Able Joseph says video calls have made working from home easier, but he misses the impromptu debates when the team is gathered together.
With most of us working from different homes and cities, video calls have been very beneficial in getting teams and collaborators on the same page. But Aisle founder Able Joseph believes it leaves something to be desired, at least for his own team.
“Video calls have made us more agreeable. In a way, that's good, but I miss the debates. There's a particular atmosphere of creativity that comes with people disagreeing in a room. We are a team that's always in a rush to ship a new feature and have a habit of changing our minds halfway. Now, I feel we don't change our minds often enough and wait longer to make creative decisions,” he explained.
United by a common goal Another thing Joseph misses is the easy banter that comes from the entire team working from the same office. “There's a lot that gets lost while communicating through screens. I've come to realise that one's body language compliments their verbal communication in a big way.”
Aisle team on a team outing in the pre-Covid times. “Before the lockdown, we used to discuss art, culture, politics, business, and just about anything under the sun. These discussions created a culture of camaraderie and somehow got everyone in the team to focus on our long term goals. At a subconscious level, when you work in solitude, you are often completing a series of tasks. But when you work together, you are trying to achieve a common goal. The results measured at the end of a particular day may be the same, but over time, it's certainly more fulfilling for individuals to work from a commonplace.”
Hoping to mimic the easy camaraderie of the office, the team has instituted a daily non-agenda video call, 40-minute Zoom lunches and have even added emojis to their Slack account. “We try to express through emojis when we are not able to express through our body language,” said Joseph.
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