As Covid-19 continues to impact our lives, companies are increasingly saying goodbye to office-based working for good. Even those who plan to keep their office space can expect hybrid and flexible working to play a greater part in their business culture going forward.
There are many benefits to giving employees the flexibility to work wholly or partly from home. Our post on job enrichment shows how giving team members more control over where and when they work can help you to increase productivity and retain staff.
You can also attract new talent, as you are no longer limited to just the pool of people within commuting distance of your office.
However, remote working also comes with its challenges. Being siloed, isolation, and feeling disconnected from the organizational community are just some of the downsides.
Indeed, according to the results of a 2020 survey published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, not getting to see colleagues is the number one disadvantage of this new way of work.
While Zoom or Teams might not be able to fully replicate seeing colleagues in person, encouraging good communication between team members is vital to keeping everyone connected while they are working from home.
Here are some ideas you can implement to help remote staff members feel like they are part of the team.
1. Set Aside Time for Coffee Break Chats
In the office, there are a lot of informal conversations that go on in corridors, kitchens, and around the watercooler. But when you are working remotely, those opportunities to connect to your colleagues and chat about something other than work are few and far between.
Managers might see this as a bonus. After all, less time chatting means more time being productive, right?
In fact, those informal chats make a big difference to team cohesion. If your only interaction with your colleagues is work-based and transactional, it’s easy to stop valuing them as human beings.
While it might feel like ‘scheduled fun’, at least at first, setting time aside each week for an online coffee break can go some way towards replacing those chats around the photocopier. It’s harder for these to happen spontaneously when working remotely, so scheduling the time is often the only way to create opportunities for socializing.
Make it clear that work is off the table and use the opportunity to catch up and bond with your team.
2. Encourage Informal Messaging
Most remote teams have some kind of instant messaging service, whether that’s Slack, Teams, or WhatsApp. These are great for collaborative working and are a way to keep connected with colleagues when working from home.
Because it is less formal than email and less intrusive than a phone call, instant messaging can be a positive way to keep remote or hybrid teams communicating with one another.
Using a text-based medium can also help your team avoid the dreaded Zoom fatigue. While seeing each other’s faces is important, we’ve all felt the impact of constant video calls in the past 18 months.
As long as things are kept appropriate, make it clear that some non-work chat on instant message is allowed. Setup different channels for this purpose, so people can mute them when they need to concentrate.
3. Encourage Conversations Between Peers
Whole team chats help to keep everyone connected. But some people find it harder to relax and socialize when they are aware they are speaking to their manager or others who are higher in the office hierarchy.
As a manager, you want to stay in touch with everyone on your team. But you can also encourage them to take the time to chat with their peers. Done right, this fosters team cohesion and makes everyone feel part of the work community.
This type of interaction doesn’t have to remain within your own team either. Just as you will find it beneficial to connect with managers in other teams, your staff members might find it useful to speak with colleagues at the same level as them.
You can’t force people to speak to each other, obviously. But you can encourage staff to give each other a call once a week or set up group calls or chats that remain between peers.
4. Touch Base Regularly
As a manger, you likely have a lot of day-to-day communication with your team members. However, this will usually center on work, checking in on tasks and projects.
Depending on the size of your team, you might not be able to speak to everyone one-on-one each week. But scheduling regular calls to touch base and see how they are can help your staff members feel connected to you and, through you, to the rest of the company.
During these calls, your main role is to listen. Ask how they are coping, if the workload is reasonable, if there’s anything they are struggling with.
5. Start a Social Club
This one you’ll need to play by ear – some people resent work intruding on their personal time, especially now there’s so little separation between home and work.
But if your team is up for it, encourage social interaction through a virtual book club, bake-off, or craft corner. Depending on your workload and company culture, these might take place during lunchtime instead of at the end of the day.
It’s a fun way for colleagues to connect with one another and spend some quality time together, even when working remotely.
6. Send Internal Newsletters
At their worst, internal email newsletters can be a deadly dull rundown of all the recent work stats. However, when they are done right, internal newsletters can help to keep teams connected while they work from home.
Make it short, snappy, and readable so that people don’t avoid opening it. Keep work news to the big headlines and what people really need to know. Then, include jokes, musings, and interesting things you’ve spotted around the web to get people laughing and keep them engaged.
Get others involved in contributing content and make it clear this doesn’t have to be just work-based.
Perhaps someone’s strong opinions on the best type of pet or whether pineapple belongs on pizza can spark some friendly debate or allow your team to develop some inside jokes that will help them to bond.
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Remote and hybrid working can certainly present some challenges when it comes to keeping everyone connected and engaged. But by using plenty of different communication channels, allowing time for socializing, and letting your staff know you are there to listen, leaders can help their teams stay in touch when working from home.
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