Working from home may not always be in your control, or your choice. For many, working remotely can make you feel isolated from colleagues and far removed from a sense of belonging that any good work culture nurtures in us.
This hits morale hard. Individuals can feel very remote indeed and their input to the team can be hit equally hard.
The answer to prevent this is proven by science and seems simple in the extreme.
In reality it is pretty tough to make happen.
The solution is to maximise the number of ‘collisions’ that happen between team members in any one day.
By collisions I mean meetings, calls, messages and any other unplanned interactions between team members.
This is a golden rule for building strong, top-performing teams in the real world. When we are all working remotely, it matters even more.
Then, where possible, make these virtual ‘collisions’ as meaningful as possible but remember: a certain amount of general chitter-chatter is a very good thing.
Your aim in monitoring or facilitating this as a leader – whether of a small team or a large company - is to get everyone to over-communicate so there is a constant buzz across as many communication channels as possible.
Here are 9 ways you can make this happen:
Share your availability and allow a team to flex
Make sure your culture is open and honest so that people share the workload, their circumstances and look out for each other, always. Have a conversation about when people are available and share this availability so that no suspicion about people not pulling their weight can develop.
Check-in
Begin every meeting with a ‘check-in’ – the tone is not led by the most senior or the one running the meeting. A simple 5 minutes making sure everyone is ok and sharing ‘war stories’ when dealing with a crisis situation (or looking after two children under 5 from home while also trying to work) is more than ok.
Say ‘thank you’…a lot
High performing teams appreciate the work of every single member of that team. Make sure this is built into your teams’ culture by saying a simple (but heartfelt) ‘thank you’ to individual team members when they help others and put themselves out. Vary how this is done depending on how crucial the help has been, whether across a chat channel like slack or through a tam video call.
Instigate a buddy system
During training, special forces soldiers will typically be asked to spend every hour of every day with another team member. This buddy system means everyone always has someone else looking after their back. Life-long friendships are made. Start a buddy system where each ‘buddy pair’ is tasked with checking in with each other and being a sounding board, a friendly face and a shoulder cry on (if necessary). What they share is up to them and remains within that pair.
Virtual coffee breaks and team drinks
This can be done by team, by office, desk grouping. It should not be compulsory but a fun way to have an informal chat and share a morning or afternoon cuppa or an end of week glass of something stronger.
‘Pair calls’
Randomly pair employees together so that they speak via a video or phone call every day. This is the kind of collision that might happen in an office kitchen, on the stairs or in the moments before a face-to-face meeting is starting. Sometimes a simple ‘what are you working on at the moment?’ can lead to a problem being solved.
Create a ‘hangout space’
Use video conference software with a 'meeting room' that stays constantly open for members of the team to drop in to throughout the day as a 'hangout' space. Alternatively, designate a couple of hours (12-2 maybe) and have lunch together?
Virtual playlists
Suggest music that could become a team or companywide playlist on Spotify or Apple Music. Even better, build the list and make it public as a way to show how the business is still working closely together even in these remote, working from home times.
Virtual team exercise
A team ride on Zwift anyone? Meet up, ride, feel better…or a yoga session via a video call?