First and foremost, thank you guys for being in here and I appreciate your willingness to just kind of go with the flow.Um As we have so many great women in tech on the stage today, we're about to have some gremlins as I like to call them in our technology. Um What we're gonna talk about today is really the secrets of leading a productive remote team. Um And things like this happen when you're leading a remote team. So here we go, we're gonna talk about what to do on the fly. Um If we look at um going remote, I think that as we have seen the pandemic run across uh the world, we've all kind of had to pivot here. Um And remote seemed very foreign a few months ago. Um Oh, somebody says, Mia says I'm on mute. Mia, can you still hear me? OK. All right, we're going. Um So anyway, back when a few months ago, um what we heard is Bole, the organization that I work for, we have always been remote. We've been remote now for about 10 years and we tried to get people to adopt the idea of going remote. And what we kept hearing over and over again is, oh, that sounds great. But it'll never work for me or? Wow.

I would love to give my team the opportunity to be remote. But how do you leave them? How do you make sure that they're doing their job? And what we found is that a lot of leaders use physical proximity as um really a leadership technique instead of really thinking outside the box. And truly leading physical proximity has never meant that somebody was actually doing their job and definitely has not meant that they were doing their job. Well, so I think that's really been one of the gifts that has come out of the pandemic. Um Of course, lots of loss, but, but the gift has been for the workforces is that they now know that it's possible if you take a look at some of the recent statistics, I'm gonna go into some just remote statistics, but recent statistics will tell you that um teams are just as productive, working remotely as they have been in the office.

And I think that's gonna be really hard uh for leadership to ignore. So when they're asking able to go back in an office, because, well, you're way more productive, I don't think they're gonna be able to use that excuse anymore. So, um I think it's a really good thing for the future of work and it's a really great topic to talk about today. Um, I just want to share with you really quick some statistics before the pandemic just to kind of level set here. Um, we had about 90 per, 99% of respondents when polled would say they like working remotely. No big surprise there. Right. We have seen growth of about 44% in remote work over the last five years. Uh, 29% of people said they are actually happier working remotely. Um I'm a big believer than I think that the other 71% probably just don't know how to do it. Right. Um Or they're definitely those extroverts who love to talk with their teams and, and I have a way around that too. Um 65% of people feel more productive when they work remotely. Um Of course, we don't want to just talk about all the benefits. There is a big challenge and that is the work and personal life separation. So, um here we are, there's some really good things to think about. Now, here's one that I think is uh is probably a little bit of a stretch, but they're saying that about two thirds of offices will disappear by the year 2030.

Um I, I definitely don't see that happening. Um But I do think that we'll get pretty close um to at least 50% if not closer to 60% of all workforce. Um If they have the capability to work remote I, I definitely think that that's the direction that we're going. I see lots more conversations about it and again, just around the pandemic. Um Great question. How do you differentiate personal life from working in remote work? Um I'm just gonna dive into that right now, y'all, this is really casual. So let's just throw out the questions. Um And we'll work through them in our time together. Um I want this session to be for you. I want you to walk away with some real tangible actionable items that you can take in deleting your teams. Um And I, I think that really it comes down to calendaring. I'm a big, big believer in setting your calendar. If I were to pull up my calendar right now, you would see that I have everything kind of blocked off, right? And so, um I have like I am going to um II I have a family and so it's important for me to make sure that I make them dinner.

And so I've got blocked off time that, hey, this is when I actually have to spend time with my family. I love what I do work is really, really fun for me. And so if I actually don't schedule time specifically for my family, um and for time for self care, then it's easy to let that get away. So I think definitely scheduling it, look at your calendar, make blocks of time. So it will say that Hey, I'm gonna check email from 8 to 9 a.m. and then I'm gonna have breakfast from nine until 930 maybe I'm allowing to have meetings from 930 until noon and kind of going like that back and forth. Additionally, technology is our friend. Um, I happen to be an Apple iphone user. And so, um, I, I just make sure that I turn off all those notifications if I'm away from a computer um or my laptop, I also use the pause button um in the email. So I just pause it, especially, that's great when you're working on projects too, to use the pause button. So I say just a lot of intentionality goes around making sure that you have that really good work life integration and that you don't find yourself when you're at home working all the time.

