FlexWork: Communication, Calendars, and Setting Shared Expectations

Many Carleton Faculty and Staff are used to determining availability by looking for a person at their office or workstation. Not only will colleagues not necessarily be working from their desk, but if the colleague is at a desk they may actually be in a meeting or otherwise not available for interruption. Here are some ways to set and check people's availability for hybrid and remote teams.

Develop Shared Expectations with Your Team

There are lots of communication tools and settings available, so make sure that you and your team have a shared understanding on things like:

• How you'll signal to each other that you're busy vs. interruptable
• What types of communication work best for your team over email, phone, chat, zoom, etc.
  • Will you use Chat or the phone for quick/immediate things while using email for things that have longer timeframes?
  • Are there times when you'll need to rely on asynchronous communication (such as email) as opposed to synchronous communication (such as phone or zoom conversations)?
  • Are there things that should happen over email so that there's a record of the communication?
  • Are there things that should happen by phone or with Chat history turned off so that there's no data retained from the conversation?
• How will you distinguish between routine vs urgent communications
• How will you acknowledge that you've received messages when you don't have time to respond fully right away

Remember that just like in the physical office, there are many reasons why a colleague may not be at their computer or available to talk at a given moment. Shared expectations will help foster healthy communication rhythms for hybrid and remote teams.

Calendar Tips

Calendars are powerful communication tools! At a minimum, they can signal to your colleagues when you are unavailable for other conversation.

• You can set up your Calendar to list your default work hours and location so that colleagues are alerted if they try to invite you to an event outside of your work hours
• You can use built-in RSVP options in Google Calendar to indicate whether you'll attend the event in person or remotely
  • Event hosts, include a remote option whenever possible, and if attendees respond that they will attend remotely when there is no remote option, communicate with them about their needs and any available options for the meeting.
  • Consider developing a standard way of naming Calendar events so that all attendees know whether an event is on site, hybrid, or virtual.
• Everyone at Carleton can see your free/busy time (but no event details unless your events or your calendar have been designated Public), so you can check a colleague's calendar to see whether it indicates that they are busy
• You can manage the visibility of individual events that you created
• You can share your calendar details with other people who need to see more about what you're doing
• When you're out of the office, let your calendar help you manage event invitations (scroll down on that page to the Out of Office options)
• You can integrate Zoom and your Calendar by installing a free plugin

Setting your Availability Status

Availability statuses help your colleagues know whether they can reach you.

• In Google Chat and Gmail you can set your availability status, including custom statuses that you determine
• Not available for a phone all? Set your phone extension to Do Not Disturb

Out of Office Notifications

When you're unavailable, help your colleagues know that you won't be responding quickly:

• let your calendar help you manage event invitations (scroll down on that page to the Out of Office options)
• set up an Out of Office email responder
• Set a temporary voicemail greeting on Zulu or your Grandstream phone to alert people that you may be delayed in answering voicemail messages

Send a Quick Message

There's nothing like a quick "Are you available to chat for a second?" message sent in Google Chat or email, depending on what your colleagues use as their preferred immediate communication method. Some people may look available because they're sitting quietly at their desk, but they're actually in a meeting or otherwise not interruptable.