I love working remotely/working from home. My quality of life is way higher when I don't have to commute to an office.
But, there are a few things I miss about the office. First is the camaraderie. Being able to share quick jokes, ask questions, brainstorm something out really quickly. I also miss being surrounded by people working on something. I always found that inspiring.
So, we decided to try a little experiment at Taskable. We use Tandem for internal video/voice chat, and we created a #co-working channel.
Whoever wants to can jump in there and work. You hear each other typing, we have quick chats, share jokes, commiserate. Better yet, Tandem has a Spotify integration so one person can DJ for the room.
It's helped us a lot with that camaraderie and culture. Say we have a tense meeting, and some people walk away unsatisfied. When we all jump back into the #co-working space we can quickly change the mood of the team.
It might sound like it would be distracting - and I thought for sure it would be - but somehow it works. I'll be interested to see what happens as the team grows.
I wrote up a blog on this if interested in learning more about how we do it.
that is really neat! i'm going to read it. thanks for sharing!
I agree. We use Discord at Starloop Studios. We have a private server in which there are channels for different departments and topics, and also meeting rooms.
In those meeting rooms you can see people from the “outside “, it’s a similar feeling to go through an office and see people in meeting rooms through the glass walls.
We also have open coworking voice rooms where people can share their screen while working. Anyone can join the stream and engage in a conversation if they want.
Not all the team uses it, but I love it.