One of the benefits of coming into an office is having a shared space. Without that shared space, it can be hard to make and maintain connections with your colleagues. When we don’t maintain connections, misunderstood communication happens easily. Now that many organizations are turning to a hybrid, half in-person and half remote approach, leaders may be concerned with how to help colleagues continue to feel connected.
As illustrated by Diane Lee in Clockify’s blog post on remote workers’ challenges- a common challenge among remote workers is feeling isolated. The more we work from home or a remote location, the more difficult it becomes to maintain connections with our team members who are in the office.
According to Great Place to Work, social support from family and friends that you can count on, as well as other close relationships, can cushion us against a variety of worries, including workplace stress, which can compromise health. This article offers some tips on how to stay connected while working remotely so you don’t lose out on these opportunities for connection:
Stay Social If Your Team Is Remote
When working remotely brings feelings of disconnection and isolation to the forefront, find ways to recapture the synergy that happens more naturally when people are physically next to each other.
Try these techniques to help your team stay connected:
- Take some time to do an emotional pulse check at the start of each team meeting. Get the team to set their own questions to check in on the team. Try to keep the questions brief and use the colors of stop lights as a pulse measure. For example, a question may be “how are you feeling today” or “choose an emoji that represents your emotional state today” and have the team to add an emoji from reactions on Zoom. Take a few minutes to have each person share a few words on why they chose that emoji. Is there someone on the team who can support another team member, if this is required.
- Check in individually with team members to understand where they may be feeling disconnects at work and at home. What do they personally need to keep connected, and how will they help the other team members feel connected? This builds insight and develops ownership and accountability for individuals.
- Schedule weekly virtual coffee breaks or social hours to talk about things outside office life. Rotate around the group for individuals to host and lead the coffee break. Encourage each person to be involved. Have each person share one great thing they saw, did, or heard in the past week.
- For periods of the day, create an open workplace concept (or “Zoom room”) by encouraging team members to keep their muted, multi-screen video connections open in the background. This can be known as open discussion time, or office hours, where employees can touch base with each other as needed. Set reminders with discussion topics or ideas of the day, to keep remote team members engaged in the process.
- Take 15 minutes out of your day to walk and talk as a team. No video this time, just use your phone and headphones as the team all walk their own block.
- Develop creative team engagement challenges on a regular basis. For example: workspace photos, recipe sharing or themed dress days. Consider a small prize for “winners” as voted on by the team. Or use virtual stickers to convey messages of support to each other. Many are available free online.
- Let people get to know your additional “coworkers” (spouses, children, roommates and/or pets) by hosting an event where everyone can mingle virtually and introduce one or two of their coworkers at a time.
- Set up a “virtual water cooler” discussion board/chat room where people can spend a few minutes engaged with their colleagues in casual conversation. Choose a theme or burning issue of the day happening in the community, so that the conversations can be on topics outside of work.
