Festive at a distance: How to combine remote work and holiday cheer

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:00:49 +0000

It’s December; so let’s be honest: You’re probably devoting as much time to fantasizing about baked goods, planning party attire and stressing about a gift for your hard-to-buy-for mother as you are to focusing on work. The festive vibe is perfectly natural for this time of year, but the impulse to celebrate the season’s holidays gets a little more complicated the more dispersed your team is.

If you have colleagues spread from New Delhi, India to New Haven, Conn., how can you hope to bring everyone together to celebrate the season and build a bit of camaraderie? Beers in the break room are probably out due to logistical constraints, but that doesn’t mean you have to forgo holiday fun entirely, according to a recent post by Wayne Turmel for Management Issues.

For the piece, Turmel talks to Jeff Diana, the chief people officer for HR software firm SuccessFactors, who offers some tips for encouraging celebratory feelings among remote workers.

“If you can’t afford to fly in or buy hotel rooms for remote workers, whether that’s for a holiday party or planning session for the year ahead,” Diana says, “consider including remote workers in team celebrations via social media, video, or other group (or individual) acknowledgement of their contributions.”

He also notes that with many workforces becoming more and more international, holidays throughout the year provide a great opportunity for cultural sharing:

Take advantage of the international holidays throughout the year to educate local and remote employees about holiday customs in other regions. For example: Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Kwanzaa, Day of the Dead, and many other holidays throughout the year provide excellent opportunities for employees worldwide to share personal anecdotes and professional insights about life in their “neighborhoods.”

It’s a far cheerier suggestion than Stacey Higginbotham’s recent worry that telecommuting across international boundaries will increasingly make work-free holidays a thing of the past, and the ambition to share across cultures to increase inter-team understanding is admirable. But at the same time, there’s something sad about the idea if donning your party hat to sit in front of Skype.

With remote “parties” unlikely to be actually enjoyable, is asking employees to attend simply burdening them with an unwanted and unpleasant additional responsibility during this busy time of year? Would it be better to just offer them extra time or money to show your appreciation and make their season genuinely cheerier?

Alternative suggestions to the tech-enabled virtual shindig are light on the ground, though everyone seems to agree it’s poor form not to make sure remote workers are always invited to activities (even if there is basically no chance they can attend) and everyone should receive the same holiday goodies should any be distributed.

So what about your remote team: Will you be using the holidays as an occasion for team-building festivities, and if so, how?

Image courtesy of Flickr use DeaPeaJay.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Score With Small Talk At the Holiday Office Party

Karen Leland — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:57 +0000

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Good Kwanza. With Turkey Day stuffed behind us, the holiday season is off to a running start, and the official office parties are soon to follow. For many people, the stress of these corporate celebrations is that they require us to talk to customers, co-workers and vendors — about something other than business. But let’s face it, small talk is the stock-in-trade of workplace festivities, and knowing how to do it well can be a boon to your business.

“Most big connections in life start with small talk,” says Connie Dieken, author of the new book “Talk Less, Say More.” And while the point of most holiday parties is not to improve your productivity, knowing how to make a little light and charming chatter can lead to new business, start up relationships and make creative connections.

Even as a kid, I was always an extrovert and a talker (shocking, I know), so as an adult, small talk has never been a big problem for me. But a decade ago, I got a piece of advice I found invaluable. In Susan Roan’s bestselling book “How to Work a Room,” she says that one of the keys to being comfortable at a party is to practice “host behavior,” rather than “guest behavior.”

In other words, if you were the host of the party, how would you act? What would you say? Whenever I’m at a gathering and at a loss, I simply ask myself, “What would I do if I were the host?”

But beyond this contextual piece of advice, there are a few examples of party small-talk etiquette that Dieken says will both keep you out of trouble and take you through the merrymaking with ease.

Stay away from conversation killers. Are you contemplating having an affair? Do you owe $10,000 in back taxes to the IRS? Getting a mole removed next week? Unless the person you are chatting up at the office soiree is a personal friend, Dieken says it’s best to stay away from taboo topics such as medical, money or marital problems.

Have an exit strategy. If you’re stuck in a conversation going nowhere, Dieken suggests keeping a few handy one-liners lined up that can extricate you efficiently and politely. If you find yourself trapped, use one of these exit lines:

“I’ll let you go now so you can continue circulating around the room.”
“I’ll stop monopolizing your time so you can meet other people.”
“It was great meeting you. I’ll follow up with you on X next week.”

Be on the lookout for boredom cues. Business holiday parties by their nature are flirty affairs. Guests usually flit from person to person, the way a bee flows to different flowers. Stay aware of how much time you’ve spent talking with a particular individual, and be on the lookout for signals that your conversation partner is ready to move on, such as looking away, not contributing to the conversation or giving one-line answers to your questions.

Plan your conversation starters. Dieken says that, in general, commonly relatable topics — such as the weather, sports, movies, music, children and food — all make good small-talk openers.

Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions by their nature invite your fellow partygoer to go into detail, rather than give you a short, one-sentence answer. They usually begin with words such as how, why, what, who, which, when and where. Examples of good open-ended party phrases include:

“Where are you planning on spending the holidays?”
“How do you know the host?”
“What are your holiday plans?”

If the thought of having to make mini-conversations this holiday season makes you break out in a cold sweat, calm down, come up with a few conversation starters and work the room like a pro.

Share your office party small talk tips below.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

GigaOM » office party

Festive at a distance: How to combine remote work and holiday cheer

Score With Small Talk At the Holiday Office Party