Although remote workers mostly avoid the day-to-day friction that inevitably arises in an office environment, we need only look at the heated exchanges on social media sites for proof that the virtual realm can be just as fraught with conflict and tension. Remote workers might not be having arguments about who forgot to clean the coffee machine in the office lounge, but disagreements are bound to arise when people work for the same organization, no matter where they happen to have their desk. In fact, work relationships mediated by screens are especially delicate and vulnerable: when you don’t have to see someone every day, you might be more likely to ignore a problem or grow more frustrated as time passes.
Which is all to say that remote employees are not always going to get along with everyone. That’s human nature, really. But managers would be wise to get warring co-workers together for a video conference as soon as conflicts arise.
It might be tempting to try to work it all out via email or phone. Why dive into an awkward face-to-face video conference when everyone can sort it out without actually having to look at each other? Well, because that awkward video meeting will actually work.
A 2012 study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign examined conflict resolution using text, audio, and video-based solutions, and found that “participants who used the video-based communication method were more likely to agree on solutions that were equally good to both parties, especially in difficult and high conflict [situations].”
According to the study, participants using video conferencing solutions exchange less information at a time. Whereas text-based communication methods can result in lengthy messages packed full of information, a video conversation forces users to discuss and process a single issue at a time. This might seem like an obvious discovery, but it’s important to keep this in mind when considering tense negotiations or even minor conflicts. Text-based solutions might offer the illusion of polite conversation, but in reality we are often throwing huge chunks of information at each other instead of actually connecting. That’s not necessarily the best way to find common ground.
Other studies have found that disputants using e-mail, who don’t have the benefit of body language and other unspoken cues, can be prone to misunderstandings that might not arise in a face-to-face talk. E-mail exchanges can also escalate more quickly than a face-to-face exchange, because as we said before, it’s much easier to write something mean or hostile than it is to say something inflammatory directly to someone’s face. Something as simple as looking in another person’s eyes can diffuse a tense situation. It’s all about remembering that there is a human on the other side of that screen. And what better way to remember that than to actually see it?
So with a video conferencing solution like Prime Call Cloud MeetMe, which keeps remote workers just a click away from a face-to-face meeting, you can nip problems in the bud and help everyone get along.
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