💌 👨🏻‍🎤 🎃 The subtleties of communication on the remote: 5 worldly wisdom from the Team VKontakte 👨🏿‍🍳 💉 👨🏾‍🎤

Hello! My name is Katya Lebedeva. I have been working in VKontakte for the past 8 years: I worked in Support, then I led the same team, and last year I headed two more areas: the Editorial Board, where all VKontakte texts are created in all languages, and the Laboratory, in which we are engaged in internal communications of the company and individual inter-team projects. In each of my teams, most of the employees either work fully or partially on a remote site - we chose this format many years before self-isolation became mainstream.

VKontakte has about 1,000 employees, our headquarters are located in three cities. At the same time, a third of the team is constantly working remotely - which means it can be located anywhere in the world where there is Internet. And we all need to communicate and remain in a single information field - regardless of who and where it has brought. We are used to working communication on VKontakte: we use communities, chats, channels, broadcasts, calls and longreads.

Over time, we have developed a whole culture of internal online communications, with the introduction of which one way or another begins the path of each recruit. This culture allowed the entire team to quickly and relatively painlessly switch to remote work in connection with quarantine - all our processes are already “down to earth” online, so nothing changes globally.

In this article, I will talk about 5 practical techniques that greatly simplify life in a remote environment.

Tip one: always respond

Remember how in movies about scouts they cheerfully shout into the radio: “Roger that”? This is done so that the interlocutor is sure that the flow of incoming information has really ended - and this is not due to interference in the broadcast.

Exactly the same old-school rule should be used in any online communications. The marker of what you have read and accepted the information can be anything - whether it’s like a post to a working community, a sticker or a concise “OK” in a working chat. The form is not important, but the signal itself: "I understand, accept, proceed!"

Any reaction is better than no reaction. Even if the colleague’s replica does not seem to require an answer or any clarifications, it is better to show him that the information has been accepted. Otherwise, you leave your interlocutor in limbo: what if you opened a message but forgot about it in the work flow? Or do not agree, but did not dare to talk about it? Or is your cat sitting on the other side of the monitor in an embrace with his younger brother?

In online communications, it is always better to play it safe - otherwise you lose contact, the processes get up and everything goes awry.

Tip two: clarify not ashamed

It’s a pleasure to work side by side with your team: discuss problems and possible pitfalls with your voice, solve problems on the way to the meeting room, share news in the shared kitchen, eating coffee with cheese B. Yu. Alexandrov. " If you have any doubts in the course of work, you simply look into the radiant faces of your colleagues, find the friendliest person and pour out your silly questions right on his head. As a rule, everything is decided.

It’s quite another matter to take and write about your difficulties in a chat, where everyone has such beautiful and pathos avatars (everyone chose the best). It’s much harder to wedge in between things and ask a question to these perfect people. As a result, some particularly shy employees prefer to fall through the ground and do as they understood (wrong), but do not ask direct questions. The deadlines are delayed, part of the tasks goes into remaking, everyone is sad.

Avoiding this depressing scenario is simple: immediately discuss that asking any questions is not a shame. Start with yourself and introduce wonderful phrases: “I understand correctly that ...” and “My question may seem silly, but I’ll clarify”. It’s better to set an example in general chats so that others can see that no one bites their head after that. The mantra “questions is cool” should become your motto on every first call. Well, of course, do not forget about advice number 1 - always respond. The lack of personal communication will have to be compensated for by increased activity online.

Tip three: don't ask questions without links

“Hi, what’s up there, looked?” - you read, and a ringing emptiness spreads in your head. You do not remember whether you looked - moreover, you have no idea what exactly you should have looked. To twist the correspondence up, pushing through dozens of other messages, you are lazy. You decide to return to the question later. A colleague is nervous, thunderclouds are covering the sky ... I

suspect that such stories happen in every company - but avoiding the problem is easier than easy: just think about the person you are talking to and immerse him in the right context. This saves time on both sides and greatly simplifies life.

Never ask questions without links: if you decide to shake up and discuss the backlog, immediately transfer the necessary tasks to Jira to the person you are talking to, if you are discussing a vacation, remind you of which tickets you dreamed of before closing the borders, if you are writing an article, attach a link to a text file with a draft. When you need something from the interlocutor, your task is to make his life as easy as possible. For example, do not make him painfully remember what it was all about. Each of us has his own scope of work and his head is clogged with his routine chores - help the interlocutor immediately plunge into the topic, give all the necessary information to your hands. And it will already become easier.

Fourth tip: video> voice> text

I think every time I heard a mantra about the fact that people primarily perceive non-verbal information: your tone, voice volume and manner of speech, posture, smell, appearance and the like signals. The meaning of words affects the success of communication much less than we would like.

It's time to think about it and think about what tools are best to use to solve your problems. In some cases, you can get by with the text, but if you want to harness all your power of persuasion and charm, you can’t do without a video. Voice is a compromise.

I draw these boundaries for myself:

, , , — . , . — , . .
( ), — , — . , , — . .
, ToDo/ToBeDone — .

It is clear that this is by no means a complete list and each may have its own thoughts - the main idea is that you consciously juggle with tools and do not forget to add charm when you feel that it is necessary.

Tip five: never underestimate the power of flood

For a couple of years I avoided informal work chats, arguing that they wildly distract me, but there was no benefit in them. I was mistaken: there is still some benefit there, and the longer you sit at home in isolation, the brighter it appears.

Large flood chats are essentially a virtual kitchen / smoking room of the company with all the consequences: you can find news, gossip, a sense of unity and memes about the toad on Wednesdays. It's wednesday, my dudes! Such chats provide an opportunity to get to know others and show themselves on the informal side.

This is especially true for those titans that have not broken under pressure from the public and still end sentences with a dot instead of a smiley face. From the outside, this is perceived as a manifestation of extreme arrogance - believe me, I know what I'm talking about, it has flown to me more than once. Is it hard for you to squeeze a sticker? No problem, at least send everyone a picture of your cactus. Let colleagues not forget that you also have human weaknesses.

In fludilk people “sniff” and realize that colleagues are not some strange strangers without feelings, but quite lively and warm personalities, sometimes even with a good sense of humor. The level of trust is growing, as a result, and working issues are solved more easily. And that’s what we need.

Shortly speaking

Think about the interlocutor, ask questions, drive shyness, wisely use tools and do not be so serious - the work will become easier and more enjoyable. By the way, the same rules apply equally to offline communication, but this is a completely different story.