20 Words We Should Be Familiar With When Working Remotely

Not only has remote work altered how we cooperate, but it has also changed the way we select our clothes these days. The fashion industry has not backed away from this challenge and has created a set of options, to meet the needs of people working from home. Having this current working style in mind, where we spend countless hours on video calls, waist-up outfits are clothes that are specifically designed to be seen mostly from… well, the waist up. If you’ve never heard of the waist-up fashion term before, no worries. It’s something that we’re still adjusting to.

As our lifestyles change, it’s also important to observe and acknowledge how our vocabulary evolves.

Here are 20 words we should be familiar with when working remotely:

Synchronous communication is when data is sent and received simultaneously, whether during a phone call, video call, or in-person discussion.

When communication is not real-time, it is referred to as asynchronous communication (due to time differences between colleagues or different schedules). For instance, email, an intranet, project management software, etc.

A coworking space is a place specifically created to serve the needs of freelancers, small businesses, and remote employees. The most valuable benefit such a space offers is flexibility. Many coworking spaces offer a wide variety of amenities, tools, and services, including phone booths, lounge rooms, refreshments, reception and cleaning services, and community events.

WFH: The abbreviation stands for “work from home,” and it refers to remote workers who perform most of their job off-site, typically from their homes or the neighborhood areas (e.g. from coffee shops, coworking spaces, etc.).

Work from anywhere, or WFA, is a word used to refer to professionals who work remotely from home or other areas (often these locations are outside the country of residence). For instance, digital nomads often embrace this kind of working approach.

A hybrid company has both, an on-site office and staff that work from home occasionally.

There are different hybrid work settings, from the office-centric hybrid model (where employees are permitted to work from home for one or two days) to a hybrid model focused on remote working (the company is mainly online, but there is a physical office they can visit when they want).

Distributed teams are groups of people who collaborate while operating in geographically separate locations. Members of distributed teams don’t need to travel to the corporate or regional offices. The corporate headquarters are virtual. As an example, consider an engineering team without an office where everyone works from home, a coffee shop, or a coworking space.

Remote team: as with distributed teams, team members work remotely, sometimes in different geographical locations. The main distinction is that some team members commute to a physical office for work.

Blended team: a group of people working together on the same project and with the same objectives who are both full-time employees and contractors (collaborators) (typical for startups)

Work in Place refers to a work arrangement in which employees primarily do their business away from the company’s headquarters.

A face-to-face meeting commonly referred to as a F2F meeting is essentially an in-person, physical meeting as opposed to one that occurs online (on Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams).

Meeting in person: a face-to-face encounter (also known as a “face-to-face meeting”)

Offsite Meeting: a physical gathering conducted away from the office that is frequently used to improve communication and cohesion among team members, as well as team morale.

Company/Corporate Retreat: A one-day, multi-day, or longer gathering when distant workers get together (often at a neutral place) to collaborate but also to unwind and get to know one another better.

Flex time is a term that describes an employee’s daily schedule who is not required to work only between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and who has the flexibility to choose his or her hours.

Workation: an employee taking time off work while continuing to complete some or all of their regular duties (a way of mixing business with pleasure).

Zoom fatigue: the term defines the fatigue associated with excessive use of virtual communication platforms, particularly videoconferencing.

Digital presenteeism occurs when employees work remotely but are not effectively engaged in their work because of illness, exhaustion, or the pressure to be available and online at all times.

Since working from home was not a radical concept introduced to us during the sanitary crisis, neither are most of the terms we use when doing so. However, it is intriguing to note how quickly we’ve adopted them into our everyday language and how vocabulary reflects the broader shifts that affected business models during these years.

We can all agree that these changes are here to stay and that communication is a critical success factor in the remote setting. We must, therefore, make sure that we all speak the same language.