Your Florence Expert
Ryan Jones
Chief Executive Officer
When your team is remote, staying updated on each coworkers schedule and daily tasks are necessary to ensure operations continue to run smoothly. High level information, like office updates, are also important to communicate clearly to all employees.
At Florence, we have tested numerous processes to foster company culture and transparent communicate when working remotely. One significant process has stuck with us throughout our existence and we call it daily standup. We want to share exactly how you can implement this paramount meeting at your company when moving to a remote office.
With teams across the globe, and many remote workers, creating a space where everybody can meet daily helps uphold company culture and keep every individual in the loop.
Departments share as a group what they are working on each day, update the company on cross-departmental activities and allow for ample time to make adjustments on current projects. If your company is too large to do a full company standup, you can instead hold a daily standup for your team or group of departments you work closely with.
Daily standup provides considerable company value and gives the team a little breather to connect and bond everyday.
Even with a large amount of updates, standup usually wraps up in under 15 minutes, giving employees only a small ask of daily time.
These are our top 10 suggestions, guidance and tips for standup to keep the company culture alive and projects running smoothly during remote work.
Select a Video Conferencing Platform
The most basic element of stand-up is ensuring that you have a video conferencing option in place for all users to be able to join your daily meeting. If you are unsure of what platforms will fit your needs, this post on remote tools will be a great place to get a better idea on what will work for your team.
Hold Stand-Up at the Same Time Every Day
Creating stability in stand-up meetings is critical in order for this meeting to provide benefit and remain prominent to your remote culture. In order to promote stability, hold stand-up meetings at the same time every day. Be sure to select a time that is simple for all participating time-zones to join easily.
Turn your Video ON
Seeing employees face to face allows for teammates to assess body language and really get to engage fully with one another. When your team is working remotely, it is important to maintain this element of engagement and human interaction. Motivate employees to turn their videos ON and make it a comfortable environment for them to show up without being in picture perfect business attire.
Vary Who Leads Each Session.
Empowered employees are not only happier at their jobs but are also more productive. Have a different employee be the “leader” of stand-up each day to call on the various departments to speak and set the tone for the daily meeting. Practicing this technique keeps stand-up interesting, organized and refreshing.
Be Creative on Who Talks When
Get creative with deciding who gets to talk when! With everybody joined together in one video conferencing meeting it can get complex with who talks at what time. Adding a fun element like voting on best PJ’s or racing to see who joins the meeting first is a light-hearted way to start off the gathering and helps keep the meeting organized.
Present at the Department Level
Allow departments to present as one group, which cuts down on the time commitment of this meeting. Each department can decide who speaks on what day and how to gather their updates. Most departments at Florence share their updates in a departmental Slack channel and select a stand-up presenter to speak. If your updates are sensitive information that cannot be shared on a non-compliant platform, be sure to only share information where regulations allow.
Encourage Three to Five Updates per Department
Encourage departments to only present their top three to five updates in order to keep the meeting concise with only need-to-know information.
Share All Cross-Department Updates
Share all cross-departmental updates, as well as adjusted or new processes that may affect other groups. Stand-up is a great time to notify other groups of these changes so they can set up the needed meetings or conversations offline.
Present Awards and Kudos
Infuse fun and peer recognition into each stand-up meeting to increase a positive and supportive attitude. At Florence, we present a “Fresh” award each Monday to an employee who is upholding our values and kicking butt at their job. The current Fresh award holder selects the next employee of the coveted award, which encourages peer to peer bonding.
Announce Office and General Updates
Present all office updates, holidays, new employee notifications and other announcements at this time to keep a cohesive understanding throughout all employees of the most up-to-date company information. This practice helps eliminate confusion amongst remote employees around every day, high-level topics.
We hope these tips help you as much as they helped us keep a clear, concise communication and culture when working remote.
If you are interested in learning more about the team behind standup, check out our Florence Team page here.