Why isn’t your online office culture working? Every office worker was forced into working from home due to global lockdown. With a huge reduction of sales, disruption to supply-chains having both up and downstream impacts, and staff either working from home, laid off, or on a furlough; it is not surprising that most organisations have over-looked a very vital piece of the jigsaw for thriving in this new online world. The organisation’s online culture.
Companies that are hierarchical and take culture for granted have suffered the most. If culture is left to an HR department or to a sign in reception which details the 5 company values, it is going to be very hard for an organisation to adapt and drive production, ownership, and quality, when everyone is at home.
Working from home
As our living rooms, spare bedrooms, cupboards, and garden sheds have become our corporate environment, staff are struggling with:
- full-time childcare
- lack of a quiet space
- relatives who are losing patience at having to keep quiet for call after call
- lack of quality equipment
Online call fatigue is setting in. While it was kind of exciting and nerve racking in the first few days, it is now become an endurance test to see who breaks first after 16 hours of online calls. This would test even the greatest hero worker to the limit.
Many teams do not even have a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or Professional Facilitator. Therefore, they have not had the skills to manage this sudden and complete transition. Many of the people in these roles have no experience of supporting their teams online, at least not completely.
This has left teams wondering…
- how to create safe spaces to have engaging discussions?
- how to include everyone?
- how to complete meetings in a timely manner?
Often it is not just the teams themselves that need help. The communication between teams is one of the first things that gets lost. This leads to huge sub-optimisation in the value chain and results in wasted work, misalignment, and many more meetings than anyone can handle.
Not enough consideration is given over the different types of personalities across teams and how people interact in this new medium. This is complicated by the lack of knowledge of tooling, a quiet space, poor equipment, and broadband issues.
So what’s the answer?
It is my hope that organisations overcome these obstacles in a people-first approach. And not in a panic fear-based command and control mentality. If we put people first, we can create something that allows us to thrive long after C19 is gone. Then we will be so much better prepared for the next disruption and provide addition options that were not there before.
We teach how to create great teams, how to coach for better outcomes, and how to stay in control when everyone else is losing theirs, plus many other important skills, tools, and techniques, on our ICAgile certified Agile Team Coach class. We are teaching this online using the very techniques you can use to overcome these problems yourself. This way, you can learn by doing as well as by absorbing information. All of our online classes have been completely re-engineered for the online environment.
Be better online.
Finally, if you’re struggling to create an awesome online office culture, we highly recommend our Mastering Online Meetings course. Take this course online, at your own pace. Access the videos and learn online, at any time.