Even though Stylight is a very agile and flexible company, where many employees are used to working remotely occasionally, working 100% remotely due to corona virus restrictions and self-isolation is definitely a challenge. We came up with some ideas to keep each other motivated and – most importantly – connected through these times. Sharing is more than ever caring, so here are 7 easy, small things we’re currently doing at Stylight that definitely keep & even improve our team spirits!
1. Check-in & Check-out everyday
It may sound a bit unnecessary, but: check in with your team mates every morning, and check out in the evening. Now it’s more important than ever to over-communicate, since you can’t see each other and talk in person. Just sending a quick “Good morning, everyone!” in your team chat lets your colleagues know you’ve started working and you’re available. Same goes for the evenings. With a “See you tomorrow guys!” everybody knows you’re offline, and nobody will desperately wait for an answer and get annoyed at you.
What also helps a lot is setting your status to “in a meeting” or “lunchbreak” when you know you’ll be unavailable and can’t read messages for quite some time. That way people also expect to wait a little longer for a response.
2. Virtual coffee machine for in-between-chats
We all need little breaks in between to chat, to get new ideas, or just to get your mind off the things you’re too focused on at the moment. Stand up, have a little walk through your apartment or to the fridge, open your windows from time to time… Usually this is the moment where we would go to the coffee machine in our office and chat with other colleagues. Why not do it from home as well?
That’s why at Stylight we created a virtual coffee counter: a Google Meeting where anyone can join anytime, if you want to have a break and just chat with someone else from the office. You can even define a specific time a day with your team to meet and have non-work-related chats – or have virtual lunch dates. And after having a little laugh together & distraction, you’re always in a better mood!
3. Show me your home office!
Ever wondered how your boss’ home looks like? Now it’s the perfect time to get to know your team from a different perspective 😉 At Stylight we’re sharing pictures from our funniest home office & working-from-home-with-pets-or-kids situations. Sharing those little moments helps a lot to stay connected and to get you through the day – especially when you’re home alone without any family or room mates!
4. Virtual Kudo Cards
Back in our office we used to have little Kudo cards that we could write and give to another colleague to say things like “thank you”, “congrats!” or “you did a great job!”. Now that this is not really possible anymore, we quickly digitalised our cards to be able to send them around via email:
5. Office yoga goes online
Especially if you’re working in front of your screens the whole day, it’s very important to move and stretch your body every once in a while. When you’re working from home it’s even more difficult to disconnect from work, as you’re not able to change places. Our tip is: continue or start doing yoga! Your future self will thank you for it. At Stylight we usually have a free yoga class in the office once a week. Luckily our lovely yoga teacher Christina from the.downdog continues to give us online yoga classes – with a yoga live stream. Thank god there’s internet, we can connect online, and continue to do our yoga practice at home all together.
In case your company doesn’t offer yoga classes, you can of course either do any yoga session you can find online, or you can join ours: Christina is the best! And it’s only 10€ for 60 minutes. Come join our yoga practice and get your mind off work and the daily news. Follow her on Instagram if you want to find out more.
6. Sharing our working from home tips with each other
Everyone has their own best practices for working from home. If it’s having a breakfast before you start working, or have a regular routine like you would actually go in the office… share your home office tips with each other so everyone can benefit from it! What works best for you might actually help a colleague who’s struggling with staying motivated or productive while working from home.
That’s exactly what we did at Stylight last week and want to share with all of you guys as well. Here you can check out our blog posts about our best working from home tips:
20 tips on how to get the most out of working from home (Part 1)
20 tips on how to get the most out of working from home (Part 2)
7. And the dress code today is…
Yeah, you read it right 😉 It might be tempting to stay in your PJs all day long when working from home, but we figured out it’s fun to have a team dress code once a week. The latest dress code for us was “statement shirts” for example, and that’s how we looked like:
If you haven’t already, feel free to give one of those ideas a try! We very much hope these tips help keeping your team spirit while working from home as they do for us. What are you guys doing to be better connected with each other these days? Let us know in the comments.
