The balance between catching a flight and avoiding face-to-face contact can be a challenge. Patrick Gray identifies three situations where business travel is necessary.
Judging by the crowds of individuals carrying Tumi and the crowded lounges of frequent travelers, business travel has made a significant comeback. Ruined airports have once again become human barricades, and the delayed suitcases and sometimes golf carts carrying tourists pose a significant risk to the surrounding mass of humanity. One can be forgiven for forgetting the world is still recovering from the COVID pandemic, saving those who don’t often wear masks in airports, and the lengthy testing requirements.
As a recovering travel addict, it has been a significant challenge to realign my personal tolerance for travel and the expectations I set with my teams and leadership. me. In 2019, I took over 140 flights for work and spent a similar number of nights in hotels, away from my family and hometown. In 2020, I took all four flights and quickly fell in love with the simple pleasures of being around when my kids got home from school or cooking dinner one weekday evening.
With restrictions lifted globally, I’ve been traveling more for work and trying to establish criteria when I hop on a plane to meet up with colleagues. Here are three criteria I’ve found to determine when it’s reasonable to incur the physical and emotional costs and expenses of riding metal pipes around the world:
1. Meet new people or teams
One problematic driver of the remote-first workplace is establishing interpersonal relationships with people you only see on a screen. While there are certain benefits to seeing people in their environment along with the occasional presence of family and pets, it’s not easy to have scheduled non-work-related interactions TV affair.
Meeting a new employee, team member or team allows you to have those interpersonal moments between meetings, during meals and all those little breaks between meetings. You’ll get to share stories, a handshake and possibly hear details about the person’s life that are hard to share in a virtual setting.
In addition to the joy and sense of connection we get from interacting with others, you’ll likely find that you’re better able to collaborate with those people after meeting them in person. Not only will you gain a richer view of their lives and personalities, but you’ll also gain a better understanding of how to collaborate, communicate, and make your work together more productive.
2. Strategy building
Most people find idea generation a challenge during a video meeting. You may have experienced the inattentive and distracted stares that come after 60-90 minutes when trying to do intense video brainstorming.
Putting together an in-person team to collaborate and co-create is a highly effective use of face-to-face time. A few days together can replace weeks of half-hearted remote collaboration. However, make sure you’re making good use of your direct time and focusing on solving difficult problems or developing new strategies, rather than planning and execution-focused activities. The latter can often be done well remotely, and you risk losing the value of getting everyone together in the same space if you stray too far from aggregating and planning.
3. Introduction
Face-to-face time is precious, whether you’re bringing new people into your company or have recently joined a new company. It’s hard to believe that company culture is transmitted through simple things like transactional stories about past projects, challenges, or happenings in the company.
This storytelling is hard to replicate in a virtual environment and is vital to understanding a company’s culture and unwritten rules. Perhaps one of the most challenging outcomes of the global pandemic has been the introduction of new employees without any interpersonal interaction. Most companies quickly figure out how to ship laptops and do the necessary logistics, and some even create elaborate virtual training programs. However, most of the people I spoke to who had trouble feeling connected to their employers and colleagues went through a virtual referral process.
While it can be difficult to reintroduce referrals, especially for those who have been on the payroll for more than a year, encouraging face-to-face sessions and intimate storytelling can make up for lost time. no need to move too much or interrupt.
SEE: Remote Recruitment: How to Hire New Talent Safely and Efficiently (TechRepublic)
An opportunity to double-check business travel
Like many others, I’m excited to meet new colleagues, see project sites, and spend time in the same space to strategize for my team amid travel restrictions. pandemic is lifted. However, I also don’t like going back to the days of traveling every week and hopping on a plane just to see and be seen. Perhaps the most important thing about meeting face-to-face is thoughtful and thoughtful consideration to maximize that time together and balance it with productive tasks when working remotely.
