How Slack powers Hybrid work. Combined deck of all presenters from our Slack community event on Sep 23rd 2021.

1. How Slack Helped Us
Make Hybrid
Workplace Work?
Susan Kutar-Tamang
She/Her/Hers

2. Agenda..
● What is a Hybrid Workplace?
● Slack & Hybrid Workplace
● What’s Changing?
● How to Leverage Slack for Hybrid Work?
● My Testimony of Using Slack in a Hybrid World
● In closing

3. What is a Hybrid Workplace?
● Remote Or Office Or A combination of the two.
● The shift in in-office vs remote employees is
more fluid and will shift in real time based on
individuals priority.

4. Slack & Hybrid Workplace
● We aren’t going back, we are moving forward - embracing
flexibility, supporting our employees to work from
anywhere.
● Digital first does not mean “never in-person” It means
empowering people to work when and where is best for
them.
● Offices are another tool in our toolkit to build relationships
and stronger teams and create space for focused work.
● Slack as our new HQ.

5. Principles:
● Flexibility
● Inclusivity
● Connection
Slack & Hybrid Workplace
Guidelines:
● Leaders to set an example
● Being Intentional
● One dials in all dial in
● Shared spaces for teamwork
● Embracing asynchronous tools

6. Replacing 9 5 with 3 2 2
● The workplace as we know it will
never be the same clocking of
9 5, 5 days a week.
● Most organization are now
adapting to a hybrid system of:
*3 days working from office,
2 days working from home and
2 days holiday
OR
*3 days working from home,
2 days working from office.
What’s Changing?
Photo by Arlington Research on Unsplash

7. Redefining Office as a
Collaborative Workspace
• Used for team meetings,
brainstorming sessions &
accommodating for people joining
remotely.
• To share spontaneous ideas and
encourage learning & mentoring.
• Sense of community and office
vibes.
• A place for focused work
environment & space.
What’s Changing?
Photo by Proxyclick Visitor Management
System on Unsplash

8. Asynchronous
• Use Slack channels to kick-off
new projects
• Use huddles for all internal 1 1,
casual catch up and coffee meets.
• Use video meetings scaringly
• Update your Slack status & emoji’s
to reflect your availability.
• Use Stories to share what’s top of
your mind, new wins etc.
• Developer Maker hours and
asynchronous team all-hands.
What’s Changing?
Synchronous
• Team and executive AMA
• New Hire Orientation programs
• Brainstorming sessions and
live-interactions for better
ideation
• Performance management &
career development
conversations
• Events which are planned in
advance.

9. ● Use public channels to celebrate big or small wins.
● Use team channels to share what you are working on weekly.
● Use team channels to recognize one another in team
shoutouts.
● Use donuts to connect with cross-functional teams.
● Create workflows to improve processes, ask questions in
AMA, town halls etc. irrespective of the timezone.
● Use Polly for some mid week quiz time or get a pulse on your
team’s morale.
How to Leverage Slack for Hybrid Work?

10. ● Creation of
#proj-india-covid-response
● Adding all relevant stakeholders
from XFN teams
● Included decision makers:
○ Chief People Officer
○ VP, Project Management
○ Director Finance
○ Director, Benefits
○ Director, Slack for Good
○ Director, Employment Legal
○ Chief of Staff, to CEO
Section name
My Testimony of Using Slack in a Hybrid World
● Most of the stakeholders were in
the US, so it was essential for all
conversations to happen in the
channel so that when I woke up I
had action points and added to the
discussion and not missed out
anything.

11. ● Brainstorming Ideas
● Leadership communication in
global channels and exclusive India
channels
● Analyzing live data in Slack
● Benefits team engaging local
vendors
● Assigning tasks to each individual
● Approvals for Slack for Good funds
● Approval by Leadership for
additional financial support to India
to set up Covid Relief Fund
Section name
My Testimony of Using Slack in a Hybrid World
● Irrespective of the timezone, we
used the Slack channel to get
approvals within the same channel
from CPO and Chief of Staff of
CEO.
● Every decisions, updates and
approvals were made in the
channel.
● All announcements were made in
the #announcements-india
channel

12. ● Within 48 hours from the creation
of channel we had the following
decisions made, approved and in
execution phase:
○ India Covid Relief Fund for each
employee
○ Global Telehealth App
○ 2 live Q&A sessions with Dr.
Kalia Medical Director, India at
International SOS.
○ Modern Health India circle
○ Vaccine Bot
Section name
My Testimony of Using Slack in a Hybrid World
● We designed a Workflow
Covid-19 India Relief Request for
Employees to request for the
funds.
● All approvals were attested,
verified and informed to payroll in
Slack itself.
● Used Bot to get alerts for vaccine
availability linked with info on
CoWin.

14. ● Birth of crowd sourced channels
○ Employee using channel to help one
another -
Covid-india-helpful-resources
○ #india-vaccine-pune ( similar
channels for other locations in India)
- Vaccination Bot
○ Slack India Covid FAQ’s
○ Emergency Time-off & Sick Days
PS All these channels were created & driven by
employees from around the world to help Indian
employees with useful resources
My Testimony of Using Slack in a Hybrid World

15. ● Slack enabled cross-functional teams to
work asynchronously and implement urgent
initiatives within 48 hrs in a hybrid
environment.
● Slack allowed quick decision making and
approvals from leadership .
● Slack allowed employees across the globe to
source for timely help for their loved ones
miles away.
● Slack workflow enabled employees to
seamlessly request for the funds they
needed & smooth process for payout
● Slack emojis, status updates and global
channels were used to show support &
solidarity by one and all.
In Closing - Slack as our New HQ

