Working remotely. Your 10 tips to success

I've now spent over a month working remotely. My team are all at home. The office is closed. Video-conferencing, email and messaging now becomes the norm of any communication, so what do we lose in these times?

Professor Mehrabian, the pioneer of communications , combined the statistical results of the two studies and came up with the now famous—and famously misused—rule that communication is only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal. The non-verbal component was made up of body language (55 percent) and tone of voice (38 percent).

So if we use email & messaging as our norm then we lose 55% of any meaning.

So what can we do to prevent this?

1. Understand it's still good to talk. Use video conferencing

2. Invite discussion, open collaboration and feedback. Give people a reason to talk to you

3. Use the phone

4. If you are on a video conference, then let people see you.

5. Be more aware that our usual mode of communication has been muted significantly, & make allowances

6. Staying connected takes work. Understand more effort is needed. Arrange more virtual meets

7. Create a work and life divide.

8. Sync with your team on a regular basis & don't forget to have fun and use the digital channels to your advantage. It takes 5 seconds to send a good morning happy gif.

9. Go outside and have a break

10. Know that this won't be forever. We are all in the same boat finding out way