Do you recall the last time you took your employees out to celebrate the end of a new project?
To cultivate community and connection among employees, companies held team outings, networking events, contests, and interdepartmental programs to encourage innovative thinking, enhance teamwork, responsibility, and build trust.
Unfortunately, when the epidemic hit, businesses had trouble connecting with their employees because of the lack of regular face-to-face contact. The following are a variety of strategies/methods for fostering community in remote teams.
Make The Long-distance Relationship Work
When it comes to long-distance communication, especially between a manager and an employee, there are several ways for it to go awry.
Weekly zoom calls are a great way to stay in touch with your virtual team, but you still wouldn’t have seen an improvement in the sense of connection and community in remote teams. The reason for this is that you probably notified your meeting about 15 minutes before it began and then jumped right into the subject updates on the project, and continued talking about what needs to be done for several hours to someone you have never met before.
Instead, you should conduct a meeting with all videos on, schedule it in advance at a timing suitable for all attendees and within office hours. Your employees will be more engaged in the meeting if you start with icebreakers or queries about their well-being. Connecting with your employees on a personal level and keeping away from work talks once in a while is appreciated.
Every meeting ought to be kept short, but if it must last for several hours, consider taking a 15-minute break every 1 to 2 hours. Setting clear boundaries is very important so that employees do not feel overworked. Divide your staff into smaller groups during meetings to increase communication and response rate. As a result, they will no longer feel isolated when discussing ideas with the entire group.
Always allow people to switch on the camera instead of speaking into a blank screen so that everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts.
Fridays Are For Happy Hours.
This one, strangely, works well and is simpler to put into action digitally.
Just arrange a time at the end of each week for your workers to discuss their well-being, hobbies, or anything else they want to, and the week will come to a cheerful close.
This way, even if their week was jam-packed with work, they will have time to unwind and prepare for a more relaxing week ahead.
Recognize. Reward.
This widespread way of operating is making it difficult to distinguish between work and personal life.
Although employees are virtually linked, thanks to technology, they remain isolated mentally. Employees who work from home will welcome having "open door" time slots with their supervisors where they can go online for quick assistance. It's similar to "stopping by my desk" at a workplace for a quick chat or to inquire about a pressing issue; no prior appointment is necessary.
As a result, their standpoints are respected within the group, making them feel less alone.
It goes a long way to establish a community for virtual teams and goes further than just acknowledging and appreciating the hard work of the individuals. For instance, many firms have a dedicated platform for recognizing and rewarding their top performers. They also send vouchers to the entire staff for their efforts.
Summary
When setting deadlines or scheduling meetings, it is good to keep demographic distance, time, and regional holidays in mind. Remote workers need trust between themselves and their employers to have a sense of belonging and community while working from home.
To build community in remote teams, getting employees from different departments together at least once a month might help encourage cross-pollination and the exchange of ideas. The Iconic Workplace in Miami is an excellent choice for a one-on-one conference with your team to reconnect after months of only seeing each other on your computer.