One last tip about that is if you are working in a very public area of your home. Um And if you have a laptop, I suggest you close it and you put it away. If you have a traditional desktop, then um just make sure you turn it off, just don't leave it in sleep mode, turn that sucker off uh and say I'm done for the day and don't go back to it. Nobody's good if they're burnt out, right? A leader is never good when they're burnt out. So, thank you for that question. I think it's really relevant. Um And uh Yeah, here's some other great ones will office costs drop when salaries grow. I would hope so. Um If we take a look at um I happen to also be responsible. I'm a coo of bullet. Um but in a to that I manage all of our finances and that's one of the things that we love to talk to folks about is the employee burden cost and that you do have more flexibility um with your revenue and with your cost of goods and with your operating costs, if you don't have that office space, so I would love to say yes, that is going to happen.

But I think it's gonna depend on the industry. Um And really the type of space that they were in before. Um Yeah, driving home uh was the definitely the signal to, to stop work. Yeah. And I think that you just have to create that and again, create that in your day, you might need to maybe walk outside or just create that routine where you really feel like you're done for the day. Um Again, you just want to train yourself that this is when I'm done and ask somebody to keep you accountable too. Uh Whether that's a friend or maybe somebody who's in your household to say when I say I'm done working, I'm actually done working. Um And so definitely do that. Um I love some of these also planning, makes it actionable. Exactly. I'm gonna say make time for something different than I want. Um how to overcome the challenges of personal distractions. That's really good too. Um I would say try to find a really good quiet spot in your um the area that you're working, it always sounds really fun and kind of sexy to work somewhere. Um, outside of your residence, maybe that's a coffee shop or a library or a bookstore or a restaurant. Um, I can't do that. I do find that it's very distracting for me.

So um perhaps create a little office nook in your house if you can find that I've uh watched um really great people. I know Pinterest here in the United States is a great tool and you see just really fun little environments that people have created. Um And then it is, you do have to let the people in your household know that um that you are working and that you need to be quiet. Um I find that air pods I've got them in right now. Help with some of the noise for when I'm in a meeting with other people that that's not such a distraction to them. So um I love all these questions coming in. Let's go back to Yes, noise canceling headphones have definitely been a lifesaver. Um I could not agree more. Um Yeah, I definitely think as women in tech, I feel like I have to work extra hard to compare to my male counterparts. Oh, Isn't that the truth? I think that's within every industry, we have to work a little bit harder just to prove our value. Um But don't let, don't let that create burn out for you because again, you're not gonna be any good. If you're tired, you have to be fresh, you have to have fresh ideas. And so the idea of self care should never be just a benefit. It shouldn't just be something because you've worked hard, you earned it.

That is something that you need to build into every single day. So that may make sure that you are on point and you can deliver really good information and you can get your task done. And so um I don't want to get too far off topic. So I'm gonna go to what would have been my next slide and let's jump in. So we've got some remote work statistics that we, we touched on um as a leader in remote space. Um And if you are currently not a leader, um then these are perhaps some things that you could share with your leader or your organization, the trust factor. So often what we hear is that people in remote environments um trust tremendously. There's a lot of transparency, there's a lot of vulnerability that goes into that. And so I think that um remote is absolutely possible. It goes back to what I said in the beginning that so many leaders rely on physical proximity to say that my team is working hard or that they're doing a good job because it's easy. I think it's a little bit lazy to say that. Um, so just extend trust, trust can be extended by really setting what I like to call expectations and agreements.

If you've got a team or if you've got a leader who you're trying to convince that once the pandemic is done, I want to be able to do this full time. I really set out some, some expectations and agreements letting them know in the beginning. Um Hey, I'm gonna be logged on every morning by 8 a.m. and I'm gonna have my typical work day end at five or six. If I'm gonna step away from on my desk, I will let you know. Now I know in the beginning this feels like micromanagement. But if you don't have a layer of trust to start with, you have to build from nothing and building from nothing is just like any other relationship. It takes baby steps over and over and over again. So start with just really clear communication again, creating some sort of expectations and agreements. I happen to do it. And it's a very formal document where both parties I sign off and my team member signs off. Um But it maybe it just starts with an email just so everybody's on the same page. Also be willing to have really transparent conversations, I think as leaders sometimes we have the ability not to share all the gritty details of what's happening and inadvertently that creates this barrier between us and our team members.

