All right, let's get started. My name is Johanna and I'm a strategy transformation and business design enthusiast. I have been working as a senior med editor at the Business Innovation consulting group, um running big strategy transformation and new ways of working projects for big Corporates in Germany.

And a lot of these included new ways of working and home office policies, so remote working. And also I'm the former CEO of Panon, a social networking app that connects people based on common interests. And Panon pivoted during the COVID-19 crisis to become a community building platform, helping companies to socially engage with their remote workforce. Now, I have worked from home for over 12 weeks now and I would like to know who is here today. And how long have you been working from home and where you're connecting from? Please share in the chat. Let's see who's here. Let us know. Hey, hey, Anuk, nice to see you. Where are you connecting from? And have you been working from home lately? Oh, yeah, just move back to the office. I can, I'm sure that feels pretty good from Munich Hannah. That's nice. And from the Netherlands 12 weeks in the home office as well. Wow. Yeah, that's long, three months in New Zealand since the 10th of March. Wow, Daniela. That's a long, long time. Well, I can see that most of us have been working for, from home for a long time now and I am sure that you share a lot of my experiences and how much that actually takes a toll on our social lives as well. The oops, who that one, too much. Um Another one, too much. Let's see. So this pandemic changes the way we work today. I want to focus on its effects on knowledge workers like you in the tech community.

Even before re uh COVID-19 remote work was already a rising trend. It has been more than doubling since 2005 with 2.7 million workers in the US working from home and a Gardner survey from March 17th. So right after a lot of us started working from home, says that 88% of organizations worldwide actually have encouraged or required their employees to work from home and nearly all of these organizations. So 97% have canceled work related travel. Um During COVID-19, we all work from home.

It was unplanned yet surprisingly often successful and we're not working remotely. So I think there's a big difference um whether you have to work from home or can actually work remotely, meaning anywhere as we can see here in the pictures, working from home can bring quite some difficulties with this. Now, a lot of countries are opening up again and the question is what is going to happen with this remote work experience? I think personally that remote work is here to stay. I think this new experience that remote work is actually pos possible and the benefits of its flexibility will change the way we work forever. 1/4 of fortune 500 CC CEO S estimate that 90% of the employees will work remotely indefinitely and the global workspace workspace analytics and estimates that 25 to 30% of the workforce will work from home multiple days per week by the end of 2021. Now, I believe that post COVID, the new normal is going to be a hybrid mo model. Neither are we going to work from home 100%? Nor are we all going back to the office? I think we will be able to work from anywhere.

Oh, actually, we would want that and I think that's what employees will demand as well. But of course, working from home is not always without struggle. We've seen the pictures before. We all have our stories. And I would like to ask you please again share in the chat. What is your biggest struggle when working remotely? Janna says, yes, she intends to keep it this way working from home. Just as I said, I think a lot of people now have realized Britannia has actually been starting a new job in the learning process. I can absolutely see how that is very difficult if you don't have that one on one interaction with your new colleagues, at least not as much as you would have it in the office. Any other experiences that you would like to share difficulties that you have working remotely anyone? Yes, absolutely. All the home is not really a work environment. Right. And often we don't have an office space at home and there is so much else going on. Um And yes, people might not be as available as we would like them to be doing the same office hours. Absolutely. Anu finding motivation. Yep. I feel you girl keeping a work life balance. Absolutely. I see you have absolutely the same. It made the same experiences as I did and the state of remote work um re uh report actually states a lot of these things that you're talking about um with 20% of remote workers um saying that collaboration and communication is a big um issue.

