Moving into a highly remote workplace requires different forms of communication. While some companies are already familiar with working remotely, others are learning it for the first time. Structure for teams is important as is flexibility in times of work when people are wearing multiple hats such as a formal employee, parent, and teacher to their children and/or caring for an isolated family member. Here are some tips that clients have shared about how they are adapting communications to stay connected and engaged with their teams:
- Have weekly team meetings for teamwork and include acknowledgement and recognition. Do a check-in, provide clarity and a focus for forward moving, share what’s going well and what you are grateful for to build a positive trajectory,
- Use some sort of collaboration software for team communication in between meetings,
- Have short, random one-to-one phone calls with team members to check-in to see how they and their families are doing and let your team know that they can schedule a call with you if they want to talk,
- Have drop-in webinars during lunch hours for casual conversation and leave them open to anybody who wants to join without making it mandatory,
- Instead of converting all prior meetings, hallway conversations, and desk check-in’s into webinars, have consistent webinar meetings solely for formal group meetings and use text or phone calls for things that you would normally ask somebody in the hall or at their desk, and
- Limit communications to specific hours for emails, calls, and texts.
Both structure and flexibility are important to navigate our changing work world. What other ideas do you have that support team communication when working remotely? I look forward to additional ideas.
Yours in adaptability,
Jamie
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