We expect them to trust us and to be vulnerable, but yet we're not doing the same. And so I think that that goes around with sharing if you're able to, depending upon your department, sharing some of the things that you might just talk about as, as leaders. We have decided here in Belay that we share revenue numbers, we share sales numbers and metrics and here's a clue. We share the good stuff and we share the bad stuff because nobody wants to be surprised. Um at the bad stuff, usually bad things start to culminate over time. So you start to get little indications that something is coming. And so if we just talk about sales, right? So we want to say, hey guys, it looks like we didn't meet our quota for February. Um I'm not sure what that's gonna look like the remainder of the year, but hey, things are not going well now or um we've had some expenses that we didn't play for. Maybe it's technology expenses that were higher than what you budgeted for. Maybe you need something that you didn't think you were gonna need when you originally did your budget and your forecast. And so I just think transparency vulnerability as a leader helps to build that trust and that trust is the solid foundation that it takes to create an incredible remote environment.

One last thing before we go into some questions here is that um I also feel like remote, the the web camera specifically in a remote environment really helps build that vulnerability and that trans transparency. Um We were talking about noises and distractions before um It's hard to let somebody else come into your home if that's typically where you work, if you think about it, you just don't invite anybody over to your home. But all of a sudden when you turn on that webcam and you say, ok, I'm having a meeting. Welcome everybody. They might hear. If you've got a barking dog or a delivery from the Postmaster or delivery service, they might hear right now as we have extra people in our households, they might hear maybe a child or something like that. And so I think that that also helps build that, that vulnerability. Um, as a leader, sit and listen. Um, don't be closed minded, don't be in such a hurry. Allow time for organic conversation that will help in that process of trust. Um So yeah, always have your camera on. I'm gonna jump over to a couple of questions real quick before we move on. Um We're doing good. We're, we're at about 20 minutes. I'm not sure if they're going to, um, just cut us off or not.

I'm happy to continue the conversation here since we got started a little bit later and we'll go into some more things. Um and gender pay equality. That's a great question. Um I think it's huge. I think we continue to see that. I think as leaders, if you're a leader on this call, I think the more that you can step up as a woman in technology and demand equal pay, I think there's great resources out there that show um just the role is particular what someone will be paid for that and take out the gender and really fight for that.

Um I think as leaders, we have to fight for equal pay for everybody all the time. So um definitely find resources that you can bring to your leaders to. Um All right, here we go. It says um we have a hourly one, an hourly, I take hourly breaks to do a one minute exercise. That's awesome. I love that. Um That's, that's absolutely incredible. Um I find it really helpful to hide the self. You, you feel less self conscious and it makes you feel more like a normal meeting. Yeah, that, that's really cool. Um I, I actually like to be able to see myself. So I don't know if I could do that or not, but I, but I love it. Um Any tips on convincing your company to let you work remote after the pandemic? If we've discovered that that's how we work best. I think that they are going to um I think organizations are, are gonna have to have the conversation to, to talk remote work. I, I think that you go in there. Um, if there's anything that you do that has a metric that surrounds it, if you're producing some sort of product, I think that's great to go in there and say, see, this is what my metrics were at the beginning of the year.

This is where my metrics were during the pandemic. And as you can see, um I'm just as effective. Now, another way is if they're really staunchly against it, maybe try to find somewhere in the middle, maybe just originally ask, can I work two days a week remotely or can I work Fridays remotely? But I would start off having the conversation and really push I think so often we just get afraid to ask because we're afraid to hear the no, but the worst they're going to say is no, right. Um You know, so I, I really feel just go in there with some hard concrete evidence about how you were more productive. Um But just be willing to meet in the middle at first, especially if it's an org, an organization who prior to the pandemic never even considered it before. Um And it says here in Colombia, remote work is not common in the current situation. Bosses are demanding, extending working hours and normal schedules are not respected. How can this be handled? Oh my gosh, that's that is horrible. Um And that is a leadership thing, right?

Um, if it's across all organizations and it's just part of the culture in Colombia, it's probably gonna be really hard to get away from that. Um, but I would really, again, go back to standing up for yourself and just, um, I, I hope you're getting compensate. Are you getting compensated for the additional hours? Um, that could play into it. I know here in the United States, um, you have to be compensated for those additional hours. So I would just make sure that you, um, are being compensated, know your hr laws in your country. Make sure that what they're asking you to do is legal and then speak up and just say, hey, I, I can't, this is not how I intended to work. This is not great for me personally, nor for my family. Um Again, it goes back to trust and vulnerability what we just talked about. Um All right. Yes. Uh, we have labor management laws. Exactly. Um, let's go back, let's, uh, go to the next, my next slide would have been which is managing performance and not activity. Um We talked a little bit about that with the whole trust, um, and having some of the proximity, right of having somebody sit next to you. Um, if you are currently a leader, um, and you want your team to go remotely if you're not a leader and just some sort of some of the questions that we have in our chat here and you would really like to go remote then set up some KPIS or key performance indicators for your team or yourself that really show that you are getting the work done.

