6 Tips for Travel Team Get-Togethers If You Work Remotely, Part 1

If you’re an extrovert and love to travel, a week-long, expenses-paid business trip to a resort town is paradise. If you’re an introvert, “team bonding” and “hanging out all day with your coworkers” sounds like an intimidating situation. 

There’s a reason you love remote work. You’re in the safety of your own world and most communication takes place via DMs through your fingertips. Going from rarely seeing your coworkers to seeing them all day?😲Let’s not think about it.

As you prepare for your first company get-together, consider these tips if you’re meeting your remote coworkers in person for the first time.

Tip 1: Preparing for a new routine

Onsite workers are accustomed to preparing to leave the house daily to get to their job. Monday to Friday, you prepare your outfit, pack your lunch, and prepare what you need for work. If you work from home, you won’t be accustomed to this. You don’t need to decide on an outfit or pack your lunch. You can conveniently roll out of bed and start work wearing your house clothes!

So before you venture off to a week-long work trip, think about all the things you use as part of a daily routine and make a list of what to pack. It’s your chance to dress up for work, so you may want to dust off some of your fancier clothes. Of course, check they still fit you and they don’t look out of style.

Also, pack the usual things you’ll need for your trip, such as sunscreen if you’re going somewhere warm, pack your toothbrush, and research some customs for where you’re going, such as tipping at your hotel.

Tip 2 Getting to know who you’ll meet

Introverts enjoy remote work for a reason. It can be overwhelming to go from virtually meets on a screen to seeing people in person. You’ll discover that people seem different in person. They may be taller or shorter than you expected. They won’t disappear after you press the exit button on your screen. You may be seeing them all day, for many days.

You want to avoid awkward situations, such as facing a teammate and not knowing who that person is. If possible, search through your company’s website, LinkedIn profiles, and Slack profile pictures to learn names and memorize faces. Learn what you can about their role at your company. These lifesaving bits of information are important for Tip 3, when you need icebreakers to start a conversation.

Tip 3 Prepare for unexpected social opportunities

A company get-together is less awkward if you’ve been working at an office. You now have a chance to have a longer conversation with the coworker you usually pass in the hall. You’ll less likely to have an awkward moment, such as meeting a coworker for the first time while you’re dressed in your pajamas. Yes, this situation can happen.

If your coworker’s flight arrives late and you’re already getting ready to retire for the night and you’re sharing a two-bedroom suite. Half asleep, your hair a mess, you introduce yourself to that teammate from another department you never had a reason to DM or speak to until now. 

Extroverts can converse anywhere with anyone. Introverts who work remotely will have a harder time starting a conversation with coworkers they haven’t meet, or haven’t spoken to too often. Standing in front of you is a live person and you need to reply immediately. You can’t Slack your reply in the chat later when you’ve figured out what you want to say.

Here’s the secret: let the extroverts talk first and carry the conversation. Have a few conversation starters on hand in case you need them, such as “Have you visited (the place you’re at) before?” or “How was your flight in?” or “What are you thinking of ordering for dinner?”

Key Takeaways for Part 1

Spending several days with your coworkers can be a fun experience if you’re prepared. It’s a chance to meet them in person and leave the house for work. If you’re an introvert, seeing your coworkers all day could be overwhelming, but following some tips can turn this trip into a fun working vacation. For more tips, return for Part 2.

Common Myths About Learning the English Language

How many languages do you speak? At a recent company get-together, we discovered that our team speaks 35 languages and not all of us are native English speakers. 

This informal dinner table poll about languages made me wonder how difficult it is to learn a language. I then searched the internet for common myths about learning the English language and made a list. Although this list is about English, the list seems to apply to learning any language.

Some key myths:

  • Native speakers can teach you better than non-native speakers
  • To be fluent, you can’t make mistakes
  • Learning English is boring
  • You don’t have enough time to learn the language
  • You need to visit or live in an English-speaking country to become fluent
  • You can’t afford lessons
  • You’ll never get the accent right
  • You are too old to learn English
  • You cannot speak English well without a large vocabulary
  • Technology makes it pointless to start learning a second language (you can use an app)

What do you think about these myths? Do you learn a new language better from a native speaker? Do you need to visit the country where the language is spoken to learn to speak it well?

In my experience, if you want to learn a new language, just start, no matter your age. Attend free classes, watch YouTube videos, or subscribe to language-learning apps. And regardless of technology, such as Google Translate, nothing is better than learning the language yourself to ensure the point you want to make is being said.

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How Perception Changes Opinions About You

It’s hard to predict what’s going on when you see people behaving the way they are. It’s easier to jump to conclusions but open-mindedness reduces what could be incorrect conclusions. I learned this valuable lesson one day when I was at work.

People Assume You Are Who You Appear To Be

I was the event coordinator, so I saw how an event is organized behind the scenes. There were a lot of moving parts, so the day before, I was running around and meeting with people responsible for all the pieces, from food catering, to presentation rooms, to signage, and so on. 

A day passed in an hour, so I forgot about a meeting with coworkers to help assemble some prizes. As they stuffed envelopes, I stared into space, thinking about how many more tasks I had to do and desperately wanting to keel over and sleep. 

The next day I received a complaint that I had taken advantage of my status as coordinator to make coworkers do my job while I sat around and watched them. My supervisor told me an important lesson about perception. My coworkers didn’t know about my hectic day and how I was in zombie mode when they showed up to help. I should have said I had another errand and left the room. The point is, I should have looked busy.

