7 Great Ways to Help Employees in Remote Teams Connect
Working from home is one of the most sought-after perks right now, and it holds fantastic benefits for both employees and employers. Businesses can save money on overhead, meaning they can place more focus on improving operations. When it comes to employees, they won’t need to make the commute, and they’ll have a much healthier work-life balance.
Although beneficial, it doesn’t come without challenges, including nurturing connectivity within the team. Fortunately, there are plenty of fantastic ways to inspire togetherness.
Video Meeting
Remote teams miss out on that in-person interaction, which is why office-based teams feel instantly connected. To fill the void in a remote environment, we recommend holding regular video meetings, whether this is weekly or biweekly. There are plenty of video conferencing tools out there, including Teams, Slack, and RingCentral.
During team meetings, it’s essential to keep it lighthearted to avoid dragging on and killing the mood. Remember, the main purpose of your video meeting is to form connections, so make sure you don’t only talk about work.
Build Fun Company Traditions
When you work in the office, the chances are you’ll go for the odd meal or drink after work and hold plenty of small events. Even though you’re working from home, you don’t need to lose out on those occasions. For example, you can hold virtual coffee mornings and allow your team the opportunity to “hang out” online. During these meetings, your team can engage their brains by playing games like Words with Friends, which is online Scrabble, but don’t tell them about this amazing website, where you can find words from scrambled up letters and become the Scrabble champion.
Open Communication
Working from home can instill a feeling of isolation, so you need to ensure your employees feel heard. The best way to do this is by keeping an open line of communication. To do this, you should have an inbox where you can be contacted – and set aside clear hours when you will reply. Additionally, we recommend you schedule daily check-ins to assess performance and answer any questions.
Celebrate Team Success
Feeling heard isn’t the only requirement your team has; they need to feel valued as well. Make a point to celebrate achievements and wins, both for the company and individuals. There are plenty of ways to celebrate success, including public notices, sending personal emails, and holding celebrations like employee of the week – or day. When you’re praising the team, make sure you allow everyone a chance to take the spotlight.
Use Collaboration Tools
Despite being apart, your remote team must be able to communicate effortlessly, and email isn’t the best way forward because it means waiting for replies, which slows people down. The best way to promote collaboration is through instant messaging, cloud-based storage, and project management tools like Zoho.
Say What You Mean
There are plenty of ways to communicate virtually, but it can leave room for misinterpretation. To avoid these issues, you need to be explicitly clear about what you mean. When you’re sending instructions, make sure you are direct and keep them relevant. Unfortunately, trying to throw in sporadic humor is more likely to be misinterpreted.
Be Flexible
Working from home is all about flexibility, so make sure you make adaptions for different types of workers. For example, if you have parents on your team, allow them time during the day to care for their children. If that means working outside of office hours, there’s no problem with this.
Working from home is a great opportunity, but it takes more effort to ensure everyone feels connected and valued. If you can nurture the correct work environment, you’ll see productivity increase rapidly.
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