Keeping Remote Teams in the Loop
A year ago, companies were adding work benefits to entice their employees to stay in the office with free meals, great artwork and massage chairs. Now, organizations are working remotely and looking for ways to optimize work-from-home environments for employees.
As the implementation of remote work continues, different perspectives are being explored globally as to whether remote work or hybrid work will be a better option. While most teams surveyed are enjoying working from home, the same surveys also indicate that team members are feeling lonely, missing face-to-face camaraderie and are eagerly looking for ways to feel more connected to each other.
Raj Singh, the Co-founder, and CEO of Loop Team is here to help fully distributed and hybrid companies offer better communication tools and practices so the team feels more connected. Loop Team is a virtual office for distributed teams. They solve the problems of loneliness and meeting burnout by bringing the best parts of being in an office into a virtual workspace. The solution encourages more serendipitous communication so offices can reimagine a virtual environment in a way that actually works.
Singh is the perfect person to start a company like Loop Team. His former company was created with a partially distributed team setup—the office space was based in the SF Bay Area but he had remote team members that were scattered across the US and the world. However, after his startup was acquired, he learned that some of his remote team members felt out of the loop.
When Remote Workers Are Feeling Out of the Loop
It’s true that most teams are seeing increased productivity while fully distributed. People are working longer hours because they feel they can put more time in the mornings or in the evenings but according to Microsoft Research, innovation is down. The same Harvard Business Review article connected this decline in innovation as a function of less casual banter, hallway chats and background discussions. Managers are attempting to mitigate this by scheduling more forced interactions to spark imagination but it’s simply not enough.
A New Toolbox
The issues with work-from-home teams stem from a fundamental issue of trying to use the same tools that businesses once used with physically present teams. Loop Team is working to create a sense of presence in remote work with new tools to recreate the feeling of knowing who’s available to chat, like you would in-person, through social cues. With Loop Team, remote workers can see who’s available and drop in on people by simply clicking on someone. The process feels a lot like being in an office and tapping someone’s shoulder.
Creating Remote Experiences with Agora
Businesses can measure the connectedness of a team by understanding their communication. Singh points out that the more a team communicates the more connected they feel. Agora has helped Loop Team connect teams all around the world through its Real-Time Engagement platform. With Agora, Loop Team is able to provide a custom app with embedded voice and video calling, recording features, and real-time messaging—the products needed to truly engage entire organizations and not just the small teams within it.
Click here to watch the entire video with Raj Singh. To learn more about Loop Team or Raj Singh, visit the Loop Team website, or contact Raj directly through email or on Twitter. If you’re ready to start adding Real-Time Engagement features to your app, contact Agora, and start building meaningful human connections today.
