How to set up remote communication with Slack during COVID-19
A starter guide to communicating remotely with Slack for non-profits and small businesses
Here we are. It’s March 2020 and events all over the world are being cancelled, people are stocking up with hoards of supplies, and many companies are asking their employees to work from home to help #FlattenTheCurve.
But what about you? Perhaps you work at a non-profit or an organization that’s more low-tech and you’re not sure how your team might even begin to consider working from home.
How will you communicate?
How will you check-in with each other?
How will you all be efficient?
Adopting a new platform can be very challenging, particularly when people have been communicating in different ways for 10–20+ years. This is a starter guide on how to get your organization set up to use Slack to communicate remotely during this unique and challenging time.
Slack is an incredible platform that helps businesses and organizations communicate in real-time and asynchronously. In Slack, you can segregate conversations by specific sub-groups, topics, or events within your organization.
So let’s get started. First things first: If you haven’t created one yet, visit slack.com and create a new team on Slack
Instructions to send to your team
Step 1: Accept your invitation
You will receive an invitation in your email from your organization. Accept this invitation and you will be able to sign into slack for the first time.
Step 2: Download Slack Apps
You can use Slack using the web-application. The other options are to download the desktop apps for Mac OSX, Windows the iOS app, and the Android app to make it more accessible for you and your team.
Step 3: Channels
Slack works by separating groups or topics into “Channels”. Each channel can be for a particular group, event, or topic and have all related conversation kept within that channel. You can join channels you like, and you can also star channels to save them as your favourites.
How to Join Channels
Join channels relevant to your work by finding the channel and clicking join.
How to Favourite Channels
For your most frequently-used channels, like #general, and anything else, it’s a good idea to favourite them to make them easily accessible. Click on the star to add them to your “Starred” channels.
How to Create a New Channel
Channels can be created at any time and should be done sparingly. For a one-time conversation, you should use direct messaging. For a new project or group within your organization, you should create a channel.
Click on the + sign next to “Channels”. By default, channels are public and can be joined by anyone in the organization. Channels can also be made private if you would like them to be invite-only. When creating a channel, you can toggle “make private” to make a channel private.
Step 4: Direct Messages
In addition to channels, you can direct message colleagues by clicking on their name under “Direct Messages”
You can also use this shortcut to search for a colleague then direct message them:
- Windows CTRL + K
- Mac CMD + K
Step 5: Share this Guide
New platforms are always a challenge to adopt. Particularly for organizations that are not particularly techy, it’s important to make the transition quick and easy for everyone.
This guide should help them get started quickly.
Useful Tools in Slack
Slack has a huge selection of useful tools, shortcuts, and integrations for your team. Here are some of the most useful ones.
Start a Voice/Video Call in Slack
In Slack, you can easily start a video call by typing in: “/call” and then pressing enter on your keyboard.
Create Reminders
You can create reminders by typing in “/remind” with a command like “/remind me to meet with Rayan at 4pm”
Slack Keyboard Shortcuts
Visit Slack’s website for a list of other Slack Keyboard Shortcuts
Adding Apps and Integrations
You can add other apps and integrations to your Slack team by visiting slack.com/apps
Create a Quick Poll
Using the Simple Poll integration, you can create a poll by typing in “/poll” followed by your poll question, and voting options.
For example:
/poll What should we have for lunch? “Pizza” “Spaghetti” “Salad”
Add a Gif
To easily add a gif to any conversation using the Giphy Integration, type in “/giphy” followed by a word or term of your choice.
You can then “shuffle” through gifs until you find one you like and send it.
Add Custom Emojis
To keep things fun, you can add custom emojis to your slack group. Try visiting Slackmojis.com to select your favourite emojis, then add them to Slack.
To add an emoji, click on the emoji icon beneath the chat bar, and click “Add Emoji”. From here you can select the emojis you saved from Slackmojis to your new Slack team.
Standups and Weekly Check-ins
Many organizations have daily or weekly standups where each member of the team can check in with their progress on their set of tasks. A great integration for this is Standuply. You can create periodic standups for your team (free up to 3 people, then you can pay a monthly fee for more members).
There are so many amazing resources to help you learn about Slack. I’d encourage you to find some videos and articles with “Slack hacks” or “Slack tips and tricks” to make you more efficient.
I hope this guide is useful. Please feel free to share with organizations and non-profits that are struggling with how to set up remote work for their employees.
If you’re looking for a downloadable version of this guide to share with your company or organization, you can download it here.
Please also find this list of free tools and software during COVID-19 that companies are offering to help companies go remote during COVID-19.
And a quick note on the COVID-19 pandemic
Please remember your humanity. It is during these challenging times that it is the most crucial for us to work together and no against each other.
Stay informed but do not spread fear and misinformation. Be prepared, but do not hoard resources that others need.
Please stay kind and sincere, be patient and polite with people working in the service industry and in retail, and spread love, hope and positive energy to the people around you.
- Your friendly neighbourhood spider-Izzy (@izzydoesizzy)
About Me:
My name is Izzy, I led remote coworking trips around the world with Hacker Paradise for a while. I currently work remotely as a Technical Support Specialist at a software company called LeafLogix. Always open to exciting new opportunities to spread great customer experiences.
Learn more about me at http://izzydoesizzy.com.
