TecHRseries Interview with Venkat Ramasamy, COO and VP Marketing for FileCloud

The rules of the new normal are still evolving everyday and HR teams have to focus more on helping their teams adjust to changing work trends, policies and standards. While businesses are recreating their processes, what are some of the biggest challenges and mistakes that they should avoid? Catch this interview where Venkat Ramasamy, COO and VP Marketing for FileCloud by Codelathe shares a few thoughts.

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Tell us a little about yourself Venkat…we’d love to hear about some of AirSend’s latest (feature) additions/innovations 

CodeLathe is the company behind AirSend. We make an award winning enterprise content services platform (FileCloud) that is currently used by more than 1M+ users, 3000 organizations, across 90 countries. As a company we have embraced the remote culture from the start (even before COVID) and we do know how to run a successful remote company.

We have experienced that the current crop of communication platforms like Slack and Teams are inadequate when it comes to remote collaboration and working across organization boundaries. To solve our own problem, we envisioned to build a simple, easy-to-use, contextual communication workspace that will help users to get work done. That is AirSend.

We have added audio/video calling and screen sharing features to augment the synchronized communication capabilities of the system. We have also introduced a public channel feature and user roles that will make it easy to work with your customers and partners across organization boundaries.

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The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic induced remote work has led to its own share of challenges, we’d love some of your thoughts on how global teams can use their tech stack better (or how they should choose their tech stack) to create better team alignment and collaboration as the pandemic plays out (with most teams still opting to work from home while economies reopen)

It is a great question and we are uniquely equipped to answer the question. Our recommendation for companies is to choose collaborative tools that offer a good mix of Synchronized Communication (Text Chat, Audio and Video, Screen Sharing) and Asynchronized Communication (Wiki, Discussion Forums and Task management) capabilities in their tech stack.

Missing Context is a big problem in remote work.That is the main pain point we are trying to address with AirSend. By bringing the sync and async capabilities in one space, AirSend helps users to understand the work context better to get their work done.

For successful remote team work, just the right tools are not enough. Management needs to foster good communication practices among team members, offer communication training, establish effective communication policies to make sure every team member has a common understanding of what is expected of them in a remote work environment.

When it comes to aligning a company’s work / HR Tech tools so multiple teams and departments can be on the same page, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve witnessed – or some of the biggest mistakes that teams make (when it comes to implementation / optimizing use of their tools, etc)

The biggest mistake that teams make when it comes to remote work is that they don’t communicate enough. Communicate more, often and repeat one more time. Always err at the side of over communication.

Also use a judicious mix of sync and async communication techniques. For example have weekly company wide and team wide audio/video meetings,

encourage team members to have 1-1 conversations and at the same time diligently document the meeting notes, follow-up task items to help users can find the information when they need it.

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What are some of the biggest business challenges that you’ve observed in teams that last few weeks and what would your top tips be to them to help alleviate these problems?

The biggest challenge is people lose the human connection when they work remotely. It is a hard problem to solve and there is no silver bullet solution. We organize virtual team games, talent shows and company happy hours to help team members connect and establish bond. We also have company-wide AirSend public channels catering to different interests (Cooking, Fitness, Movies and Music, Photography) that anybody can join.

How would you advise businesses and teams, especially HR to stay a step ahead of the game as the global economy tides through these uncertain times caused by the Covid-19 pandemic?

HR teams should be proactive. Many companies consider HR as an auxiliary function for company operations. Now is the time for HR teams to get back their rightful role in their organizations. They have a greater role to play in these uncertain times. Make sure employee needs, concerns and fears are properly propagated to management and vice versa. Listen more. Communicate more. Learn more. Look for creative options to measure and reward better team collaboration.

A few general thoughts / tips for businesses worldwide dealing with the current world pandemic?

We are all in together and the rules of pandemic are changing every day. Be nimble, flexible and thoughtful. Even though there is doom and gloom everywhere, be positive and know if we work together we will prevail in the end.

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