the start or end times of their work days as long as they are still working their agreed upon hours.

There are a variety of ways to approach flex time such as allowing 8-10 am or 3-5 pm as a flex block or by implementing meeting-free afternoons on certain days where employees can choose to flex if needed. These options provide the flexibility to go to the gym, schedule appointments, or drop off and pick up kids from school. Having the freedom for employees to manage their responsibilities in a way that works best for them allows you to show them they are valued and that you respect and trust them enough to get their work done, even if they choose to do so outside of conventional hours. 

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To support such freedom and flexibility, your team also needs to be supported by the best possible tools. Frameable Spaces offers one of the best ways to keep your remote and distributed teams connected wherever they are. A virtual office where you can easily see who is online allows everyone to make the best use of their time and creates space for those serendipitous interactions we know and love from the office. Check out how you can set your team up for success with Frameable Spaces.

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remote work

4 Tips for Welcoming and Engaging New Remote Team Members to Your Virtual Office

Are you doing enough to ensure remote team members are set up for success?

Quickly and effectively onboarding remote team members is a lot easier said than done. It can be hard to make sure they feel welcomed, comfortable, and ready to hit the ground running when your first meet-and-greet is through a screen. But it can be done! Here’s how our fully remote team has learned to run the most effective onboardings into our virtual office and workstyle.

Share Common Verbiage, Workflows, and Meetings

The first day of joining a new team is scary enough without the added stress of learning new phrases, workflows, products, and projects. Sharing a document with common company lingo, meeting styles, and key project names right away will set your new hire up for a successful first few days. It will also make their transition into your team smoother by eliminating the need to ask others to define every term they hear. This will also aid in their feeling of inclusion from day one.

A recent McKinsey report found that since the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing employees’ sense of inclusion in the workplace has become A recent McKinsey report found that since the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing employees’ sense of inclusion in the workplace has become more and more crucial to maintaining a productive work environment for all — especially with so many now working a remote or hybrid schedule. Giving new employees a leg up on day one by laying out as much of the shared knowledge as possible is one of the most straightforward ways to ensure all new hires, regardless of location, feel included in their new team.

Initiate Relationship Building on Day 1

Make a point to have your new team member meet 1-on-1 with colleagues they will be working closely with. For smaller organizations, schedule time with all the employees! These meetings will be key to helping new team members get to know their coworkers and understand how their role fits into the bigger picture of your organization. Pre-scheduling these conversations makes joining a new team less daunting in addition to encouraging a culture of relationship building throughout your entire organization.

While using a virtual office for your hybrid or remote team comes with many benefits, oftentimes, teammates will navigate and use a virtual office differently. Having your team reach out to set up 10-15 minute meetings will provide the new hire with greater context to workflows and help them get acquainted with their new role. These quick meetings will also be a great introduction to how different hybrid or remote employees use your remote office and tools.

Encourage Engagement Throughout the Virtual Office

On a recent episode of McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Nicholas Bloom discussed how integral a sense of connection with colleagues is to creating a successful remote or hybrid work environment. It can be difficult for hybrid and remote new hires to know how to go about engaging with their new colleagues within a virtual office space. Modeling how your team uses your virtual office before sending off your new hire to do so on their own can accelerate their learning curve and invite more opportunities for them to engage with their new colleagues.

One of the main benefits of a virtual office is the visibility and reachability of your teammates. Encourage new hires to occupy a virtual office or desk, venture to different virtual “locations”, and use statuses to convey their availability. Share how different team members use the space’s functionalities and tools and encourage new colleagues to try out the various aspects of your virtual workspace to identify their preferences.

Pair Your New Hire With A Buddy for a Day

The first few days of a new job are typically filled with onboarding and administrative tasks. Once your new hire has completed these, pair them up with another colleague who shares similar responsibilities for a day. Encourage the pair to attend the same meetings, discuss their tasks, and frequently debrief throughout the day. Depending on the size of your organization, this can help speed up collaboration between two crucial team members, or give your new hire an established team member to reference when it comes to producing great work within your organization.

Boost remote employee engagement with our free Virtual Office Manager e-book! Click to download now.

Setting your remote team members up for success does not have to be overly complicated. Learn how upgrading to Frameable Spaces can transform your virtual office and employee experience.

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