Whereby co-founder’s 6 tips for nailing remote work
What does it take?
Whereby’s vision is “to give people freedom and flexibility to live and work where they thrive.” There are now 48 people in 17 locations across 6 time zones, delivering a simple solution for video meetings with paying customers in 150+ countries. They also have a passion to make meetings more fun, for example by letting participants react to the speaker with emojis.
“In the beginning, it was a lot about making those few working remotely feel included, and one of the things we did was to put up a big monitor and have a video room open all day,” she laughs.
Ingrid has a warning, too, for those not prepared for a certain imbalance that can happen when companies go partly remote.
“Be aware of the asymmetry, which can arise if only a few work remotely and you don’t invest properly in tools and culture. Then you might get it wrong.” Instead, her advice is to build a culture in which you always assume that someone will be remote.
Ødegaard explains how they have tried to replicate some parts of office life, like small-talk in meetings, shared coffee breaks, and chat-rooms. Team chat programs are crucial, according to Ødegaard.
“We have open group discussions in our chat group, visible for anyone, so that everyone can see and participate in the discussions – as you would if someone sparked a conversation at the office. It is crucial to have team chat as a secondary channel to video meetings,” she says.
