Thriving in a Virtual Workspace

Staying In Touch

Poor communication is one of the easiest habits to develop in a virtual space. It’s hard to acknowledge the presence of those who are not physically present, so you slowly forget that you are not, in fact, working alone. You have colleagues and peers, people who have fallen into the same social lull that you have. So the big question is: How can we stay in touch?

It can be as simple as mimicking the small habits you would develop in an in-person environment. Saying hello to your coworkers when you walk into the office can be equated to sending a quick “hello” message to your team when you log on for the day. Not only does it re-invite the social interactions usually experienced in a workplace, but it lets your coworkers know that you’ve arrived to work, just as seeing you walk into the office would.

In a physical office, people typically adopt a “lunch buddy” or two. Some teams even attend lunch together daily. In a virtual environment, this daily practice may be difficult, as some team members are likely to be in different time zones. Hosting a team luncheon once a week could be the key to re-establishing the camaraderie that once came naturally. During the team luncheon, it’s imperative to have a “no work policy”. This may cause a bit of a lull in conversation for new coworkers, so you might consider playing a game together like GeoGuessr, Skribbl.io, or even a teams game of Jeopardy. Skribbl.io has been my personal favorite and always seems to get conversation going!

Even just putting these two tips into practice can cause a dramatic shift in your virtual workspace. In an online environment, it can be difficult to engage with your coworkers beyond the scope of your day-to-day tasks. However, you will find that going to work will actually start to feel exciting again once you take the steps necessary to reignite socializing in the workplace.

Maintaining A Balance

One of the biggest mistakes people make in a virtual workspace is overloading your time. In a physical workspace, meetings are scheduled with the time to travel in-between and the potential to go overtime in mind. However, as soon as we entered a virtual workspace, it somehow became customary to schedule meetings back-to-back with no break time in between.

“But Cymmone, it’s not like we have to walk to our next meeting. What’s the big deal? It takes like 2 seconds to open up the next meeting link, right?”

That may be true, but consider this: not only does your meeting have the potential to run overtime, but you aren’t giving yourself any time to process all of the information exchanged during your last meeting.

After a meeting, even subconsciously, your brain begins processing the information that it was introduced to and starts filing it away. This takes time and energy. Typically, our minds would handle this as we made our way to the next meeting location. However, nowadays we are giving our minds an endless backlog of information to sort through. These back-to-back meetings spare your brain no time to sort through any of the information and rather floods your mind with information until we reach a state of what people now refer to as “Zoom Fatigue”.

To prevent this, you can take initiative by blocking off the 15-30 minutes of time on your calendar that immediately precede and follow a newly scheduled meeting. This way, your coworkers can continue to simply book a meeting based on your availability, but your availability now reflects the break time necessary before and after a meeting.

All In All

All in All, if you maintain standard social interactions with your coworkers/peers at the start/end of the workday and during typical lunch breaks as well as ensure that you are not overloading your time with meetings, you will be more likely to find some enjoyment in this virtual environment.

I hope that going forward, you will have more confidence in your ability to thrive in a virtual workspace. If you have read this article and are left with any lingering questions or follow-up article suggestions, contact us at thebackend.code.blog@gmail.com

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