It shouldn't just be about the time that you're sitting at a desk. There's lots of folks who will sit at a desk for eight or more hours in a day and they walked away and they did nothing or people who are in an office who spend most of the time in the water cooler or the break room or talking with their peers and not getting anything done. So you really wanna create some goals, some KPIS, some good metrics around what you actually expect to get done. That way. You don't have to micromanage your team or your leader doesn't have to micromanage you. Um So having those set up is really, really helpful as an organization, every organization out there. And if you're um in this situation right now, um it's a great question to ask. When do you set our goals? Um I know for our organization, we set them in the fall for the year that is, is coming up. So for 2020 we will start to set our goals and our metrics and our forecast in the fall of 2020 for 2021 we start with that because then we can create goals and metrics and KPIS for our team members.

Um, I really don't care if they're able to get all of that done and, and half the time, or it takes them more time to get it done. But it does help me understand the management of what they're doing and it's a really good, quick indicator if somebody needs additional help. Um, I happen to love people and I believe the best in people. I don't think anybody shows up to work thinking that they're gonna do a bad job. Um So if you've got somebody who's falling behind and they're not meeting their goals and their metrics, it's a great indicator to have a conversation with them. So I really want you to focus on creating hard um tangible metrics or KPIS that you can either one present to your leader so you can show them that hey, I want to continue to work remotely and if you're a leader and you're struggling with the idea of having a remote team starting with these will really help you feel like you can walk away a little bit.

Um and get over that whole proximity equals people working hard. Um Do you have a good example of a KP I to measure weekly goals? Um Yeah, I think um Mia if you could let me know maybe uh the area of business that you're in um I know for sales it could be how many calls you're making. Um How many um maybe proposals you sent out how many people are in your funnel. Those are some good weekly metrics. Um I've even created KPIS for receptionist and it's just around, you know, how long did somebody stay on hold? How quickly did you get them to the right person? Of course, those roles are, are going away as technology continues to increase.

But I think there's, if you look at the job description and what you expect an employee to do, I think there's plenty of ways that you can create KPIS around them. Um And absolutely, at the end of this, I'll go ahead and give it right now. Um I, I'll throw up my email. Oh, I can't share my document shoot. Ok. So Lisa L isa dot Z Veld Zeeveld at Belay solutions.com, if you wanna email me and um you would like for me to share a good KP I um template with you. I'm happy to do that. Um I love sharing information, so happy to do that. Um How do you deal with a new hire during this time when someone is remote when they would normally on board and train in person? Oh, I love this question. Uh Oh, thank you. Um Megan for putting that out there. Yeah, so um great, great question. I'm gonna start by saying you have to be intentional. Um But even more so than you would be if they were in person. What I find is so often again, we get lazy when people are in person, we think that, oh, we're just gonna show up and we're gonna put them next to somebody who knows how to do that job and we're gonna let them go. So when you are on boarding and starting to train a new person remotely, be very intentional and start a couple of weeks beforehand, I always recommend a training plan and this is if you're in person or not a training plan, it's actually by hour sounds again a little micromanagement promise.

I'm not gonna go there. I'm not a micromanager but start out. So um if you are not gonna meet them in person, depending upon your country, there's gonna be some legal things around employment documentation that you might need. Um So you'll definitely have to have a way for them to sign documentation, electronic signature. So you wanna take care of that. Um And then do a, a web meeting like this where you can see them, they might need to show their documentation to you so you can see it in person. Um But meet them very first thing in that morning, it's really hard to start a new job and to sit down in front of a computer and to look around and be like, what in the heck am I supposed to be doing today? So, um the very first minute that they, you expect them to start work and you're laying the foundation for that trust, which we just talked about to, for them to know that you expect them to show up and start work at a particular time. In the beginning, things can, can get a little bit easier over time, but you're gonna wanna do that. Um But create a training plan that starts with them, meeting the hr professional in your organization to get all that employment documentation out of the way.

