First time you establish virtual office "house rules", huh? Research confirms: investing 30 minutes in aligning on behavioral principles, preferably together as a team, or at least as a leadership team, will pay off! The one non-negotiable rule for any online office usage is everyone must be online while working, as the value of a virtual office is dependent on your co-workers! Being alone in an online office makes about as much sense as being alone in a physical office. To avoid people accidentally commuting to the old place, make sure to update routine meeting invite links. Some teams have found morning calendar login-reminders useful to get the habit going the first 2-3 weeks.

Are there recommended default rules if you are a new online office user? Yes!

• When we work, we are all online in Teemyco. When we don't work, we are offline
• For the next 2 weeks, we host all our internal meetings in Teemyco
• If something takes more than 3 minutes to write in the chat, we speak instead
• In our company, we encourage social talks in the kitchen
• Social lunches (also if 1-2-1) are encouraged
• If we have important meetings we lock the room
• It is OK to invite people who are not in a meeting or do-not-disturb-room into rooms
• When in an external call, we signal that by placing ourselves in the phone booth
• When we feel like taking a social break we use the coffee button so that others are notified and can choose if it's a good time to join

Got it. What what can we do more to make our online office usage work smoothly?

<aside> 💡 Hygiene factors: 1) make sure everyone is online and 2) everyone uses an avatar picture

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<aside> 💡 Pro tip: Review the questions below together & write down the agreed principles

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• [ ] Why are we using an online office? Is there something we miss as we don't meet physically?
• [ ] Who is supposed to use the new online office?