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Do Millennials Need More Face Time At Work?

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Contrary to the popular belief that millennials prefer texting, a recent study from Adobe found that a majority of millennials (55%) prefer to communicate in person at work instead of text or instant messaging. Although results may differ among people who work on fully distributed teams, face to face communication can be more efficient and create stronger bonds between people than other forms of communication. Sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint the value of face to face communication in an increasingly tech focused world, so we asked executives who have worked in the tech industry for years why they value face time.

Navigating complex personal relationships

Face time lets you read visual and social cues, such as body language relative to tone of voice relative to facial expressions. Reading these correctly can create a more productive line of communication. It also provides more opportunities to create a strong working bond and develop shared experiences.

"Work relationships are often complex, deep and personal,” said Anna Barber, Managing Director, Techstars. “In order for these relationships to develop and flourish, face to face time is essential. If you don't invest time in person with one another - in meetings, over meals, talking about life outside work - then you won't have a basic mutual empathy and understanding to fall back on when you hit the inevitable bumps that arise. Also, work done just electronically tends to be transactional, where the most creative thinking is done in a room, all together. I've observed that one of the most valuable things startups get out of their Techstars experience is structured and productive face time with each other. A lot of forced togetherness leads to rapid strategic iteration and fosters growth for the business. An additional huge benefit is team happiness - the more time you spend, the better you know your co-workers and the more people can be their whole selves at work."

Building trust in demanding environments  

Face time can create a foundation of trust between managers and employees. In a demanding industry like tech, this trust can help make deadlines, motivate employees, keep morale high and deter voluntary attrition.   

“Overall the biggest value of face time is that it's really the only legitimate way to build trust with someone,” said Max Brown, Founder, Silicon Beach Talent.  “It's almost impossible to build trust with someone without a significant amount of face time. This can happen inside the office but meeting outside of work for lunch, golfing, or team offsites can really help. The more you feel like you actually know someone, the more likely you are to trust them.

“Whenever you're working in a really fast paced environment like a startup or a rapidly growing company, many of the things you're doing seem almost impossible. When you're managing, you're not always going to be able to offer your team bonus overtime or more money. Sometimes you're going to have to ask more than is typically acceptable because the work needs to get done. You need to have the type of relationship where you feel comfortable saying: ‘I need to get this done. Can you do this for me?’ And that can only happen if they trust you.

Earning respect of colleagues across departments and across the globe

In an increasingly global business environment, in person meetings help break down barriers or silos in companies with offices in multiple countries. This is especially important for people who need to collaborate with colleagues outside of their department or across an ocean. "When you work across different offices worldwide, conversation is often limited to formal meetings or the times when things go haywire,” said Adam Sullivan, Director, Head of Business & Legal Affairs at video game publisher Square Enix.  “Especially in Legal, we can be seen as the 'Stormbringer.' When you don’t know someone, it’s easy to assume they're being arbitrarily unreasonable or that they just don’t care about your particular challenges. Face time shows that we're real people who genuinely care. It helps us understand everyone else too."

Face time is also about remembering a person. This is why we like to match someone’s face to their emails. You can spend as much time on the phone as you want, but you cannot build the same memory that you can when you look them in the eyes during conversation. Scheduling a quick face to face meeting is your ace card, because you can both ask and answer follow up questions and come to a conclusion in minutes. This is much better than waiting for a reply to an email that creates more questions than it answers.

If you still heavily prefer email, text and instant message to talking to colleagues face to face, I suggest trying an experiment for two weeks. If you have an email thread with one person on one issue that goes beyond three emails between the two of you, then go chat with them in person. You may find that you can resolve issues more quickly face to face, and you and your colleague may have more common ground than you first realized. You may even find a friend.

 

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