Common Misinterpretations, Misunderstanding and Communication Issues

There are several communication speed bumps when working remotely. Commonly, you may get overwhelmed by the traffic of messages, especially for first-time remote workers. We will be giving you tips on how to overcome these challenges.

1. Missing information

Since most of the remote workers heavily rely on communication tools such as chat, emails, social media, and video calls, you may miss some information sent by your team. Below are some tips on how to keep track of all your communication platforms.

• Set a routine when you check all your communication tools. See which platforms are the most and least active then plan a routine to check them during your working hours until it is a habit. If you have a platform (ie. chat room) that is often active, bookmark this on your desktop or browsers. It is advisable to have these tools installed on your smartphone as well, so you get notified in real-time.
• Ensure that your active platforms have their notifications switched on. For mobile, toggle on the application’s notification badges in the app settings. For desktop, switch on the alert pop-up and startup apps for emails and other applications. You can visit these links for instructions on how to set up your applications for Windows and Mac OS.
• If you are sending information on a group chat or giving feedback on online shared documents, you should always ‘tag’ or ‘quote’ the person so they will be notified by your messages. This will also allow you to create a thread and monitor if the tagged person has replied.
• To prevent being overwhelmed from chat groups or communication tools, avoid creating unnecessary chat groups. If you were invited by other admin, once the tasks are accomplished inform them that you will leave the chat group to avoid confusion. Visually, this is cleaner and easier to track when you are monitoring your messages

Scenario:

Andy was hired as an article writer for a health wellness website. He was told that they will be using Skype as their main platform to communicate with the team. He was informed to write all his articles using Google Docs so that editors can tag and comment on his work. The distribution of tasks is often discussed using Skype, so to avoid missing out on his daily articles, he sets up Skype to launch every time he logs on to his computer, and he frequently checks his tag notifications.

2. Reduced camaraderie

It may take some time to establish rapport and camaraderie to your team due to the lack of face-to-face communication. You may sometimes feel disconnected from your team since you are working remotely. Here are some tips to help you to surface the communication gap.

• Hold occasional video call meetings to catch up with your team. Try to converse about your interest and promote open communication.
• Alternatively, you may want to send private messages to your team where you can discuss topics outside work. Just take it slow and eventually you will be able to communicate comfortably and effectively with your teammates.
• Generally, it is the responsibility of the lead to introduce new members and interact with their colleagues to make them comfortable with the team. Besides, the lead should make it a habit to check on their teammates frequently.

Scenario:

Jason is the project manager of the IT team. Ericka, a front-end developer, who loves playing her mobile games alone, was recently included in his team. He noticed that Ericka is too shy to engage with her new teammates. To make her feel more comfortable, he made a group of employees who loves to play mobile games to encourage Ericka to be more open with her colleagues. After a while, Ericka made new friends within the team.

3. Miscommunication

In reality, miscommunication happens in any workplace and it is more challenging in a remote environment. In an email or chat communication, sometimes the messages can have more than one interpretation, unclear, or ambiguous. Below are some situations prone to miscommunication.

• In chats, emotions can be misinterpreted in the message especially when giving comments, instructions, or feedback to your team. You need to be more open to criticism and confront your colleague professionally to address the issue and to maintain a healthy relationship.
• When receiving instructions, make it a habit to request for more details before doing the task. If possible, ask for examples, references, point person, and pegs to have a clearer idea of your task.
• If you will give instructions, be more straightforward and provide clear goals. This is to prevent confusion and repeated revisions when the tasks are being executed.

• • Sufficient references, point persons, and samples
  • Broken down tasks with straightforward instructions and expected output
  • Realistic timeframe (including time for revisions)
  • Has contingency plans
  • Has a feedback mechanism

• • Professional instructions should have the following qualities:

• Practice giving updates and responding to your team whenever you complete a task. Also, it is better to frequently ask questions to clarify tasks that you find confusing.

Scenario:

Clarisse is working on social media ads and uploaded an incorrect material on their Facebook page because of the confusing instruction. Marian, her marketing manager, messaged her via chat to pull down the ad and upload an apology post for the mistaken post. Clarisse thought at first that she was being power tripped by her manager, but she decided to confront Marian professionally regarding the issue. They talked about how the error happened and agreed that instructions should be detailed using a Trello board with cards detailing the following: Title of the task, expected output, deadlines, and online pegs.

Learn how you can improve on your communication in the next topics.