FeatureUC&C27 Aug 2020 · 4 min read

Changing the Rules of Engagement for Virtual Communication During Remote Work

Seeking some insights, UC Today caught up with Billie Hartless, Mitel’s Chief Human Resources Officer, on how her organization is dealing with communicating in the virtual age

Gabriel Avner

New rules of engagement for virtual communication

Going remote has been a mixed bag for most organizations and workers. Sure the commute is better, but results on the coffee and snack situation may vary.

Love it or hate it, shifting to remote work has brought on unexpected challenges when it comes to communicating with our colleagues over calls. In the past, most people may have had one or two calls a day, video or audio. Asked now in a very unscientific poll of friends and family, that number jumps to eight such calls or more daily.

Beyond questions of what kind of background to put up or how to keep children or animals from running across the screen, we are facing a set of social challenges on how to adjust to the new normal for meetings.

Seeking some insights, UC Today caught up with Billie Hartless, Mitel’s Chief Human Resources Officer, on how her organization is dealing with communicating in the virtual age.

Contending with New Barriers to Communication

[caption id="attachment_31004" align="alignright" width="200"] Billie Hartless[/caption]

Informal communication is one of the biggest challenges that workers are struggling to overcome. “It's very easy in a physical space to run into someone in the big break room while you're getting a cup of coffee and engage in a short conversation,” says Hartless. “But in this remote environment, it's not natural to pick up the phone and say, ‘Oh, I was thinking about you.’”

Without the ability to “bump” into someone in the halls for that quick chat about something urgent, many feel that they have lost something in their ability to socialize and move projects along. Scheduling someone for a friendly catchup can make an otherwise pleasant conversation feel more like work.

Changing the Rules

Navigating the virtual meeting space has also become a tricky course to pass through, requiring us to adjust our habits in ways that can border on the absurd. While the technology is getting better, Hartless shows that sometimes the best solutions can be to mix in some low tech innovation.

Faced with the challenge of how to get people to stop talking over each other during conference calls, Hartless explains that her teams have come up with a basic fix.

“We raise our hands like we are back in grade school,'' she says, adding that:

“Until we have a technology solution where we can actually recognize that someone wants to speak next, this simply works”

This moment requires us to push past the norms and be more assertive about what we need in order to stay functional and sane in our jobs. In some instances, that means saying no to that fourth video call of the day.

“The reality is that nobody said the rules are you must video connect to every meeting,” says Hartless, “So why don't we give ourselves permission to say, ‘You know what, I’m going to mix it up?’ Look, audio is still a very good technology. Sometimes we want to take part in a call but also walk in the park.”

She suggests trying a “no video Mondays or Fridays” where we let everyone know that we are not turning on video today. “You have to have clear rules of engagement,” she says, “Be explicit and tell them that you don't need to see them every single day.”

My Take

When asked what was the question that she should have been asked but was not, Hartless replies without missing a beat that she should have been asked, “Am I okay? Because I want to ask if you are doing okay. We need to remember to check in with our fellow humans.”

And that sounds right to me. It is easy to forget as we jump from call to call that there are humans on the other side of our screens. People are going through a lot.

Whether it is uncertainty about what to do with their kids with the upcoming start of the school year, their cancelled vacation time, or the health of their loved ones, we are all under a lot of stress.

The conditions of lockdowns may have cut us off from much of our in-person contact, but let's not allow it to reduce our empathy and desire to treat one another the way that we want to be treated. Let’s try to cut each other a little bit of slack.

Even as the tools that we use to communicate across channels improve, we as organizations will have to do our part to make the cultural adjustments necessary to succeed under the current circumstances.

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