Month: October 2020

The Importance of Empathy in the Workplace

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

I’ve been working remotely for more than a decade. And no matter how many great tech products come out to make remote work easier, I’m even more convinced that the ultimate success or failure of a remote company rests on the people.

Does your company feel like a safe place to try new things? Or is it the sort of place where colleagues swoop in to judge you for errors? There’s always the danger that a remote business will acquire trolls. The same conditions that allow trolls to flourish on social media–anonymity, a lack of empathy, and no oversight–can develop in a distributed company if we aren’t careful. Today’s post was going to be about how to build empathy for colleagues you don’t see every day. When I hit 1000 words and still had more to say, I decided to post it over on Medium. You can read ‘How to Build Empathy for Remote Colleagues–3 Techniques to ‘See People as Fully-Realized Human Beings’ using this friend link.

We live in difficult times, and when we feel anxious, it’s hard to remember that other people are also afraid, stressed, and generally not their best selves during a pandemic. Build empathy now for the people at the other end of those emails and instant messages. Doing so will lower the chances that you’ll ruin a relationship–or your career–when you’re too anxious to think straight.

I have a lot to say on this topic. If I get a few hours of quiet any time soon, I’ll figure out if what I have to say fits in a series of articles, a short ebook, or something longer. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Keynote

Last week I have the privilege of speaking to the Puget Sound Chapter of the Association for Talent Development. These folks are communications professionals, which meant we could take a deep dive into inter-colleague communication. I may be the presenter during these keynotes but I always feel like I learn something new from each engagement.

This time, one of the participants pointed out that we shouldn’t forget to provide equal resources to people going back into the office if we don’t want them to resent their remote colleagues. This is such a great point, I needed to share it with you. Equal resources can mean a lot of different things–schedule flexibility is the first thing that pops into my mind. The world of work has been turned upside down due to this pandemic. Let’s use this as an opportunity to ask what else needs to be changed.

Things I’ve Published

The ‘How to Build Empathy’ article is the only remote-related thing out there right now. The rest of my publications are all comedy. I wrote ‘Are You Getting Laid off or Divorced‘ back in September, after a round of layoffs at my company. ‘2020 or Country & Western Song‘ came to me when I thought of that old joke, what do you get when you play a country song backwards? You get your house back, your wife back, and your dog back. ‘MLMs and Mompreneurs: A Half Baked Recipe‘ popped into my mind when I thought about companies that prey upon women who want to raise their children AND be financially stable.

I partnered with a super talented illustrator/cartoonist to create this single panel cartoon we’re calling Retirement Fund. Which is also a good way to say that if you are a cartoonist, the comedy magazine Greener Pastures (where I am an editor) is accepting illustrations for our Saturday morning cartoons section. Woo!

And finally, ‘Paul Simon Finds 50 Ways to Leave Online School‘ has been playing in my head as an online school parody for almost the entire pandemic. I had to write it out so the parody would leave me alone already. I’m very proud of the fact that you can actually sing my lyrics to Paul Simon’s original song. My husband thinks I should actually sing this in real life, after learning the chords on my guitar. I’m not sure anyone needs that. The point was to get the song OUT of my head, not weld it into place.

Goings On in the Douglas Household

It only took about 8 tries to get this photo, which is a world record when you need kids to stand still, look at you, and stop touching their sibling. Alt Text: Two children and one man posed in front of a tree, with fall leaves all around.

On Saturday we attended a Zoom funeral for a relative. This was 2020 loss number three for our family, but it was the first one that my kids really felt. A wise friend once told me that however you feel after a death is the right way to feel. It was my privilege to pass that wisdom on. Another friend told me about a place in Japan where someone has an old style phone attached to a telephone pole. It’s impossible to make an actual phone call because the phone isn’t wired into any system. People go there to use the phone to say goodbye to relatives that have died. We don’t have that phone here in Canada, so my daughter wrote a poem instead. It helped.

As is true in most things, these weeks haven’t been all sadness. The temperature dropped enough for the leaves to change colours, and Vancouver is bathed in glorious light. This year I took Fall celebrations a little further by making my own apple cider. I’m a little embarrassed that it took so long to figure out how easy it is–just boil apples in water, add seasonings and sugar, and Bob’s your Uncle. And there’s nothing better than making a hot toddy on a cold night, out of cider you made yourself. Yesterday I sipped a hot toddy while knitting a sweater and I felt like I won Fall.

I hope you’re savouring your own small joys. I’ll see you next time.

Sometimes You Need to Ditch the Formal Email Voice

I’ve been dying to use this photo of an elderly man in a suit dancing with headphones on. You’re welcome. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

A blog is a funny thing. I write, and hit send, and my words go out into the internet like a bubble into the wide blue sky. I know there are readers at the other end–I’ve spoken to some of you–but I don’t know when you read what I write. So I don’t know if anyone has noticed that I switched publishing my posts from Thursday/Friday to Tuesday.

Before the pandemic I wrote these posts over the course of 5 days, in the hour in between when my day job ended and when I picked up my kids from school. Now–well. That no longer works, even though my kids are back in school. So I switched my blog to Tuesdays so I could write over the weekend and focus on research for the blog during the week.

And that worked great two weekends ago. It worked less well this week because I caught a cold from my son. Do you remember when getting sick wasn’t terrifying? Fortunately several kids caught the cold at the same time, and one of them was tested, so I know this isn’t covid.

