How to get the benefits of a remote team without sacrificing social interaction

By
Fabio Gatto
January 17, 2023
5 min read
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Guest blog by Fabio Gatto from NT Group

Working remotely and experiencing the office atmosphere? It sounds unbelievable but we swear it’s not impossible.

Why is it that some companies choose to work remotely?
To have a distributed team, a group spread across the territory?There are so many potential benefits…
But at NT Group, those are primarily these two:

The ability to choose from top talent across the country, instead of near the office (and more importantly, to be chosen by them);
Greater flexibility and freedom of life for each person in the company. No one has to choose between living in a place they love or being part of the NT Group team. You can have it both ways.
You may be thinking, “that’s nice, but working remotely also brings a lot of challenges with it…”
True! So many challenges. All of them addressable in our opinion (if you’re interested in this topic, speak with us).In this article we talk about one challenge in particular: the risk of feeling isolated and losing the informal communication so typical of office work.Let us tell you how we dealt with it….

“The goals set have been met, the chats have increased without decreasing productivity. We are all happy with our new shared space.”

Summer 2021.
It is now clear that most of our team will continue to work remotely.
So we look for a solution that will allow us to achieve 3 things:

Reproduce the dynamics of informal office interaction (the coffee machine) while maintaining the freedoms of full-remote.
“Always be two clicks away”. To optimize internal meeting time without having to send each other emails, invitations, links, which destroy the concept of spontaneous communication (no one emails to ask if you want coffee).
To generate awareness about who you can “bother” and when — because informal communications are nice, but the beauty of working remotely is also that no one is bothering you while you’re concentrating.
We find out that there are a number of “virtual office” solutions.
After a thorough comparison of various software we finally find something with the features we want. A good solution. TEEMYCO.

A virtual office consisting of a fully customizable map, in which to insert offices, meeting rooms, break rooms (because let’s face it, simple and intuitive interfaces work better, and customizing the office makes it yours).
A virtual office in which entering the common rooms, the meeting starts automatically. No links. No external software. If someone asks if I’ll see you today at 11:00, I already know where.
A virtual place where, when I go for coffee, I can send a notification to the team: “hey, I’m having coffee, anyone want to chat?”.
A place from which I can leave with a click. Do I have a call with clients? I want to focus on a presentation I need to finish by tonight. I close the App and leave the office, the team will know not to bother me.
The goals set have been met, the chats have increased without decreasing productivity. We are all happy with our new shared space.
Two years ago, we would have said it was a foolish idea.Want to know more about this story? Book a chat with us!

(FYI: TEEMYCO is free for groups smaller than 25 people).

Bricks don’t make a business. People make it.
And it’s the same way remotely, if you use the right tools and processes.

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Fabio Gatto
Innovation Lead @ NT Group
Teemyco, your office, online