Um Have them meet with different department leaders, have them sit down with different team members for the training aspect of it. But really, I like to do it for two complete weeks. And then after that, you're gonna wanna have 30 60 90 day check ins to make sure that they are on board. Um I don't want this statistic to be disheartening to you, but on average, it takes somebody twice as long to get acclimated to their new role when they are remote than it would be if they were in person. So let's stop and think about that for a second. Traditionally, we say that it's about 90 days for someone to feel like they really understand the company and their job that could take up to six months. Now, that doesn't mean they're not gonna be productive. But what it does mean is you have to be way more intentional and offer um a lot more forgiveness in the beginning because not everybody is trained to do this and to do it very successfully. So the more often that you can get in front of them during that onboarding stage of those first two weeks, it is going to be a huge, huge help um to that employee. And also for you as an organization, it's kind of like um when you're dating, right?

I mean, the first impression is everything. So as an organization, you want to make sure that you have a really good first impression with your employee and that they know that you expect them to work hard and, um, and vice versa, that you're actually gonna work hard with them. So, um, all right, let's see. Uh, definitely, I would love to connect further on this topic because right now we're debating making our team fully remote post COVID. Yeah, absolutely. Um Margo, you've got my email address. I'm happy to continue the conversation, um, offline if we want to do that. And again, yes.

Thank you, Megan Brown for putting my email address in there. Um All right, let's talk next. Hopefully everybody's ok. We're gonna go a little bit long, but, uh, the questions are so good and I love to talk about all this stuff. Um All right. So what is the ro I of working remotely? I think we've touched a little bit on that. Uh, so far we, we have happier employees, um, when we work remotely. No, that's not to say you're gonna have some people and I think that's what's important about finding the right people for your organization. If you are completely remote and if you're an organization that's considering going remote, making sure that you're offering it to people who want to do it. I think in the long run it would probably be about 75% of the people who've never done remote before. If you look at AAA group of 100 people. Right. I think 75% of them would choose to work remotely. You're gonna have about 25% who might not choose to work remotely. But I think it's because there could be a generational issue. Um It, it could be an issue of just um the right equipment and the location, they might not have some of that privacy that we talked about in the beginning. But I think over time you can convert those 25 as well. I'm a big believer in that.

Um But I think the Roy um is tremendous. What we find here at Belay is people are so excited to be given autonom me. We actually like to say that we treat people like adults. It's kind of a funny thing to say that, right. But so often organizations get people in and they start to treat them like they're Children, they're micromanaging, they want to make sure that they're sitting in the chair, you know, by eight o'clock, if it's 8030 my gosh, you're gonna get written up because how dare you come in doesn't matter if traffic was good or not good and they just, you know, asking for all kinds of reports and details.

Um So the ro i on working remote is you just have employees who are way happier. They're happier to be a part of your organization. Um They work harder for you than they ever have before. And again, going back to some of those statistics that I shared, um the productivity does not decrease. And what we've seen is that the productivity definitely increases. So if it's something that you're wrestling with right now for your team, um I would say go for it 100% if you're trying to convince your leadership team to allow you to do this longer. Um Then definitely let's connect and I'm happy to, to give you some hard examples based on your specific um industry or what your particular circumstance is. Um Let's talk about the power of being visual. So y'all get to see me. I know we um we had a few little snafus in the beginning. This is a new technology from uh that I've worked with hop in kind of a, a cool thing that I've just learned about. But the power of visual. Um a lot of teams that decide to go remote, don't understand how important it is to see somebody's face. So let's think about it.

If you guys could not see me, I'm probably gonna mess all this up, but if you guys could not see me right now, it feels a little different, right? Um You might be multitasking depending upon where you are, maybe you're eating. Um It doesn't feel the same, you can hear the inflection in my voice, but you definitely aren't feeling the connection with me, right? Um And I think that goes across the board, I would have loved to see all of your images um to see. Are you talking with your hands? And, and what are you doing? So visual is so important. We mandate here at Belay that everybody is on video and that they are on video for every single meeting. Additionally, we also mandate that you are not on mute. Now, we have to offer some forgiveness because they are working remotely. And um when they are in their home office, the the area that they like to work in the majority of the time, we do start to get to know if, if they have a dog or if there's a delivery or if they have extra Children at home. Now, during the pandemic, um if you are working maybe somewhere that you don't traditionally work like a coffee shop or a restaurant, then we allow um you to go on mute.

