How to Build Community in Your Dispersed Team People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. The identity of your team hugely influences that. Some teams discover shared interests or hobbies. Others share a sense of humor to cope with challenging customers. Camaraderie makes all the difference for workplace satisfaction. When that happens, people will work harder, work more smoothly with each other, and be less likely to leave. It’s great news that distance does not have to...
How to Communicate/Collaborate with Your Dispersed Team It can be hard to get messages across a global team and even harder to collaborate on a project with a teammate who is several time zones away. Sean Huck experiences this unavoidable industry challenge with his dispersed team of technical writers, “We’re seeing tighter integration in our products, and so the crossover is happening more, especially in microservices. It’s touching on JBOSS, OpenShift, OpenStack, docker, containers, and everything’s coming together. We don’t...
10 Fun Activities to Engage Your Dispersed Team Ideally, a dispersed team will gather at least once a year in person and bond. That’s becoming more difficult with increased globalization. Here’s list of simple activities to liven things up and tighten up the group. Virtually Lightning round slide deck - Each person fills out a basic slide template with their picture and a few personal facts. Go around the group and let each person elaborate on something that’s on the...
Going Remote? Tips from the Remotees Thinking about becoming a remote employee? It’s not just a professional change, it’s a lifestyle change; that isn’t right for everyone. Here are some tips from Red Hat remotees on how to know if a permanent work-from-home arrangement is right for you and then how to succeed if it is. Ask around Put aside any assumptions you have and find out what remote life is really like. Have a candid talk with a remotee...
What Remotees Want You to Know Remote workers are an integral part of the workforce, but it can be easy to forget them. I can vouch that sometimes a remotee will pipe up from the conference room speakerphone, and we exchanged looks of shock and panic through stifled giggles because we forgot they were on the line. This isn’t a testament to a remotees’ value; they’re key players we need. Being out of sight can naturally let people fall out...
Managers, How to Lead Your Dispersed Team Since a dispersed team has a number of challenges, managing a dispersed team requires some unique tactics. I interviewed two highly respected Red Hat managers to explore good global leadership. Paul Frields is a software engineering manager who manages a global team and happens to works remotely himself. Deborah Curtis has led a variety of facilities groups, including the solitary office managers of Red Hat’s North American offices. Tell me about your dispersed...
Intro Winnie is in Atlanta. Ivo’s in the Czech Republic. Alice is in Singapore, and I’m in a room with five other teammates in Raleigh. This is normal for us. Dispersed teams are a way of life at Red Hat. We’re global, and we’re growing. To function as one company, our 90 offices have to work together. Then there’s the remote workforce. It’s not just us. All fields, particularly IT, require global agility and collaboration. “Dispersed,” in this context, simply...
My Experience When I heard that HR would be exploring changes to our employee review process, I made a mental note to follow up on that later in the year. I’d only ever been an end user of this process. I didn’t know what an annual review should look like, but I could see the same room for improvement that Red Hatters voiced on internal mailing lists and at the water cooler. I work in IT, not HR, but am...
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