It looks like work from home is here to stay for many of us. Nearly three quarters (74%) of business leaders surveyed in this year’s YPO Global Pulse survey believe flexible work arrangements will become more permanent throughout 2022. For many businesses this means more Zoom meetings, mismatched time zones, and mute button fumbles for their fully remote or co-located teams.

You can use your forum@work to continually address challenges created by remote work and follow our Tips for Conducting Forum Virtually to ensure your virtual forum creates an environment of high trust, commitment, and goodwill among your team.

Your forum@work is a unique one hour window for your team members to share their daily highs and lows. As a result, your forum meeting is a great place for your team members to be vulnerable and transparent about the challenges (and opportunities) they face while working from home.

While numerous articles lament the prevalence of Zoom fatigue, reduced productivity, and distractions working from home, we often feel like we’re the only ones experiencing these challenges. In your forum you can create stronger connections between your team and begin to overcome these obstacles by providing your team members the opportunity to share and relate to each other’s experiences. 

Tips for Conducting Forum Virtually 

1. Establish and Repeat Virtual Forum Ground Rules: At the beginning of every forum@work meeting you repeat forum ground rules for confidentiality, sharing, and providing feedback. Consider adding and repeating new rules about camera usage, putting away cell phones, and limiting multitasking during virtual forum meetings. 

2. Minimize Distractions: As a forum moderator or participant, model Zone 3 listening (listening to connect and understand how the speaker is feeling) and giving your full attention to the forum. Resist every temptation to glance at your cell phone or other windows on your computer to be fully present.  

3. Be Flexible: Working at home looks different for everyone. Be flexible that your team member’s children, pet, delivery person, or other unexpected distraction may interrupt your forum meeting. Establish ground rules for what a team member should do if an interruption arises (i.e. mute their line, turn their camera off) and keep your forum moving.   

4. Maintain Your Group Chat: Your forum@work Group Chat provides a quick and accessible platform for team members to share throughout the work day. Encourage your team to continue using the group chat to share triumphs and tribulations while working from home.  

5. Count Away The Silence: As the forum moderator, count to five seconds in your head after asking a question before moving on to encourage participation and prevent awkwardness. At the end of your count you can announce, “that was five seconds, so I will move on.”  

We’d love to hear from you about how you conduct your forum@work virtually and which tips you will implement with your team! Let us know by joining the conversation on our LinkedIn page!