5 tips for effective remote communication

The health crisis seems to be slowly fading from our daily lives, and we are delighted to be back in the office! Covid-19 has nevertheless changed our working habits tremendously. We should definitely keep some of them, such as teleworking, after this pandemic. Here are our 5 tips on how to make the best use of the technological tools we have at our disposal, to ensure better communication at a distance.

For over a year now, remote working has been the norm. Now we have the choice again to come back to the office and have "real" interactions with our colleagues. Although teleworking is no longer a full-time requirement, it should still be used in companies, but in a more moderate way. Employers and employees will therefore have to change the way they work together, to combine office work with remote work. One of the most important issues in this new way of working is how to keep the connection between employees, customers and partners. Here are 5 tips on how to do this, thanks to technological tools.

Use the right IT solutions

The use of digital tools for communication, collaboration and planning has soared in recent months. While many of us already had these solutions in place before the health crisis, we have mostly started to use them and exploit their full potential since the start of the pandemic.

Tomorrow, it will be important to choose, from the plethora of tools available on the market, the one or ones that are adapted to your company, to your activity, to your employees, to your needs, in order to facilitate interactions between people present in the office and those working from home.

Don't forget informal interactions

The coffee break, lunchtime in the canteen, afterworks, etc. are all opportunities to talk and communicate with colleagues, to relax, to create a team feeling. When teleworking is practiced one or two days a week, these moments become rarer. And in our digital conversations, we tend to get straight to the point and talk only about work. Internal communication is therefore a real challenge when teams, or parts of them, are teleworking.

To keep everyone connected and engaged, it is essential to recreate and encourage informal exchanges. In this respect, deferred digital communications - chat and e-mail, for example - should not be a complete substitute for video meetings and phone calls. Talking and hearing each other rather than writing to each other allows for real-time exchanges, recognition of each other's emotions, perception of non-verbal language, and avoidance of misunderstandings. In the same way, it is also important to take time to decompress together, in real and virtual time.

Use video-conferencing without moderation

Whether you want to communicate with your colleagues or your clients, don't hesitate to use video-conferencing. It is indeed more pleasant to see each other in order to talk. These tools also make it easier to exchange information, by sharing files for example.

To help you maintain the relationships that are important to the success of your business, Orange Luxembourg offers the Highfive video conferencing service. Up to 125 participants can connect simultaneously and join a virtual meeting room, with or without a moderator.

Unlike many other tools, Highfive does not require you to download software or an application, enter a PIN code or a telephone number to access the video conference. No more unnecessary time wasting: with a single click, your meetings can start, regardless of the device used - desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Sharing screens and documents is also simplified.

But security is not forgotten - quite the opposite. The Highfive video conferencing service runs natively on WebRTC, an open standard for real-time communications that is embedded in all modern web browsers. It includes on-premises hardware devices combined with cloud services. All cloud services are hosted by leading providers located in Europe (AWS Cloud Platform) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Merge your landlines and mobiles

To be reachable wherever you are - in the office, at home or on the move - it may be worthwhile to use the IT solution of landline-mobile convergence.

In concrete terms, this involves merging the two types of subscription. This means that you can make calls from your landline or mobile phone from a single device and you can be reached on a single telephone number. So even if you are not in the office, you can answer calls on your landline with your smartphone.

Check the reliability of your Internet connection

And yes, this is key! If your internet is slow or unreliable, you won't be able to work efficiently. So take the time to make sure you have a good connection, tailored to your needs, both at work and at home.