But for the most part, what happens is if you don't have your video on, you're probably not connected or you're multitasking. If you don't have your audio on, what happens is when you have a question or you want to interject with something, there's a pause and what that pause creates is the ability for your brain. And that millisecond to say, should I actually offer this? And should I ask the question? And that doesn't help with the vulnerability and the trust and the transparency that you want to build so deeply with your team. So definitely use web cameras and mandate them. The other tool that I highly suggest is that in an email that you start to record some videos. Um We know that there's all different types of learners. Uh But again, the reaction that comes from me going, oh my gosh, you guys did such a great job. I can't believe that you met your goals is gonna go a lot further than if you just read it in an email that said, congratulations team. You did a great job. Likewise, if I have to deliver bad news or not, so great news and it's more of a serious matter. Um like what is happening now in the world, right?

I wanna come across and I want you to hear my heart and there are times when I'll get emotional and I want my team to feel that and to feel like they're connected with me. So um I can't stress it enough videos um for your team meetings go a long way as well as video recording it. Um There's a lot of different tools out there. Zoom is a great one to record a video loom is another one that we use to record a video. Of course, you can use the technology on your, on your phone if you have that last. But not least if you have the opportunity depending upon where your team is dispersed, try to get your team together in person at least once a year if you can. Um, again, I don't think that if you have a fully remote team and they're across the world that if you don't get them together, that you're gonna lose anything. But I think it is important for your culture, for people to actually stand next to each other, see each other. Um I think you need to add some fun into those team meetings and you can do that virtually as well.

Um which would be a completely different topic but try to see each other as much as possible. I find that the remote teams that fail most often are the ones that allow people to multitask not to be on video. Um Only a conference call or shut their video down and those who allow their teams to be on mute. So, um all right, let me go to some questions really quick. Uh Does your office use a chat function? Yes. Um We actually do a text message and we let people know they can opt in or opt out if it's more of a fun chat. Um but then we do have group chats. We also like to use Slack uh G chat has a great feature and then, um our CRM has a chat feature as well. So that's, that's really good for quick uh communication. Um which is something that's very, very important with remote teams. Uh So we often switch off the videos for that specific meaning to try to help that person, but otherwise we try to have videos on every time. That's awesome. Yeah. Um Since you have to guess every facial expression the person is making and you're not able to figure out if they're comfortable or not, those signs are clear when you're working in person. Yeah, exactly. And that's why video camera is such important. Um uh That's awesome.

I have to be on mute. I have seven dogs. Wow, that's incredible. You must be an awesome dog mom. Wow. So, so cool. Um How do I see the importance of diversity and inclusion being an important aspect? Absolutely. I think um I, regardless of what environment you're in, if you choose to be remote or you choose to be in person, um There's no excuse for not having diversity and inclusion in your workforce. Um And I think that if you look at the opportunity to be remote as an organization, there are things depending upon your country and there are some things just depending upon your own personal beliefs and what you would want to do as an organization, if you're a leader in that organization to make sure that there is no divide between the people that are able to work remote and those who are not.

Um For example, we talked about work space. I don't want someone to feel like they can't work remotely because they don't have an additional room in their house. So that's all we want to think about being creative. I always like to tell people that it's really, really easy to work remotely. All you need is a nice blank wall with maybe some artwork or something on it. Um You know, if you're in your kitchen, just face the wall, uh windows are a little difficult because if you have your web camera on the uh light coming through can sometimes mess with the camera but just choose a blank wall. You guys have no idea where I am in my house right now. I could be in a closet, which I know some team members who do because it can be, you know, they can close the doors at the end of the day. Um But I could be anywhere. So that's one thing with, with diversity and inclusion is we don't want to leave people out by saying you have to have a home office. That's not true. Um You just have to have a space that looks professional. Um We also wanna make sure that they feel like they have the right equipment and that is an investment from any organization.