But another 20% also says that loneliness at home and working from home is a big struggle for them. Now, I think connection isn't equally to connection just because we only a message, an email or phone or video call away from our almost 24 7 available colleagues. Well, I agree. Not all of them are 24 7 available. That doesn't mean we actually easily connected to them on a personal level. These tools allow for like a quick transactional exchange of information to get the job done. But this efficiency of getting straight to the point actually prevents us from forming a connection. Let's take a video call. For example, you're not picking up uh your guests at the reception anymore. You have no small talk while walking them to the meeting room, uh you not offering them a beverage anymore. Um All this prevents us from building social human connection and not only our social species, but from an anthropological point of view needs social interaction. Coming back to the work context. Having a personal relationship also facilitates work leading to higher motivation and productivity. I would like to share with you an anecdote that I believe showcases the importance of these social connections at the workplace. Uh Early on in my career, I had a critical meeting with one of my clients in Germany and it was, this atmosphere was quite tense.

I was sitting in the meeting room in Germany and I had to get a hold of my boss because he was supposed to join the meeting via telephone, but he wouldn't pick up. So I called our office and asked them to uh wanted to ask them to get the boss on the phone. But my colleague, Joaquin picked up and I guess I hadn't been to the office in a while because he immediately started asking me Oh, how have you been? How's Germany? How's this and that? And I was a bit nervous and I really just needed to get my boss on the phone and not speak in Spanish in a German speaking environment. So I was like, probably a little bit rude and just told Joaquin, hey, get me the boss on the phone. I need him now. So the following Friday, I went back to the office in Madrid and Joaquin greeted me with high eyes, Princess. Are you feeling better now? Now, Joaquin and I are quite close and he knows me very well and because he knows me very well, he also interpreted this situation as, hey, Johanna is probably just really stressed and he didn't make a big fuss out of it. But I think that hadn't. He known me well enough to understand that this was just a really stressful situation for me.

He could have easily misunder misinterpreted this whole situation, taking it personal and that is could have potentially had a long term negative impact of our on our future cooper operation, maintaining and supporting informal interactions and good relationships between employees is always important but much more difficult in remote work environment.

Now, how can we support our company's social life when we don't see each other as frequently as we did before in the office. Um There is quite some creative solutions to how to deal with being away from the office and colleagues like for example, this website and I don't know if you can hear this right now, but they created a website where you can actually hear the sound of your colleagues. Now, I am sure that we all agree that it's not only and for some, maybe even la least the sound effects of working with our colleagues. The truth is often the informal conversations that is, are the ones that lead to like new productivity and ideas. But where's that? Water cooler chitchat? Where are these like coffee corner conversations? When we only meeting for work zoom meetings with this restraint on our company's social life, culture and collaboration and ultimately motivation and productivity do suffer. But there are some things that we can do.

Uh There's a Gardner survey that reveals that 32% of organization have introduced new tools for virtual meetings. Now, as we have concluded before having a tool for connection doesn't equal having a personal connection. So we need to make social interaction a part of our regular check ins.

We need to add social banter to our formal work, teamwork meetings and stand ups. For example, for example, by playing apples and onions, meaning that every meeting, everyone shares an apple, something positive and an onion, something never negative. That has happened there that work week or that work day at Panon, we also implemented regular FICA Merida Ranni. So tea time, basically, our colleagues come from all over the world. Um Just a simple, like recurring hangouts invite where for 20 minutes, everyone who had the time would join, bring their own tea or coffee. And we would talk about literally everything. We would share recipes, we would talk about our homework at home, workout routines. Um or also like why the people that we were in quarantine with would annoy us that day. Maybe these can be virtual coffee breaks or happy hours or birthday celebrations uh or whatever other rituals you would normally have in the office. And the good thing is that now all employees are equally involved through a screen remotely and there's no that not any more that difference with some of them maybe being remotely and others being at the office. And that can also be a great advantage from designing offices that support new ways of working. I know that with each additional meter between employees, the potential for them to actually interact declines drastically.