16. How to have fun while remote?

17. Permanent Remote
No HQ
WFH Allowance
Annual Retreats
Workations

18. PS: Nothing beats working in your pajamas, but we try!
Empathy Async
Tools
How we make remote work fun?

19. 400,000+

21. New HQ, have fun here!

22. Different games for different moods
THIS OR THAT
JUMBLED WORDS
CUSTOM QUIZZES GOTCHA
CROSSWORD
TRIVIA QUIZZES
(UN)POPULAR
OPINIONS
PICTIONARY
WATERCOOLER

23. How we introduce our new employees?

24. New Employee Intro Quiz

25. Quizzes Pictionary
"A team that plays together, bonds better"

26. Water Cooler

27. Keeps the competition going!
Organization- wide leaderboard

28. Rewards & Recognitions

29. Pulse Surveys

31. Redefining the future of HR today
A decentralized, verified
professional profile platform
An Applicant Tracking System
that’s free FOREVER
Background verification
and KYC solutions.
Interactive games for
remote team-building.
Employee Rewards and
Recognition platform
A full-stack technology hiring
and staffing agency
About Springworks

32. HAPPY VIRTUAL BONDING

33. Asynchronous Meetings
For hybrid remote teams

34. What is Asynchronous Meeting?
In a hybrid remote workplace, not everyone is going to be at the same place at the
same time and it is important to protect that flexibility. Asynchronous
communication is sharing information in a way that does not require immediate
consumption.
Asynchronous meetings are meetings that do not happen in real time and do not
require immediate response from participants. All participants receive meeting
topic in advance and submit their responses when they get a chance.

35. Asynchronous vs Synchronous Meetings
Asynchronous meetings can replace or can augment synchronous meetings.
When used for meeting preparation, asynchronous meeting reports help save time
spent during the synchronous meetings.
Examples of meetings that are suited for mixed formats
1. 1-on-1 meetings
2. Performance reviews
3. When there is much back and forth on a topic
4. Emergency situations
5. Impromptu non-work interactions

36. Why Asynchronous Meetings
1. Focus on deep work - Dont need to interrupt your flow at work for a meeting
2. Remote friendly - Don't need to wake up early or stay up late for a video call
3. Introvert friendly - Dont need to speak in a (virtual) room with other people
4. Better sync meetings - When used as meeting prep, helps run efficient sync meetings

37. How to run Asynchronous Meetings
1. Set meeting agenda and questions for each participant
2. Allow for user timezone based participation
3. Allow for participation from async friendly channels like Slack
4. Gather contributions and record minutes

38. Why Slack for asynchronous meetings
● Slack is where your team is
● Slack is built for asynchronous communication
● Slack platform supports purpose built apps for async meetings
● Most teams have moved from collaborating in email to Slack

39. Troopr Check-ins
Troopr Check-ins is a Slack app for asynchronous meetings. Examples of
asynchronous meetings run with Troopr
1. Standups - daily status updates
2. Retrospectives - weekly/monthly health checks
3. Planning Poker - collaborative work estimation

40. Popular Meeting Templates

41. Netflix
1. Team - Platform engineering
2. Typical questions
- What did you get done since last
week
- Any blockers
3. Timezone preference - single
4. Time of trigger - 9:30 AM
5. Typical number of participants
per Check-in - 14
6. Admins - 2 (engineering
manager, project manager)
7. Key feature - Jira integration
11,000+ members
Check-in: Standup, Retro

42. Startup
1. Team - Entire organization
2. Typical Questions
- What did you get done since last
week
- Any blockers
3. Timezone preference - single
4. Time of trigger - 9:30 AM
5. Number of participants - 65
6. Admins - 2 (project manager,
CTO)
150 members
Check-in: Standup

43. Clickup
1. Team - Support, Engineering,
Design
2. Typical Questions
- What did you get done since last
week
- Any blockers
3. Timezone preference - multiple
4. Time of trigger - 10 AM & 4PM
5. Typical number of participants
per Check-in - 8
650 members
Check-in: Standup, Retro

46. Remote and Hybrid need playbooks
Who is available right now
Who is working from where
What’s our historical trend
How do we organize WFO

47. A simple 3 pronged approach makes it easy
Schedule
let people plan where or when
they work in advance - helps
organise work acc to time
zones, work locations and honor
office capacities
Communicate
make availabilities transparent -
streamline communication and
fosters a self managing team
that can unblock itself
Record
keep a historical record of who
worked when from where -
helps in contact tracing and
accruals and quotas of time offs
for remote payroll

48. Schedule work locations and time offs
Use ‘apply’ to plan your
time offs
Use recurring leaves to
create blocks of wfh or
wfo
Set up office capacities for
Hybrid mode to ensure
only a specific set of
people can opt for office
work
Let people take just in time
hourly time offs for
emergencies

49. Schedule work locations and time offs

50. Schedule work locations and time offs

51. Communicate availabilities
Set up channel
announcements to keep
everyone apprised
Use the shared calendar
integration so people can
look up who is unavailable
today (or on a specific
date)
If you use clock in/out to track your
time/hours, you can also set up instant
channel/notifs and Slack status
integrations to update your instant
availability
Lookup time off plans or
availability for a person via
‘summary @name’
Use the auto refreshing
live punch board to see
the live status of your
team

52. Communicate availabilities

53. Communicate availabilities

54. Keep a historical record
You can always look at the
calendar to see who was
available when
Hopefully you’ll never need it but if
you do, you can contact trace to
see who all worked together in
office
Download detailed reports
for payroll

55. Keep a historical record