The best way for you to make a decision about what’s good for Thrive is to have all of the information about what’s going on at Thrive. The same is true for everyone else you work with, so it’s important that we’re all up to date about what’s happening, even with the areas that we’re not actively involved with.

Here are some of the ways we encourage transparent & open communication:

🤙 Pro-active check-ins: It's a good idea to be proactive about letting teammates know what you're working on and how it's going. With increased individual flexibility, since we're all working at the same time less, it's important to go above and beyond in letting people know when we are around.

🟢 Setting Slack Status: Almost all Slack conversations should happen in public Slack channels where the rest of the team can see it. You may not subscribe to or pay attention to every channel, but conversations that happen in public channels are searchable and readable by the whole team, so when someone wants to know how we decided on some course of action, Slack gives them a place to look back at the conversation. Not every ping or question needs to happen publicly, but when in question, you should err on the side of posting publicly.

Click here for a complete guide on how to set your Slack Status.

📆 Work Calendars: Work calendars should be shared to make scheduling meetings really easy and also to let the rest of the team see where we’re spending our time. Personal calendars often have sensitive information and should be kept separate.

⭐ Providing Feedback: At Thrive, we believe that if you have feedback for someone, please give it to them. Be polite and honest. It's not a big deal, and they will appreciate it. It's not OK to talk about someone else without also being willing to talk to them directly. Also be sure to thank and congratulate folks when you think they are doing great work, too. The more the better. Doing it in public can be a morale-booster for everyone!

Communication to support remote work

Here are the golden rules of communicating with clarity when working remotely:

• Make sure your immediate team knows of your time and energy availability in the immediate future, for collaborations & conversations.
• Make your work public. Use Notion, all the other platforms your work requires so that others are aware of where your energy is being spent.
• There is a hierarchy of communication channels. The map broadly is:
  • Phone for any urgent communication.
  • Slack for general announcements to all/ casual conversations/ team-specific updates, calls for meetings etc.
  • Email for more formal communication, such as org-wide tasks, announcements etc.
• Other folk's work is visible on Notion. If you are curious about what they are up to, head over there and look. Follow it up with questions to those people and further conversations.
• Share milestones of your work with others. Make it public. Celebrate good work done by others too. Creating a culture of appreciation is all of our responsibility.
• All bad news to be communicated on-call/ video calls or if possible, in person. Avoid the allure of sharing any bad news (think delays to agreed-upon timelines, change in scope of work, unplanned leave, development feedback on performance, etc.)

Protocol for calls

Assess if the call is needed at all. Assess if the time you've requested is needed or can it be made shorter. Assess if you can finish sharing all you intended in that time while giving others adequate time to process and respond to you. Confirm with the others that this time works for them. Now, schedule the call.

Get to the call on time. In case you foresee delays, inform the others/ the meeting convener as soon as you can. Check if they have read the information.

Be mindful of closing calls on time. If your meeting is spilling over, check if the other person is okay with the delay. In case they are not, reschedule the rest for another time.

Video on call