How to deal with cultural divide- internal advocacy within distributed teams @czajkowski

Working remotely can be challenging Problems we Encounter Working remotely can be challenging There are challenges daily to being distributed that you wouldn't nomally think about if you worked in an office. Chances are on day 1 in an office you met the team chatted with people and were hand held setting up your enviroment. When you work remotely it can be a different story entirely @czajkowski

Problem: The World is Round timezones - Team meetings are not rotated for time zones, so it's a good mid-day meeting for US contributors (the majority) but evening for EU and very early for APAC. @czajkowski

Solution: Make Flexible Hours People either need to adjust their schedule to attend, or risk feeling isolated for never making it to the meetings @czajkowski

Problem: Information is Social Watercooler effect Conversations happen in the office and you often miss out on hearing new infomration! Many people feel cut off when they're at home if you make decisions offline and over a conversations in the canteen. @czajkowski

Solution: Talk online Remember to include people and always bring decisions online to make people feel included. If conversations happens in your HQ in one timezone often it leads to disucssion and chatter, you need to make sure all of your organisation are up to date at the same time. OR discussions spread out of control @czajkowski

Problem: Neverending meetings & Connections Poor connection s Wrong tools! No set tools to use! Many people turning up to meetings not on time! Explaining something via a white board to those in person but not visable to those dialled in @czajkowski

Solution: Be consistent Pick a tool and stick to it, use a headset for those dialing in. Include them in the meeting, don't make them feel like an after thought @czajkowski

Embrace Differences Distinguish Cultural perspectives Build self awareness Recognise complexity of cross cultural communication Avoid Sterotyping Respect Cultural differences Be adaptable in chosing communication strategies – Be flexible! Avoid cultural insensative language and behavior – Think twice! Image source: http://real.dctc.edu/spring2014/2013/11/14/expanding-your-cultural-intelligence-quiz/ @czajkowski

Advocate internally Pride Employees want to share the work that makes them proud. It's core to their identity and sense of meaning in life. Internal reporting achievements, at team or staff meetings. Even when you're not online! Showing people what you work on encourages others to contribnute and get involved. New projects internally can often become core to a project! @czajkowski Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kullberger/8513037332/

Celebrate Achievements Recognition Recognition can take many forms, including acknowledgement from managers and executives. Sharing the blog post you wrote Getting a shout out from your manager or higher up in the orgnaisation makes a person feel appreciated! THANK YOU!! Image Source: www.flickr.com/photos/18472724@N00/5504246811 @czajkowski

Reward with Opportunity Advancement Acknowledging people with training opportunities, inviting them to lunches with executives, gathering high performers together, and promoting leaders all demonstrate that employee advocacy is valued. Rewarding people for their outstanding work encourages others to want to show their work and advance their careers Image Source: www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/8391026950 @czajkowski

Improvements Onboarding Documentation Weekly/Monthly Highlighting the work done Show and tell what is being done in the various teams Mentoring Support – virtual lunch Face to face meetings - real life offline! @czajkowski

Acknowledge Couchbase Meet new employees each month at lunch Monthly town halls with Bob Transparency Team get togethers Always improving, always reviewing Monthly reporting of team activity Show and Tell! @czajkowski

Thank you Laura Czajkowski @czajkowski laura@couchbase.com @czajkowski