Meet Your Remote Team’s Next productivity Hack
It doesn’t take much thought or research to agree that remote is the future of work. Zero commute, cubicles, stuffy corporate wears, and an absolute goodbye to that stiff uptight office culture that you’re still trying to wear off after 4.5 years working on your present team.
With diverse companies, ranging from <10-person remote startup teams to industry leaders like Buffer, GitHub, and Hotjar, running virtually all their operations remotely nods to the fact that more and more people appreciate a working culture that lets people get things done their own way and values results more than just showing up.
All good, you’ll agree with us.
And then, there’s this one irky quirk that remote work drags along.
When you’re powering some or all of your team’s talent on the cloud, how do you make up for that look in the eye that tells Amanda sitting across you more about the report she sent over than a Slack message ever could? Or simply put, how do you compensate for the human touch in a remote team?
Now, while we all appreciate how diverse, flexible, and infinitely more productive remote work makes organizations, the fact remains that for remote work to actually work, it must focus on catering to the real-life humans behind the screens, offering them a flexible work culture, without sacrificing real-time synchrony, the human touch — face-to-face rapport that greases our continual dependence on tech.
Wise, visionary businesses must look beyond just remote work and actually pursue a human-positive remote work environment that preserves that mentally and emotionally critical human touch — beyond just running continual video chat streams, and look towards building a more cohesive telecommute culture that maintains and makes it easier for human communication to flourish.
Why?
Because, otherwise, you simply create an engine of mechanical parts that struggle to get the job done without ever achieving that. Here’s how: given that it’s a scientific fact that people are more productive when they’re happier, and considering that human-human touch holds a huge responsibility for that, the race to the future of work is more complex than just finding a way to move entire teams remote.
Building the future of remote work actually requires a greater focus on creating a human-positive remote work environment where actual, real-life people can do their best work.
All said and done, how can a remote team retain that precious in-person sync that onsite offices offer, without sacrificing remote flexibility and productivity?
Enter Tandem, the productivity hack for remote teams.
Tandem is a remote work suite that offers screen sharing, discussions, and a concurrent video chat that helps remote teams stay in tandem (yeah, you noticed that) by reimagining the office experience in a remote-first world. Think of it as Slack for lite office chat and work updates, Zoom for running minimal video chats that help keep coworkers in sync, and AnyDesk for seamless screen sharing that keeps you and your remote team on the same page.
Tandem aims to help teams create a more inclusive work culture that prioritizes remote-first productivity without sacrificing the human touch that keeps it all together.
Essentially, Tandem functions as a Web and desktop app that adds an extra layer of automation which turns your remote workstation into a full-fledged human-inclusive office, with contextual screen sharing, ultra-customizable video chats, and an enchilada of integrations with third-party power-ups that’ll take your remote team’s productivity to new levels.
Without Tandem, a day on a remote team would typically involve jumping from Slack, Slite, or Microsoft Teams into Zoom or Google Meet, for frequent video chat/screenshare update sessions — and that’s discounting the time lost on booking calendar slots and the frequent loss of focus when switching context.
Now, imagine all that as your reality 6 days per week, for as long as you work remote and then the genius behind Tandem — in a world that’s going increasingly remote — becomes glaring.
Ideally, Tandem is designed to help remote teams create a more cohesive and consequently, more productive work culture. Beyond that, I see Tandem serving as a catalyst that triggers a full-on remote swing for companies considering or have ever considered remote work, judging by how seamlessly Tandem complements, and yet replaces the real-life office.
Reviewing a Google Doc draft with a colleague? Great. Tandem’s minimal video chat and cursor-first screen sharing that provides infinitely more context than mainstream screen sharing apps help you offer and receive feedback with the project in question right in your face — just like having a colleague looking over your shoulder.
Or maybe you’re working late, popping in the last few lines of code for the feature that’s shipping next week? Tandem’s got you covered. Quickly swap through your active teammates and ask for quick feedback on your work — all in seconds.
Impromptu meetings and daily or weekly standups are all a breeze with Tandem’s video chat that gets your entire team talking without having to keep track of endless Zoom links.
Speaking about the human touch factor within the context of remote work, Tandem’s CEO Rajiv Ayyangar, a product veteran with experience across Yahoo, Yakit, and Cryptagon (the team’s crypto startup that pivoted to become Tandem) maintains that maximum productivity can only be achieved within a culture that recognizes and helps give expression to co-worker human touch.
“As the world shifts to remote and distributed work, there’s a danger that work becomes disconnected, asynchronous, scheduled, and non-collaborative. While asynchronous processes and scheduled meetings are important, people are fundamentally social and want the ability to collaborate spontaneously. Tandem lets teams do that.” — says Rajiv.
“Our aim is to give remote work the flow of in-person collaboration. Tandem is more than just the ability to talk in one click — we’re building the collaboration layer that lets you interact seamlessly with people and applications.”
Looking for a more inclusive remote working experience for your team? Try out Tandem right away!