Which is a long explanation for why I have one short thing to say to you about remote work, and this is it:

Professional Communication Is a Little More Nuanced When You Work Remotely

Every few months someone puts out lists of words you need to eliminate from your writing. There are entire classes that teach you how to write pithy business communications that get straight to the point. I’m not knocking that information Everyone should know how to be direct and professional.

But remote workers need to know when to put those rules aside and let their personalities shine through. We don’t see each other as often as colocated employees. Our writing, therefore, has to both convey business information, and help people get to know us. And you can’t do that if all of your communication has been calibrated for maximum efficiency.

Manage Your Soundtrack

Ideally, your colleagues should “hear” your voice when they read emails and instant messages from you. This doesn’t mean you need to crack a joke with every email. If work were a dinner party they wouldn’t pay you to be there.

I’m inviting you to consider where you can inject a little humanity into your written communication. Sometimes that’s as simple as starting an email with ‘I hope this day is treating you well.’ Or perhaps end your email with ‘I appreciate you!’ Depending on the message, you might add some contextual colour. If I have to ask somebody I don’t know well for something they’re late delivering, I sometimes add in a message at the bottom of my email that says ‘And since it’s really hard to convey tone in emails, I want to let you know that this isn’t me getting annoyed. These are crazy times. If you need some extra time, I can give it to you. This is me sending supportive vibes.’

Sometimes, though, a work-appropriate informal email will go along way toward building goodwill. I made a friend at work when I sent am email to someone after a presentation that looked something like this: “Hey Brenda, fab presentation. You has mad skillz.” This email breaks at least three rules, but you know what? “Brenda” didn’t mention any of them. We ended up trading emails back and forth, and we’re friends to this day.

Sometimes we have to button up and send formal emails. But every once in a while, give people a peak at the less formal you. You’ll make make it easier to get things done at work, and forge friendships along the way.

September Went By in a Whoosh

Remote work is better when you have people to talk to. Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

It feels like we went from summer, to fire season, to back to school, to both kinds of Vancouver Fall in the space of 3 days. September was a veritable weather buffet–a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and way, way too much smoke.

In case anyone is wondering, Vancouver’s Fall comes in two flavours. Fall number one is soggy and dark, and it usually hits right after Labour Day, during the first week of school. Fall number two is crisp air, crunchy leaves, and glorious light. That’s where we’re supposed to be now, but it’s so warm I’m not sure the leaves will get a chance to change before they fall off the trees. On the other hand, the Dark and the Wet is coming, so you’ll hear no complaints from me.

There have been many articles and podcasts (like this one from NPR) floating around in the last couple of weeks, talking about preparing now for a winter with COVID. There’s a nice cartoon with some great high level tips for creating your happy place. Even I wrote a ‘find your happy things’ blog post two weeks ago. Gathering supplies to get into your personal happy place is a great idea.

It’s also a great idea to take actions that will make your remote job easier to deal with in the last months of the year. Let’s talk about that.

Relationships Are Like Bank Accounts

Yes, I do know that relationships shouldn’t be purely transactional, but stick with me on this one. Like bank accounts, relationships are healthier if you feed them on a regular basis. Second, if all you do is take, someone is going to close that account.

At some point in the winter, you’re going to feel sad and isolated at work. You’ll need someone to remind you that you aren’t alone in your home office. While you can forge connections with colleagues at any time, it’s easier if you aren’t in crisis mode. Here are some ideas to get you started.

  1. Attend a networking event. Most professional networking groups are now meeting online. A Google search can help you find networking groups of all stripes. Shop around until you find a group that feels like your people.
  2. Invite a work colleague to a zoom coffee break. Screens are definitely optional here if you’re on too many video calls. Take 30 minutes every other week or once a month to catch up.
  3. Play games. At my company, we’ve played Would You Rather, and board games like One Night Ultimate Alien. You would be surprised at the number of games you can play via video call.

Someone is reading this and cringing at the idea of online forced fun. Fair enough. If I never get asked to share fun facts about myself, that will be too soon. What you really need is a vehicle for people to talk while spending time together. You want to avoid inviting people to hang out, only to find that there is a lot of awkward silence because folks don’t know each other well enough to just talk.

Scheduling a few of these activities goes a long way toward forging real relationships. You only need to spend a little bit of time laughing with someone before you’re comfortable enough to reach out when you want to take a work break or need to vent. Start now, and you’ll have solid relationships to take you into (and through!) the end of the year.

What’s That Douglas Up to Now?

The last few weeks have been an odd mix of holding goodbye parties for departing colleagues, and speaking at different companies about remote work. I wrote an entire article about How to Say Goodbye When a Remote Worker Leaves. Leaving your job for any reason is hard. For remote workers, it can be doubly hard, because you just sort of close your computer at the end of your last day. Fortunately it doesn’t take much effort to do better than that. The above article assumes you’re a colleague of the person leaving. At some point I’ll write the how-to article aimed at managers.

On the comedy side of things, I have a list coming out on Wednesday called ‘2020 or Country & Western Song.’ I was thinking of that old joke that goes: What do you get if you run a country song backwards? you get your house back, you get your wife back, you get your dog back. Turns out there are a lot of parallels to the bonkers plot line that is 2020.

And finally, the big story (because I live a truly wild life) is that my eleven-year-old and I will be bullet journalling. The kid is in sixth grade and finally needs to use a planner to keep track of her stuff, and she’s artistic, so I think she’ll like it. My job is concluding at the end of December, and my freelance work is ticking up, so I’m also feeling the need to keep track of all the things.

Enjoy the rest of your week!