Similarly, I read about a social media manager who used her phone to post and monitor comments on the company’s social media feed. She was accused of being lazy and using her phone on company time. As a solution for transparency, someone suggested getting two phones, each with distinct phone covers so it was easy to see at a glance whether she was on her personal phone or company phone doing company work.

Key Takeaways

It’s easy to jump to conclusions about people when you don’t know the whole story. We’re all busy and we don’t have time to stop and think about what we’re observing. 

As observers, it helps to have an open mind and ask ourselves if we really are seeing the whole picture. As the person being observed, especially at work, we should be aware of how our actions can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. It’s all about how we perceive others and how we want others to perceive us.

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AI Replacing and Creating Jobs: It’s Happening with Ads

Recently people have been discussing how artificial intelligence (AI) is either enhancing our abilities to do our jobs or is threatening to replace jobs. Now there is a case of a business using AI instead of hiring humans to do the work.

The advertising agency WPP and chipmaker Nvidia are using generative artificial intelligence to make ads. For example, they can use AI to place a car in London or in Rio de Janeiro for an advertising campaign and save money on production costs because they are not shooting on location. The result of such technology will be smaller creative teams to create ads in the future. 

The impact of AI is being felt elsewhere in marketing. Copywriters have said that they have lost jobs because their agency wants to use AI such as ChatGPT instead of hiring writers. Writers have been offered less pay because the employer expects the writer to use AI to assist them to do their jobs more quickly. (Not all writers are losing jobs or being paid less because of AI; these are just some examples of writers who are impacted directly by AI.)

I’m curious to see how the job situation will continue to develop this year. As quickly as AI is replacing or modifying jobs, it is also creating jobs for those who work with AI. One of the companies I work for is creating AI to increase the efficiency of the hiring process. This technology will eventually either replace or modify jobs in human resources as the technology improves. But on the upside, our company has grown by fifty percent in just a few months.

AI can definitely help us to do our jobs faster. I use AI to edit my work. It is like having an extra set of eyes to assist as I write. Those who have an interest in or are open to using technology, or have a job in the technology field will have an advantage as advances continue to be made in AI. These people will more easily adapt to the changes instead of seeing AI as a threat to jobs.

It will be interesting to look back and see how the job situation has developed a year from today.

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Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know

When was the last time you saw an ad or read an article that persuaded you to buy something you didn’t even need? Well-crafted words can be powerful enough to influence your decisions. This writing skill is worth developing in your professional and personal life.

Here are some powerful, persuasive writing tips you should know to write copy to convince your reader to agree with you or buy from you. Let’s dive into the topic by defining persuasive writing.

What is Persuasive Writing?

Persuasive writing gets your reader to side with your point of view. To achieve this, you need facts, statistics, and other research from credible sources. When your point of view or opinion is backed up with strong and credible evidence, your reader is more likely to agree with you.

What Makes Persuasive Writing “Persuasive”?

Persuasive writing has three key elements. First, it will include the beliefs of a group of people or a culture. If the writer seems to understand the reader’s beliefs, then the reader is more likely to agree with the piece of writing. Second, the writer must appeal to the reader’s sense of logic by providing scientific evidence and facts. Lastly, the writing must appeal to the reader’s emotions and feelings.

If the piece of writing cannot appeal to the reader’s beliefs, sense of logic, or emotions, then it will be difficult to persuade the reader to agree with the point of view presented.

How Can You Use Persuasive Writing at Work?

If your job is to influence people through the written word, then persuasive writing will be an extremely handy skill to have.

Persuasive writing will persuade your audience to follow your social media channels because people value the insights they get from your blog posts or articles. 

Persuasive writing persuades customers to buy products and services. Advertising and marketing copywriters, for example, write copy for web content, email campaigns, marketing brochures, ads, and corporate brochures.

Persuasive writing skills are also needed for press releases, copy for fundraisers, and articles about government policies.

How Can Persuasive Writing Help Your Business?

Persuading your customers and clients to invest in your products and services is key to your business’s success. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s research on the psychology of persuasion has had a tremendous impact on marketing.

One concept he has proven is the principle of reciprocity. Humans naturally want to return favors and pay back debts. An example of this in marketing is a business that gives advice to website visitors in the form of free blogs, training courses, and PDF downloads. The informative, free content increases the likelihood that people will pay for the company’s products and services in the future.

Another principle is social proof: whatever most people do, someone joining the group will do the same, even if the behavior doesn’t make logical sense. Consider how a worker may work a little longer just because everyone else in the department works late. And think of the last time you decided whether to give a new restaurant a try because of how busy it looked. If you read about a popular trend with your age group, you’ll be more likely to try it.

Scarcity is another persuasive tactic. An ad for “the last available room,” “30% off your purchase today only,” and “offer ends at midnight tonight” will create a fear of missing out (FOMO).

Persuasive writing will give people the push they need to decide to subscribe to your email list, buy two for the price of one, sign up for a course, or invest in your consulting services.

How Is Persuasive Writing Useful to You?

Persuasive writing can help you to get a job when you’re writing to a prospective employer. It can help you to get a promotion or raise.

Persuasion is also critical when speaking during an interview or conversation for a promotion. Whether spoken or written, words can be used to appeal to others and convince them to agree with your point of view.

Key Takeaways

Persuasive writing uses psychology to give people that nudge to make a decision now. It wins you over with logic and appeals to your emotions. It may even play to your fears (FOMO) or convince you to make a purchase because of the free value you have already received. Persuasive writing creates action through the power of words.

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