November
17
, 2022

Top Workplace Communication Issues to Look Out For

While communication should be a top priority for every company, managers and employees must overcome obstacles to keep lines of communication open and productive. Thankfully, newsletters, corporate desktop wallpaper software, and other tools can help to improve workplace communication, but identifying general communication issues is necessary before addressing internal communication concerns.

It is no secret that many businesses struggle with communication. Read on to discover the top workplace communication issues to look out for.

Egocentrism and Poor Attitude

Teamwork is hampered by attitude and ego. A coworker may try to dominate discussions while another may refuse to acknowledge their faults. Resentment, miscommunication, and conflict can be caused by egos and attitudes.

The manager must keep the team focused on the current duties and challenges. Only when resolutions suit the demands of all parties can true teamwork and collaboration emerge.

Lack of Listening and Understanding

Passive listening entails hearing someone without understanding or empathy. Individuals frequently speak, respond, and interrupt others rather than listening. Those who do not pay attention will miss the message. Miscommunication and disagreement ensue, stifling innovation and production.

Before starting a conversation, emphasize the significance of active listening. Inform your staff on how inattention and passive listening can impede them from gaining perspectives and ideas at work. As a leader, demonstrate active listening.

Disparities in Culture

The presence of multinational clients and staff has broadened the scope of the modern workplace. People are more easily influenced by people from their own culture or background; therefore, managers must interact with everyone as a team while also managing cliques and groupings.

Combat this by combining team members of different backgrounds. Separate staff into small groups for brainstorming and project creation. Furthermore, corporate desktop wallpaper software, newsletters, and email all help to reduce cultural disparities. Because it eliminates accents and spontaneous prejudices, written communication is more considered.

Ineffective Writing

In business communication, poorly written material is a typical problem. Corporate desktop wallpaper software, newsletters, and memos can help you connect with your team, but poorly written materials might confuse and frustrate them.

Low Internal Motivation

People who lack interest or motivation are more inclined to disregard your communication techniques. You can reach out to your team using corporate desktop wallpaper software, the intranet, and other methods to make them more inspired and invested in their work and the organization.

Overloading on Information

Workers today receive more information from competing sources than ever before. Employees may be inundated with emails, instant messaging, Teams discussions, corporate social media, and intranet information. It's possible that critical signals will get missed in the "noise."

Ineffective Internal Communication

Internal communications may be overlooked in many firms. If your employees, customers, and other stakeholders are not kept updated, your company's reputation may suffer.

When employees obtain critical information from outside sources, it can lead to confusion and animosity. Misinformation and rumors will proliferate if you do not share critical information with others, and you will lose control of the message.

Conclusion

A great team is one that is bound by effective communication and trust. This is something all firms must take into consideration. Regardless of cultural differences and differing skill sets, communication should be done clearly and effectively to work toward and achieve business goals.

Are you looking for a virtual office platform? Tandem is here to help you and your team collaborate at your best, from one project to the next. Discover more with us today!

October
27
, 2022

7 Types of Communication You’ll Encounter in a Workplace

Good communication is essential for any workplace. After all, without effective communication, how can tasks be assigned and completed? How can goals be met? How can a team work together cohesively? To function correctly, a workplace must have several different types of communication.

No matter what field you work in, effective communication is key to success. To be an efficient communicator, you must be aware of the different types of communication you may encounter in the workplace.

Here are seven types of communication you're likely to encounter in a professional setting.

1. Leadership Interaction

This is the communication that comes from the company's leaders and managers. It includes things like company announcements, updates on company strategy, and changes in company policy. Employees should be aware of this type of communication so that they can align their own goals and objectives with those of the company.

2. Management Communication

This is the communication that goes from employees to management. It includes things like feedback, suggestions, and questions. Upward communication is vital because it allows managers to understand what's going on at the ground level and make decisions accordingly.

3. Regular Updates

These are periodic updates on projects or initiatives that employees need to be aware of. They can come in email updates, memos, or team meetings. Updates help ensure everybody is on the same page toward common goals.

4. Team Presentations

Presentations are a standard workplace communication, especially in sales or marketing environments. They involve communicating information about a product or service to a group of people, usually to persuade them to buy or use the product/service. Presentations require strong public speaking skills and the ability to engage with an audience.

5. Group Meetings

Meetings are another common form of workplace communication. They involve bringing together a group to discuss a specific topic or issue. Meetings can be in-person or using a virtual office app, often involving some form of presentation or discussion.

6. Customer or Client Meetings

In many workplaces, employees need to communicate with customers regularly. This can involve answering customer questions, addressing customer concerns, or providing customer support. Effective customer communications require strong interpersonal skills and an understanding of customers' needs and wants.

Informal interactions are everyday conversations that take place between coworkers. They don't have a specific purpose or goal other than exchanging information or building relationships. Informal interactions include small talk, friendly conversations, and lunches out with coworkers. While they may seem insignificant, these interactions are essential in building trust and rapport within a team or organization.