Um Some organizations might require you to have a desktop and then maybe to go to a laptop or do they want you to bring home uh that desktop? And then there's just security issues which being here in technology, we all know about that, an organization will have to make sure that they have in place in addition to um internet connection. So just really take a look at, at your organization, what your budget is and making sure that um no group feels like they're left out from the ability to be able to work remotely. That would definitely not be my heart. Um And uh I love that. I have to blur my background because I have a bar behind my home office. I have seen that before Megan. I love the Zoom filters. Um I have to be careful though. Sometimes I forget to turn them off and then I show up to another meeting and it looks like I'm on the beach somewhere, but those are super, super fun. Um How do you feel about using a virtual background? Um If you don't have it, I think if it works, use it, I don't think there's anything I was watching a video from Google the other day that showed. Um And this was a professionally done video. Um And they, I could tell they were using a virtual background.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it again. The content of the meeting is what's important and the participation from the team members overall is what's important. I'm not gonna sit there and micromanage if they're using a virtual background or not, that's not important.

Uh Them showing up is what's most important. So, OK, you guys, we're at 1151 here um us Eastern time. So we talked about power of visuals, fostering team spirit and this will be kind of where we end today. Um We talked a little bit about being on video and how important that is. And I said fun. It was my tee up to talk about having fun as a remote team. You can do it. We, we were talking about virtual backgrounds. Those are super, super fun if you have weekly staff meetings or any type of meeting where you have a team get on. Um We have done a scavenger hunts um in the area that the person is working from. We've showed up and had a shared playlist, um which are super fun to do. We've asked people to all show up with a certain colored shirt on or hats or sunglasses. Um We also do um virtual happy hours or social hours. So we might say, hey, at four o'clock today, everybody show up, uh bring your favorite beverage and let's just sit around and talk. Those are things that are good for any organization. It is a distraction from work. But again, remote work shows that when uh team members are more connected and they feel valued, they're gonna work harder. So this is a good investment for any team to do. But, um, but spend 30 45 minutes with your team having a social hour.

Um, it's, it's good use of your time. Um Another thing we did is is bring your pet to work day where we, um, said again, four o'clock or 9 a.m. bring your babies, bring your dogs. Uh We also do trivia on Fridays um at again, four o'clock. Uh here we do a, a trivia. So just don't skip fun as part of your remote workforce. Um You know, and it may be new, fun, may be new for you. Maybe you weren't very fun in person. Um That, that's hard to think about that you weren't fun in person, but if you weren't, no, no, no time. I mean, you could do it right now to be fun. So just go through, there's a lot of great resources online. I don't claim to be an expert and fun working remotely, but we definitely have had a really, really good fun time. Um We've done some fun contests. We actually had a tiktok contest, um that fun app. Hopefully everybody knows what that is. But we had a um a fun tiktok contest where we asked our team members to do a tiktok and then uh we gave away gift card for the best one who did that. Um you know, we have done uh company cocktail making from home. Oh yeah, that's, that's awesome. We've sent champagne, we've sent, sent sparklers um to our team members before to help celebrate. So just remember to have fun with your team. Get creative. If your entire organization doesn't wanna be fun. That's ok too.

You can be fun as a leader and build that camaraderie and build that trust and that transparency and that vulnerability. It goes really, really a long, long way. Now, I will say it's not part of the, not part of uh what we're supposed to be talking about here, but I, I don't want to end without saying this, having fun with your team, building trust, being vulnerable and building transparency, which helps a you build a high performing remote team does not mean that you can no longer hold people accountable and have good courageous conversations.

So it's not that you're not gonna be leading your team anymore, you're gonna be leading them, but you're gonna be leading them in a way that they feel valued, they feel like an adult first and foremost. Um And that they feel like they're, they're contributing to the greater good of the organization and the mission of the organization. So all these things that we talked about today um for some teams, for some organizations can feel very fluffy and very soft and how do you get good results? You're doing all these things and talking about seeing people and, and their expressions. It makes a difference, trust me.

Um It makes a difference and you can still have those courageous conversations, but it makes it way easier because you know where the person is coming from because you've invested in getting to know who they are as a person. So, all right, let's see. Um, looks like nice to meet you. We got a global ambassador here. Um Next company's conference will arrange this month and we will send employees home a bottle of beer. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. Well, um Thank you so much. You guys for letting me go over. This was such a robust conversation and I love talking about remote, so I didn't want to cut it short, but I hope you found this valuable. Thank you again, Megan. I will put my email address in here one more time before I go. Um Definitely find me on linkedin too. I'd love to connect and if you're looking for additional resources, um Again, my heart is to share and to help people in the world and so whatever resources I have are yours to take. Um And so let's continue the conversation, whether it is on linkedin or via email. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. So hopefully you guys will find me then, but enjoy the rest of your conference and thanks for joining me. Have a great day.