by Larisa Medina
Working from home has been the life-long dream of many. Being able to answer emails from a local coffee shop, while taking in the delightful smells of that freshly brewed espresso. Or perhaps working from our apartment, a la Carrie Bradshaw, with a fresh breeze coming in through the window and the city sounds filling our “workstation”. In this fantasy of working from home, we never factored in the importance of the every day “flow” with our colleagues. Add to this a pandemic, being quarantined and being physically distant and you have yourself a recipe for having a hard time interacting with your co-workers! The cherry on top? Starting at a new company with a completely new group of people.
Phone and Zoom calls are great, but there’s nothing like walking together down the street to the local café to grab an iced latte while getting to know each other. Olives love being creative, and this gives us the perfect opportunity for that! Below are 3 tips to help you build and nurture strong relationships with your team, while working from home.
- Zoom Happy Hours but add a little bit of *spice*. Rather than just drinking together during the class, why not make them together? You can create a virtual cocktail/mocktail making class with your team and include an accompanying charcuterie board for snacking along the way. For our holiday party this year our friends at Snake Oil Cocktail put together an incredible virtual mixology class with a personalized kit that was delivered to each of our employees. Once you log into the zoom class, you’ll all get to create your cocktail together, and enjoy it afterwards! You’ll laugh SO hard seeing how slow some people are (me), while others are the perfect mini bartenders! Pro Tip: this is a time when nobody should be on mute.
- Two letters – D M. Instagram is the perfect way for you to be social and get to know your colleagues on a different level. There’s nothing like sending each other the best memes and laughing along the way. It’s also a great way to help each other stay on top of your professional game. Special shoutouts to some accounts we love: @prcouture, @beforeyouhitsend, @prgirlmanifesto and @miss_pr_piggy.
- Last but not least, don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s easy to overthink things, especially when you’re new to the team, but relax! It can be so easy to misinterpret people’s tone through text, so what do we do? We Google Meet! Sometimes you don’t even have to be saying anything, but it gives us the opportunity to randomly ask a quick question or just enjoy each other’s energy as if we were back in the office. You’ll be so connected from doing this that before you know it, you’ll be sharing funny stories from your past and embarrassing pictures of you in high school! (yes, we’ve done that).
If you decide to incorporate these tips into your work environment, let us know! We’d love to hear your fun stories.
Xo,
Larisa