Conclusion

Effective communication is essential to success in any workplace setting. By being aware of the different types of communication you may encounter in a professional setting, you can become a more effective communicator and contribute more effectively to your team or organization's success.

If you're looking for a more natural, intuitive virtual office app to collaborate with your team, Tandem may be your solution. With its easy-to-use interface and interactive screen-sharing capabilities, Tandem makes it easy for coworkers to jump into conversations and get started on projects together. Plus, with a virtual office app, there's no need to be in the same room to work together. So what are you waiting for? Try Tandem today!

May
05
, 2022

The 6 Best Tools for Hybrid Teams

Your offices are reopening, it is becoming safer to meet in-person again, and most companies are requesting their employees back to work in-person at least a few days a week. At the same time, over 15.9 million people moved to a different city or a different state during the pandemic, making almost every company distributed by default.

Hybrid Work is here to stay, and we strongly believe that it can be the best of both worlds, if done right. So the question becomes: How do you do it right? What do you need to change about your office structure, protocols, culture to create a seamless collaboration environment for in-person and remote employees alike?

At Tandem, we’ve not only been thinking on the hybrid problem for years, we've lived it. Our team is hybrid, with two micro-offices in SF and Cupertino, and some fully-remote team members. We've experimented with different types of hardware and software for years to find the right mix that made us feel like a team again, and helped us connect no matter where we were. So here are our picks for the 6 best tools that every hybrid team needs:

Tandem Hybrid Spaces to teleport around the office          

Hybrid collaboration can be challenging. Remote teammates suffer from the "second-class citizen problem" - feeling excluded from spontaneous brainstorms, magic moments, and the creative energy of the office. Hybrid Spaces bridge the gap between remote and in-person teammates to make hybrid work the best of both worlds. Spaces are made up of multiple kiosks distributed across your office (open floor, meeting rooms, lounges...) to enable remote mobility and seamless interactions.

Key features:

  • Hybrid screensharing and remote control
  • Speaking and presence indicators
  • Launch external meetings (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex)
  • Support multiple cameras at the same time
  • BYOH (Bring Your Own Hardware) - Spaces can be setup on most conferencing hardware, from a Logitech video and audio conferencing system to a simple chrome book depending on the size of your office and your budget.

Pricing: Spaces are available with any paid Tandem plan with an additional $50/month (for up to 25 kiosks).

Envoy to manage safe hybrid workplaces

Don’t let hybrid get in the way of working together. Envoy's easy-to-use hybrid work software lets you sync your schedule with your co-workers, so you can make the most of every day at the workplace. In addition to coordination, the platform also enables you to book spaces in advance at the office, conduct employee health screenings to ensure everyone is safe and gain valuable insights based on foot traffic and space utilization.

Key features:

  • Visitors management to welcome guests and secure your space.
  • Employee health screenings to keep everyone safe at work.
  • Flexible desk booking.
  • Deliveries management.
  • Meeting rooms management.

Pricing: Envoy's pricing goes anywhere from the free basic plan with limited features to $299/location/month.

Webex Board Series for hybrid collaboration

The new Webex Board Pro and the Webex Board series let you join video-first meetings, digitally whiteboard, annotate on shared content, use go-to web apps, and wirelessly present. These intuitive devices have everything necessary for effective team collaboration at a touch of a finger. With Ultra HD video, dual-camera intelligence, a capacitive touchscreen, and spacial audio, the suite enables premium experiences in collaboration spaces of all sizes.

Key features:

  • ultraHD interactive touchscreen
  • Dual 4K camera
  • Flexible mounting and wheel-stand option
  • Two magnetic styluses
  • Seamless room and device integrations

Pricing: Reach out to Webex for more information.

Owl for hybrid meetings and whiteboarding

Owl Labs' 360° video conferencing solutions are designed to make you feel like you are in the same room during hybrid team meetings. They enable remote teammates to see the whole room and listen to everyone clearly through the tri-speaker. In addition to that, all their products are equipped with AI technology that uses motion and voice detection to auto-focus on the speakers. If you havee larger meeting rooms, you can easily (and wirelessly) connect two Meeting Owl Pros to extend the video + audio range.

Key features:

  • 360° camera, mic, and speaker
  • Smart video conferencing powered by AI
  • Motion and voice-activated focus on the speaker
  • Panoramic view of everyone in the room

Pricing: The Meeting Owl Pro - $999 | Whiteboard Owl - $599

Tonari to work and meet as if you're in the same room

The technology to fuse together two rooms in two locations anywhere in the world already exists, but it often fails to go beyond underwhelming conference systems. Tonari aims to make its users feel like the rooms they are in have been fused into one. When their devices are installed, entire walls disappear, and their advanced video and audio systems enhance the illusion that two physical locations have merged into one. The company also provides shared digital whiteboards, notification systems and collaboration tools for hybrid teams.

