Kal Joffres, co-founder of innovation lab Tandemic, on how working remotely can improve teamwork
The outbreak of Covid-19 has instigated the world's largest ever work-from-home experiment. While many struggle to adapt to the new normal, and most will rush straight back to the office once the pandemic subsides, there are also those who believe working remotely can lead to stronger teamwork. Social innovator Kal Joffres is one of those people. If done right, he says, online working can result in clearer, less hierarchy-driven collaboration between team members.
Based in Malaysia, Joffres is the co-founder and CEO of innovation lab Tandemic, which has worked with governments, Unicef and corporations such as Microsoft to identify “more agile ways of working”. Tandemic champions the concept of "design thinking", an approach to developing products and services through an understanding of the user’s needs.
Like everyone else, Joffres and his team have had a digital-first work arrangement since the outbreak, but it's nothing new to them. “The way we work hasn’t been significantly affected because the team is well-versed in online collaboration. Our offering [to clients], however, has shifted overnight.
"Many of our workshops and strategy sessions with clients were in-person as they preferred that. But over the past few weeks, we’ve been spending a lot of time training them to run online workshops, conferences and much more.”
As the outbreak looks set to worsen before it gets better, Joffres shares tips on how to maximise productivity and improve teamwork while working remotely, and how remote working can even be an improvement on in-person collaboration.
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Show your face
“When you’re meeting a group of people face-to-face, there are so many things that happen automatically or spontaneously,” says Joffres. Conversely, with online interactions, there is the option of remaining “unseen” and staying hidden behind the computer screen. “Imagine being in a conversation where you don’t know if the person across from you is paying attention, or if they’re even physically present. That’s what a call without video is.”
A good way to prevent this is by fostering a culture of turning on your camera. Joffres gets people into the habit by starting his meetings with an activity that requires the other person to show their surroundings. “I like to ask people to show a little bit of their home office, or maybe an object on their desk that’s important to them and have them tell the story behind it.”