Virtual visits with our remote teams!

As part of my role, I manage and work with a team in India (and Dublin). During normal times, we visit 3-4 times a year to go meet the team and engage with folks in person. With the pandemic and no travel, for the first 6-8 months of 2020, we just assumed these visits will not be possible. But then, as the pandemic continued, we adapted. In October, I did my first virtual visit with my team in India and I am about to do one next week, and I am switching to virtual visits each quarter. I designate 3-4 days of the week (Monday to Thursday night) as my Virtual Visit. The team appreciates the leaders "coming to them" in their time zone and I think it is extremely important for leaders to connect with people, both in our local teams and those working in remote locations, especially during these times.

Here's how I've done it:

1. Identified the key goals for the trip - and work with my leaders in India to plan my agenda to have meetings from 8/9pm PST to about 2am PST in the night for 3-4 nights. This gives plenty of hours of overlap in their time zone than what I get in a typical week (1-4 hours of quality time that is actually convenient to both sides).
2. I usually pick deep dives on specific topics, AMA/All Hands, people managers meeting, PM round table, and 1:1s with key folks. This allows me to connect with the different groups and ensure key messages are landing and gives me plenty of opportunities to interact and learn more about the talent we have there.
3. I usually cancel most of my day time meetings to catch some zzzs during the day, though I am often not successful and have a few critical meetings to attend.Instead of the yummy food I usually consume during our India visit, I consume loads of coffee to stay up and stay focused that late.
4. I usually have my video on for the calls - and I make it a point to be present and focused. The team also appreciates seeing us and since this is in daytime hours for them, usually more of those folks also turn their video on.
5. Me and my engineering peer ended up going to work and joining these sessions from one of the bigger conference rooms so we could be socially distanced in the room and join from the room together. Also gives me a sense that I am actually travelling for the trip and a change of scenery from my regular home office.

I am definitely looking forward to resuming normal visits with the team when we can travel again. Also, while COVID has been very disruptive and challenging to the world, it has also forced us to think creatively and differently and has resulted in newer innovations. Until things are back to normal, I am thankful of this adaptation which has its pros and cons.

• The biggest pros for me are - lesser time away from family, the relative convenience of holding these trips probably more often than I would travel, and, personally for me, not gaining weight which I typically do on these trips :).
• The biggest con for me is missing out on the in-person interactions with the travel team and the team in India because usually on these business trips, you get to hang out with folks socially in the evenings and I think it is in those moments that you develop deeper relationships and bonds and get a sense of what people are outside of work. The other con is of course the focus time or relaxation time I am able to get on the flight :)

Looking forward to my next virtual India trip next week, and also expanding to my Dublin team soon as well!