Key features:

  • Life-sized and room-sized displays.
  • Fast, smooth, and immersive video feed with no awkward interruptions.
  • Screen sharing between 2 portals.

Pricing: Reach out to Tonari to request a quote.

Meta Portal to work smarter from home

Trusted work apps, powerful productivity tools and the precision of Smart Camera—all on a dedicated video calling screen. That’s Portal. And it can empower you and your team to work from home together like never before. Whatever video conferencing app your team uses, Portal has you covered—Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex Meetings, GoToMeetings, BlueJeans, and Workplace. Each with features you depend on, so you can get more done together, even when you’re far apart.

Key features:

  • Smart Camera that automatically pans and zooms.
  • Share your desktop with participants and collaborate in real time.
  • Breakout rooms to split off into smaller groups to brainstorm, share ideas and more.
  • Meeting recordings to capture important details and conversations to share out later.

Pricing: Depending on the model, Meta portals cost anywhere from $149 to $349.


@rymbadri | rym@tandem.chat

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Tandem is a virtual office for remote and hybrid teams that recreates your office environment on your desktop. Try it out with your team!
April
06
, 2022

Introducing Hybrid Spaces: Teleport around the office

Tandem Hybrid Spaces

The future is hybrid

Offices are powerful spaces for collaboration and creativity. In fact, working in-person can be like a team superpower—it builds trust, and trust (or psychological safety) unlocks speed and creativity. But flexibility is here to stay - not everyone is willing or able to be fully in-person. As a result, the best companies will be hybrid.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about the coming wave of hybrid work in Hybrid Anxiety and Optimism, and we've seen it happen. Here are some snippets from this month alone:

  • Google told employees that they are expected to go back to the physical offices by  April 4th. The company dedicated the month of March to helping teams "transition to new routines" in preparation for their "hybrid work approach."
  • Apple employees will be expected to work at least one day a week in the office, by April 11.
  • Microsoft employees moved to a hybrid work model on March 28.
  • Lyft will offer a permanent "fully flexible" policy, allowing employees to choose where to work and live.
  • Uber is giving its global office workers the option to apply for fully remote work or choose from a list of other office instead of their pre-pandemic location. Employees that choose to come back to the office will be asked to spend at least 50% of their time there.

But hybrid work has massive, systemic, org-level, and team-level tensions. Employees want flexibility, but this creates a logistical nightmare. In-person is naturally synchronous and spontaneous, but these conversations are especially difficult to include remote teammates in. Overall, remote teammates are severely underpowered, and can feel like 2nd-class citizens.

The office needs to evolve, but how?

We know the wrong answer: Bringing people back to the office only to take calls from separate rooms, have less spontaneous chats, and more scheduled meetings. This is truly the worst of both worlds. Instead, we must make remote employees more powerful than ever before.

We must give remote teammates the power to engage with in-person teammates as easily as a tap on the shoulder, join in on spontaneous jams and brainstorms, and collaborate effortlessly across multiple media.

At Tandem, we’ve not only been thinking on the hybrid problem for years, we've lived it. Our team is hybrid, with two micro-offices in SF and Cupertino, and some fully-remote team members. We experimented relentlessly, attempting to solve the problems we felt, personally, and ultimately held a company-wide hackathon, where we made a major breakthrough.

Enter Hybrid Spaces:

Using off-the-shelf conferencing hardware, Spaces give remote teammates an always-on window to teleport around the office.

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Hybrid Spaces, in 2 minutes.

As an in-person user, seeing your remote teammates on larger surfaces in the office feels surprisingly natural, and makes it easy to interact spontaneously.

As a remote user, the feeling of visibility and power is visceral. There's a sense of mobility - it feels like you can teleport around the office, and be where you want to be. There's also a strong feeling of presence - your teammates know you're around, and you're aware of the hum and energy in the office.

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Joining a spontaneous brainstorm with Hybrid Spaces

Spaces transform the open floor and unlock hybrid “hallway conversations” in-between meetings, but also bring fluidity to scheduled meetings. Some features to highlight:

  • Launch external meetings (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex)
  • Google Calendar resource support (launch meetings automatically)
  • Cast your local or remote screenshare with one click.
  • Support multiple cameras at the same time (e.g. show people and whiteboard at the same time)
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Collaboration on Hybrid Spaces

Quick to setup and flexible

Hardware is flexible. You can get started with a spare laptop but investing in nicer kiosks (mic + camera + TV) allows for a more immersive and engaging experience. We recommend at least 2-3 kiosks to get started with Spaces. They're easy to swap out and rearrange around the office based on your floorplan and traffic.

Setup is fairly quick and self-serve, and we’re happy to schedule a 15 minute setup call to help.

