Working as a team despite social distancing is currently a challenge for many companies – including us at blink.it! In the article, we will share our spontaneous and creative solutions on how we continue to work productively and stay well connected while working from home.

Since nearly 3 weeks, our entire blink.it team has been working from home, just like many other companies probably are. Today, we want to show you tools and tricks that help us to continue working productively as a team despite “social distancing.”

Communication is the key to success!

Even in the office, exchanging ideas with the entire team is especially important to us, and we certainly maintain this at home as well. Since many of our (communication) processes are already happening online, this transition wasn’t too difficult for us. These 5 measures for more productivity and team spirit while working from home have made the switch to remote work much easier for us:

1. Direct communication across the entire team

For quick exchanges with other colleagues, we like to use the messaging service Slack. The advantage: You can not only chat with individual people, but also in groups or about specific topics – the so-called channels. Slack is not only available as a web version; you can download a desktop app or install it directly on your smartphone (from my own experience, this is particularly handy when your home internet goes down and you're relying on mobile internet 😉).

To work as transparently as possible, we currently have the rule that we indicate in our status whether we are in the home office 🏡, on break ⏸, or in the office 💼. Anyone who is currently unavailable adds a short note about when they will be available again. This way we all know when to expect a response.

We stay in touch via Slack, as you can see everyone is working from home. // Source: blink.it

2. Internal agreements within the individual teams

One thing that has changed with team home offices is the frequency of meetings. What used to be quickly discussed while getting coffee in the office now has to happen remotely. Each area therefore meets once a day (digitally) to discuss specific topics.

For example, our marketing team always meets after lunch to exchange ideas on the current tasks of the day and to plan future projects. We usually hold these short meetings via Zoom.

3. Daily group meeting with all colleagues

The “daily huddle” is a fixed part of our daily work routine at blink.it: Every lunch before the lunch break, all colleagues gather and report on what they are working on today. This meeting currently takes place digitally. We use Zoom for this, as multiple people can participate in a video conference. In these 10 minutes, everyone on the team gets a rough idea of what the others are doing – successes and problems can thus be communicated to the entire team.

Additionally, our colleague Dennis had the great idea to keep our joint lunch alive digitally via video call. So we have a digital room that anyone can enter during lunch to exchange ideas with colleagues.

4. Central tool for task management

When it comes to tasks being processed within the team, we have an incredibly important tool: GetFlow. In this central location, we create projects with corresponding subtasks assigned to various team members. This way, we maintain a complete digital overview of large projects – and every team member knows exactly what needs to be done.

Of course, we could also communicate smaller tasks via Slack chat. However, there is a risk that important information gets lost there.

5. Digital data storage in the cloud

So that we can access the most important internal documents anytime and anywhere, we have stored them in the cloud – of course, compliant with GDPR. For questions and issues, there is the central blink.it hub, where we gather important information, instructions, and process documentation.

Additional information can also be found in our own blink.it courses, which we like to use for internal training. If I have questions, I occasionally check my personal onboarding course, where my colleague Laura has compiled all the important information about working in marketing and explains it in short videos. All the important tools for our team work are linked there as well.

My personal onboarding course at blink.it. // Source: blink.it

As you can see, meetings play a central role in our work; the exchange within the team is particularly important to us right now. We are convinced that we can only be productive if we do not lose sight of the focus of our work.

• The regular meetings help us achieve our goals.

• For questions and issues, we rely on our internal help pages and courses; this makes working from home possible without any problems.

• Regular video calls even create a bit of office feeling at home 🙂

What has your experience been with working from home? Is the exchange with your colleagues and employees going as well as it is for us? Are you having any issues? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

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