5 tips for connecting with remote colleagues

Webex Teams for remote team collaboration

With a massive shift towards remote working, we are relying more than ever on team collaboration apps to maintain real-time, business normality. Virtual workspaces have become the new water cooler and video meetings have become the new board room.

Face-to-face meetings over video help to overcome distance barriers by enabling check-ins with teammates and colleagues to push a project forward, or even just to check-in and see.

But how else is the Webex platform helping teams stay more connected with the people and projects that matter most? Webex Team messaging is a perfect accompaniment to virtual meetings and in this blog, I’m going to share 5 tips for how you can use this modern team messaging platform to stay in touch.

Top 5 features for in Webex Teams

So, whether you are new to team collaboration apps or a veteran, here are our top 5 features you need to know about:

Signal your presence

My first tip is, make sure people know you are available. Start by choosing an avatar. Do you want a professional-looking headshot? Or something more informal – only you know what works in your organization. Once you’ve set up your avatar, your presence status lets people know if you’re available or not. We have now improved presence status by adding a custom status feature. Perfect for letting people know when you’re heads down in an urgent deliverable or just off for lunch. For times when you need zero distractions, you can activate the do not disturb feature.

2. Organize your Team and spaces

Whether you are working in a project team, or you are a supervisor/line manager – consider creating a Team for your group. You can add people and spaces to that team. For example, I have a Team set up with my staff which contains a number of spaces including spaces for discussing Webex app marketing, UC devices marketing, and a general space for watercooler chat. I can easily add new members and give them access to common spaces I can quickly navigate to the topics we discuss as a group.

3. Cut through the noise

We are all bombarded with information and communications. Too many emails, too many messaging threads, etc. Quickly getting to the conversations that matter most is a skill we all need. To help with this, Webex Teams has introduced new and improved filters that are designed to help you focus on what is important to you. You can now separate lists of 1:1 and team spaces. You can view messages by spaces with @mentions, unread messages, draft messages, flagged messages and favourites. You can ensure your favourite people and spaces are always at the top of the list and hide spaces that you don’t need to see all the time.

4. Connecting for the first time? Make a lasting impression with People Insights

Need a conversation starter to break the ice and show you have taken some time to prepare for a first-time encounter? People Insights means you can keep up to date with the latest, publicly accessible, information on your colleagues and external stakeholders at the click of a button. Never miss a new promotion, a business award or organisation update. And, if your IT team has enabled it, you can also see information from your corporate directory – their department, line management, location and more.

5. Spread the love and have some fun

Team collaboration shouldn’t be all work and no play. Virtual spaces are great places to share successes and key wins. Webex Teams now allows you make your interactions more personal with the introduction of gifs, emojis and animated reactions. Applaud your teammates. Send a gif to match the mood or show your appreciation with a thumbs up!

There’s far more to Webex Team collaboration than I have had time for here. So, in my next blog in this series, I’ll share my Top 5 tips for collaborating on a document.

In the meantime – if you haven’t used Webex Teams yet, you may already be entitled to it if you have a current Webex subscription or a Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan. Alternatively, you can download Webex Teams for free.