Pricing: Spaces are available with any paid Tandem plan with an additional $50/month (for up to 25 kiosks).

What our pilot companies say

"Lightfox Games is fully embracing a hybrid model, allowing people to work wherever they feel the most productive. As we moved back into a physical office space, we were worried about how we could ensure we maintain a collaborative environment with some team members together physically, and others working from home. Tandem Hybrid Spaces has been instrumental in ensuring that our remote employees and office employees feel effortlessly connected. From standups, to important meetings, to just watercooler chatter, The Kiosk is the heart of our office space." — Jordan Arnold, Head of Product/Design at Lightfox Games
"Our common use cases include checking on the status of 3D prints, fostering a tighter hybrid community, and enabling the magical ability to truly teleport throughout a workspace." — Ian Villa, COO at Whisper Aero
"Hybrid Spaces allow our team to recreate the serendipity of walking by a co-workers desk or dropping into their office for a quick chat. Although we are working thousands of miles apart, Hybrid Spaces help generate serendipitous interactions and make our team feel as if we are working together in the office." — David Bromberg, Founder at Lantern

Onwards

Hybrid Spaces are now available to set up (you don't have to be an existing Tandem user) - If you want to learn more prior to setup, feel free to book a 15-minute demo with us.

As a final thought, I’m personally thrilled that—in our pilots—Hybrid Spaces are delivering on what we set out to do a year ago. From my piece Hybrid Anxiety and Optimism:

While the fine details may still be fuzzy, we can sketch in broad strokes what a successful hybrid office will look like: Those workers who are remote will have access to the flow of in-person collaboration; you’ll look back on your last meeting, collaboration session, or spontaneous conversation, and not be able to recall which teammates were in the office and which were not.

— Rajiv Ayyangar (CEO)

April
04
, 2022

This Week in Hybrid (April 1, 2022)

Hi 👋 Happy Friday!

One of the questions we often get asked, is how should we rethink office locations and logistics now that we are shifting to a hybrid work model?

There are a few things companies can do: Keep the HQ, give hybrid teams access to co-working spaces with multiple locations in the US and internationally, open multiple small office hubs depending on where most people are located... But it can sometimes be hard to decide which model would work best for you and your team.

The answer? It depends. It depends on your company culture, team preference, your industry, the nature of tasks, and so much more. So this week, we bring you an article by HBR that dives into the different variants you should factor in your decision and how to build the perfect hybrid office strategy based on how your company operates.

Rym ⚡️

This Week in Hybrid

  • Salesforce is starting to implement their "Success from Anywhere" plan and is providing employees with three new ways to work: Office-Flexible, Home-Based or Office-Based. Their goal is to empower teams to decide how, when, and where they work.
  • TCS, Infosys, Wipro and additional tech service providers are restructuring their offices to adapt to hybrid work as their employees are starting to come back to the office.
  • Manulife, the Canadian insurance and investment solutions giant, is planning to fully reopen its Canadian offices next month and embrace hybrid work.
  • Saul Wing Arnstein & Lehr said it will no longer mandate that its 803 lawyers and staff work in the office. Instead the law firm will encourage all employees to work in the office every Wednesday and another four days of their choosing each month.

HBR Article

Which Hybrid Work Model Is Best for Your Business?

As more and more employees have shown that they can successfully work remotely, leaders of large international organizations are rethinking how much work needs to be done in offices and how much can be done remotely. And while hybrid work opens up new possibilities for a competitive advantage, it also can have shortcomings depending on your firm's goals. To better understand whether your business should take up a new hybrid organizational model, and how, first consider two factors: the core tasks that need to get done and the importance of having employees in international markets. Once you've outlined these factors, consider how they fit into four models: large hubs, hubs and satellites, distributed, and global virtual. Read more.

New Tech

An Open Doorway for Your Hybrid Team

The technology to fuse together two rooms in two locations anywhere in the world already exists, but it often fails to go beyond underwhelming conference systems. Tonari aims to make its users feel like the rooms they are in have been fused into one. When their devices are installed, entire walls disappear and their advance video and audio systems enhance the illusion that two physical locations have merged into one. The company also provides shared digital whiteboards, notification systems and collaboration tools for hybrid teams. Learn more about Tonari.

Research by AT&T Business and Dubber

State of the Industry: Future of Work

"The State of the Industry: Future of Work" survey was designed to gain insights from senior executives regarding current and future work models, challenges posed under new working models, and technology accelerants to aid change in the way that businesses conduct work out to 2024. The research shows hybrid work will become the standard operating model across industries by 2024. Striking results included: 81% of executives believe hybrid work will be the foremost working model by 2024, with 56% of work done offsite, 72% lack a detailed strategy and 76% don't have the right KPIs to support hybrid work models. 100% of the respondents believe a hybrid work model will help attract young talent. Read the full research.

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