Now we have to find new ways to connect with our colleagues, but we can do so with anyone in the company. Now, no matter what location they normally sit at at buffer. For example, all new hires get matched with a a different teammate every week. So they, they call that pair calls and they get to know different people from the all over the organization, whether they would work with them directly or not at buffer. They also did a personality test at one of their office days. Uh where everyone would learn more about themselves and about their fellow teammates. Now, I don't think you have to go that far to have everyone do a personality test penion, for example, helps employees to find like minded people through common interests. Um The connection that you before made because you saw a picture on someone's work desk. And so, oh, they also have a family. They also have kids or because their coffee mug displayed like their favorite sports team. And it happens to also be your favorite sports team. These connections are now recreated online and build new possibly unlikely connections. Gartner's survey also found that 40% of organizations have set up additional virtual check ins for employees with their managers. I think that's pretty good already. But we all need to be more intentional as leaders these days, we need to create additional informal one on one communication opportunities better to shorter ones, one long one to quickly catch up and on recent developments.

See what's going on uh and to show appreciation and care because this situation is difficult for all of us. We need this bidirectional proactive communication and transparency to understand what our remote workers actually need. But also to share our own experiences. Leading by example, also means to be transparent and vulnerable to share your best practices but also be open while you are struggling and thereby create a culture of transparency, vulnerability and trust. Trust is a key element when it comes to working remotely, of course, external discipline like deadlines are super important, but we all need to develop new self-discipline when it comes to working from home or the coffee shop around the corner. Or if we're lucky enough, the summer house that we have, we all have to learn to trust our colleagues that they always have the best intentions that they will put their best efforts and only in such an environment, they will feel empowered and to raise questions and concerns.

And when these arise and to reach out when they actually do need help and last but not least put it on the agenda during COVID-19, remote work was improvised. Nobody had planned for this. Now, we actually need a long term remote work strategy that also includes the social life of the company. This sorry, a cultural shift is needed that requires more corporate trust and greater employee responsibility than ever before. Ask yourself. Is there a clear shared vision of the company that everyone in the company understands? If your employees are excited about that vision and understand the circumstances and the rules of being distributed and working from home, both employees and the company will profit immensely from this new remote working opportunities. Now, we have like four minutes left and I would like to ask you for your experience. What are you? What is your company doing to connect employees online socially anu has the question. Sorry, I'm just seeing this now how to integrate via online environment when finding a new job or when you were just hired.

Absolutely, I can totally feel anu that that is difficult and that is an especially challenging situation because normally you would go, let's say, for lunch with your new colleagues, grab a coffee with them and thereby also pick up on these like little informal cultural things within the company.

I say try to do the same thing online, ask colleagues to have a coffee chat to just give you 1015 minutes and ask your questions, get to know them, present yourself as well. Um And I think that could help you to recreate these situations online. Um Katherine Katharina says they never really stopped, I guess chatting about personal stuff in online meetings because we are small, tightly knit a team that is amazing. Um But I'm sure that not everyone has these great culture uh around sharing personal stuff already. Um You have lunch together once a week and Tonia. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Exactly. Just coming together and trying to share your experience working remotely um coffee catch ups there, Rebecca, uh a whatsapp group. That's also a great idea. Exactly.

You can have whatsapp group. You can have Slack channels, water, cooler, slack channels where you can share personal things. A short call even every day. Joanna says, wow, that's a lot. That's awesome. Um Sharing recipe pictures. Of what you've cooked for your family. That's amazing. That's cool.

That's such a nice idea. Um You have mob coding hours on Fridays. Interesting. And team events online. Well, that is interesting. Hannah. I would like to hear more about that because team events online can also be quite tiring and drowning if they take on too long. And a virtual coffee kitchen, I would like to understand uh what tools you use for that virtual coffee kitchen. Um So the session is almost over. Um Antonia has more questions about the mop coding hours as well. I think there's a lot more to be shared. I would like to thank you so much for joining today and ask you to let's get connected on linkedin. I would love to hear more about your experiences. I would love to learn what you're doing to socially connect with your uh colleagues. And yeah, let's keep in touch. Thank you so much.