From TV shows like Succession to billionaire executives bragging about their 100-hour workweeks, the always-on, must-succeed-at-all-cost attitude is celebrated everywhere you look. Luckily (and maybe inevitably), the tide is turning. Employees and companies are putting more of an emphasis on working mindfully and expending energy at a sustainable level. At Slack, we’re encouraging both our employees and end users to work efficiently while also prioritizing a healthy headspace. Here are some ways to slow down and level up.
No-meeting Fridays and Maker Weeks
We all know the feeling when a day is so full of meetings that you need an entire extra workday to get anything done. At Slack, we’ve implemented new, digital-first ways of working, to allow for more freedom to focus and fit non-traditional obligations into the workday. These include Maker Weeks, when teams cancel all internal recurring meetings to focus on “making” things, and reset and assess the meetings on their calendars to decide if they serve a purpose. We also have Focus Fridays, when teams cancel all internal meetings for the week or day and turn off notifications to achieve flow and work uninterrupted.
These programs are intended to shift mindsets around the purpose of meetings; to explore new ways to achieve the same goals, like asynchronous work; and to give employees more autonomy over how they use their single most valuable asset: time, and time when they want it.
Embracing flexibility in the digital HQ
Operating from a digital HQ, companies can discover more flexible ways to work with all their people, apps and partners in one space. Using Slack as the command center of the workday means that no matter where you physically are — in the office, at home or somewhere in between — you’re equipped to be efficient and productive, on your own schedule.
No more hustling to jam everything into 9 to 5. That flexibility makes space for new ways to work smarter, not harder. Ashley Kramer, the chief marketing and strategy officer at GitLab, champions workplace flexibility for her employees. Whether hitting the slopes or working from another city, she has made flexible work at her all-remote company fit any lifestyle. During a Frontiers 2022 “Crack the Code on Remote Work” session, Kramer shared, “The digital headquarters means remote and real, and all it takes to create that collaborative and creative environment is having the right toolkit, living your values and thriving together as a company.” In short: your digital HQ is a way to work, not a place to work.
Teams working across various time zones can schedule messages so their colleagues get them when they are online and active. Defining when and how teams are expected to be available simultaneously shows trust in employees while giving them the space they need to thrive.
Tap into the power of your status emoji
Most people know that the green dot in Slack means active. But your status can also speak volumes, thanks to custom statuses. You can quickly indicate that you’re busy making lunch, taking your child to sports practice or engaging in a moment of meditation during a self-care break.
Additionally, Do Not Disturb (DND) settings can turn off notifications, giving your brain a break and some much-needed focus time. By customizing your Slack settings, you can control when and how colleagues reach out to you.
Jump in a huddle to reduce meetings
For true collaboration, employees can use Slack huddles for quick, lightweight and informal audio-first conversations or for deeper co-working sessions, with multi-person screen sharing and video as an option.
Slack is deeply ingrained at T-Mobile, with over 170,000 active channels, 45,000 workflows and 9 million emoji reactions used per month. But its employees’ favorite feature to unlock efficiency? Huddles. Tamara Jensen, a principal technical product manager at T-Mobile, who recently spoke at Dreamforce 2022, focuses on driving efficiency across the entire organization with a major strategy encouraging teams to cut down on meetings.
Instead of waiting days or even weeks for an open calendar slot, teammates can jump into a spontaneous huddle to discuss blockers, brainstorm ideas, and resolve escalated issues right away. “If you need to have a conversation, you’re not going to schedule it with a calendar; you’re going to stay in Slack,” says Jensen. “With huddles, we can look at each other on video. We can thread the conversation. We can share screens with our colleagues. Huddles keeps teams moving, with work in one place.”
Find your voice with clips
At Slack, we avoid unnecessary meetings with the help of clips. Employees can record and send videos of themselves and their screens to share important updates and developments — there’s no need to find a time when everyone is free for a call. With accessible tools like this, teams across time zones can speed up how they operate and collaborate more asynchronously.
Build workflows to automate tasks
Today, employees don’t need to rely on developers or a designated IT team to design complex workflows. Anyone has the power to use no-code or low-code features in Slack to automate admin work and repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable chunks of time to work on more strategic and meaningful work.
The 2022 Slack Spotlight Award for Digital HQ Excellence winner, IBM, is building a digital headquarters where teams directly impact how the company automates work. During the Frontiers 2022 keynote, Jenn Booth, IBM’s global Salesforce partner for consulting sales strategy and products, said that the company’s thriving culture comes from asking employees what they need and giving them the tools to get work done. “With a digital headquarters, it’s for them to build for themselves,” she said.
Access to simple and convenient tools enables people to create workflows that automate time-consuming processes — all without code and without ever having to leave Slack.
