Keeping Remote Teams Engaged and Effective

With the recent change in our environment, organizations are facing a new remote work reality. This can put strain both on productivity and mental wellbeing. Many teams are used to daily face-to-face with their peers.

Here are some tips that can help companies adjust and maintain morale and collaborate in the wake of the global quarantine.

Stay Connected

Chatter

At Internet Creations, we are very heavy chatter users, as are some of our large clients. Chatter is great because you can create Chatter Groups (both public and private) similar to groups on other social media platforms. These groups can help keep teams engaged with one another as well as provide internal networking and fun socializing. Here are some examples of how Internet Creations uses chatter to stay engaged and connected:

FOR WORK

• Professional Services Team Group: for sharing tips/tricks we learn, asking questions, team announcements, surveys, etc.
• NJ Office and TX Office groups: for employees from our two regional offices to share region-specific stuff like events, office closures, weather alerts, etc)
• Sales and Marketing: a place for our sales team and marketing team to collaborate and share ideas, questions, announcements, etc.

FOR FUN

• Recipe Share: as the name says, we just share delicious recipes with each other
• The Daily Paw: for all things pet-related, mostly adorable photos
• Just for Fun: for jokes, memes, etc

FOR COMPANY NETWORKING

• WomenSurge: Our Employee Resource Group for both women and manbassadors to share advice for improving professional and personal life, with a focus on women’s empowerment in the workforce.
• IC Volunteers: for networking on local volunteering activities and coordinating corporate volunteer events

Other virtual resources

In addition to Chatter, there are other tools that can help keep your team connected in a virtual workspace. Many companies, including Salesforce and Internet Creations, are making products available for free for extended periods to help companies cope with remote workspaces during COVID-19.

• Quip — To help teams collaborate while away from the office, Salesforce is making Quip Starter available for free through September 30, 2020. Quip is a collaboration tool with built-in office suite functionality, including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software.
• Zoom Conferencing —  Zoom Conferencing’s basic plan is free and they recently released a support page for companies during COVID-19. They’ve shared tips, blogs, and other helpful content about using Zoom for work, school, and healthcare.
• WebEx — WebEx is another video conferencing comparing providing support during COVID-19. In certain countries impacted by the coronavirus, they are making their Cisco WebEx free with a promo code.
• Service Experience Suite — To support industries facing higher customer support case volume during this crisis, Internet Creations has extended the free trial of our support solutions to 60 days.

Ensure remote teams are equipped to be efficient

A new struggle for businesses is learning how to make remote teams effective using their at-home infrastructure. Let’s be real — not everyone has the greatest at-home internet or office space. This is a tough dilemma, but there are a few things #AwesomeAdmins can do to help this situation.

Lightning Requirements

At Internet Creations we LOVE the Lightning Experience. In fact, we have several Lightning Champions on our team. But the Lightning Experience and all its amazing features can be resource-intensive. Make sure your users’ at-home systems meet the minimal technical requirements of the Lightning Experience.

Console

If you’re a multitasker, you know the pain of having too many browser tabs open. This can be particularly hard on at-home networks. Leveraging Salesforce console can help your agents multitask and have multiple records, reports, and list views open all within a single browser window. This can be beneficial for increasing page loading speed and general efficiency.

From: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000321226&language=en_US&type=1&mode=1

Lightning Knowledge

If you’re not already using Knowledge, now may be a great time to start leveraging this Salesforce feature. Lightning Knowledge can be a great way to keep your remote teams informed, whether its through IT Support articles for setting up a home office or FAQs about common technical issues or company policies. Knowledge can also be used for news and announcements to keep teams in the know!

Giving your remote teams the ability to self-service through Knowledge helps keep easy-to-answer questions off your internal support team’s plate, freeing them up for helping with larger issues your remote team might be facing.

Keep Calm and Blaze Trails!

Many of us know Trailhead for learning new awesome Salesforce skills. But did you know that there is also invaluable Trailhead content going beyond just the technical side of Salesforce? These below Trailhead modules are recommended by the Service Insiders at Salesforce for keeping calm and being effective during this crisis.

Create Calm Trailmix – Changing the mindset with learning and calm

Service Cloud Agent Productivity — Help your agents work faster and more efficiently in the Service Console

Virtual Collaboration — Quick trail on best practices

Communication Skills for Customer Service Agents — Learn techniques for solving customer service issues

Other ways Internet Creations is keeping teams engaged and connect

Something Internet Creations has started since we’re now all on mandatory Work-from-Home are virtual coffee chats and happy hours. It’s a great way to keep people engaged and help replace the face-to-face office socialization that we’re now missing. Learn more about how we are leading through the change and staying connected!