3 Keys to Navigating Remote Work & Team Culture
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In case you missed it, this is an additional follow up to a #culturedrop video & blog I released a few months ago about remote teams: 5 Ways to Build Team Culture with Remote Employees.
As COVID has ushered in a new era of remote teams and video calls, companies have been adjusting to the dynamics, advantages, and pitfalls of a physically distant workforce.
The reality is that while it has its bonuses, it also has no shortage of challenges; whether employees are dealing with having kids at home, or are feeling isolated and disconnected from the team, or they’re feeling exhausted from endless video calls, the struggle is real.
Based on the successes and challenges that I’ve been encountering with teams, here are a few concrete ways to keep your team operating and communicating smoothly, and to make sure your people continue to feel connected and supported.
3 elements to help your teams successfully navigate remote work
1. Flexibility & adaptability.
As much as absolutely possible, be fiercely flexible and adaptable to individual people's needs. Whatever kinds of schedules and dynamics people have going on in their personal lives, do everything in your power as a team (within reason obviously) to accommodate and make room for that.
If somebody has to drive their husband to work in the morning and start a bit later, or they have to pick up their kids at a certain time, etc. find a way if you can to say yes to what they need.
“Be fiercely flexible and adaptable to individual people’s needs.”
Some people are caring for parents, or they've got kids remote learning at home. Every family and individual has such a vastly different circumstance around their lives in terms of what they're dealing with right now.
As a team, or as a leader, one way that you can reduce stress for your team and prove that you care about them as humans is to do as much as you can to allow people some flexibility as they navigate their current reality. Asking what they need and honoring requests takes one less thing off their plate that they have to worry about.
But will they get their work done? Yes, they will.
I imagine for some people who read this, thoughts will creep up in the back of your mind that revolve around being skeptical as to whether people will still get their work done, or will take advantage of this flexibility. I would suggest that you look at your hiring practices and coaching skills and ponder instead why you are hiring or keeping people who you feel are not accountable or trustworthy.
If the only measure you have in place to be able to tell if people are working or not is if they are clocked in and out on time, I recommend taking a look at your processes and how you measure success and productivity, because you can do much better than that.
2. Avoid miscommunication & resolve static instantly.
This is a big one. Communication is so important right now, especially when we’re not face to face. It's critical that whenever you have any communication where there's any kind of static, or tension, or miscommunication, or even the chance for miscommunication, address it and sort that out immediately.
If you're emailing somebody or on a video or phone call, the second that you get the feeling that there is tension, or that someone is frustrated, or you're not assuming completely positive intent on the other part of the other person, pick up the phone, call them, get on a video call, and clear the air right away.
“The second you feel any amount of static or tension at all, in any communication you have, pick up the phone, sort things out and clear the air immediately.”
Communication is always important, and because we're remote and doing more email and less face-to-face interactions, we have so much less information to evaluate in regards to what we are sending and receiving from others.
When two people are face to face, they can read each other’s facial expressions, their tone of voice and inflection, body language, and all those important pieces of subtext and nonverbal cues. We are constantly collecting all that data to interpret information being shared with us. If it's just an email, the only thing we have are the written words. We miss out on a lot of other data to help us understand what other people are communicating to us.
Miscommunications and unresolved static can lead to conflict that wouldn’t otherwise exist. If not addressed, things like a misinterpreted comment intended to be friendly, or a seemingly abrupt email that was sent with no ill intent, etc. can lead to a breakdown of relationships and lingering negativity, resentment, and toxicity.
Here's my rule of thumb: the second you feel any amount of static or tension at all, in any communication you have, pick up the phone, sort things out and clear the air immediately.
Never assume ill intent, if you’re going to assume, then assume positive intent and interpret things in the best possible light. The second that you can't or you don't, go right to the source, clarify, and solve it right there.
3. Make time to break up the monotony, stretch the rubber band, & connect.
You have to make time for play, and fun, and connection.
That can look like a lot of different things, but put some intention and creativity into that as a team and as leaders. Very specifically, choose to do things that are fun for play, for interaction, that get your team doing something other than work together, and having that human connection.
“Find ways to intentionally mix up the monotony and do things that are not just work.”
Competitions between departments, trivia teams, video calls in costume on Fridays, rotating 5 minute show & tell to start a weekly meeting, posing interesting questions over a happy hour, a “lunch & learn” where people show off a talent or teach the team something that’s unique to whoever is sharing. Find ways to intentionally mix up the monotony and do things that are not just work.
You have to make time for that. People are missing all of that socializing and fun, which is one of the benefits of working with other humans. The times that we go to someone’s desk, or eat lunch together and just shoot the breeze about TV shows, or weekend activities, and connect as humans.
We're many months into people working from home. A lot of people are fatigued, overworked, they're stressed or overwhelmed, locked in their houses and isolated. Teams have to intentionally create opportunities for people to interact and play.
For my team, we do “Sandbox Time” on Fridays where for the last couple hours of the day every week, everyone can work on whatever they want, even if that's outside projects or something fun not at all related to work. We rotate between those being solo times or team time. When it’s team time, we’ll play a game or do trivia and once a month (ish), we do a movie day where we all stop work early and watch the same movie together.
“It’s just a fact that people try harder and care more about their jobs when they feel taken care of as humans.”
When teams do that, they stretch the rubber band of creativity and connection on the team. Shake things up, mix up the energy and spend some time goofing off and just being human. The “unproductive” time will pay back dividends in productivity by giving people a chance to recharge, regroup, and reconnect.
It’s just a fact that people try harder and care more about their jobs when they feel taken care of as humans.
Remote work is challenging in a number of ways. Have conversations and be intentional together about what the experience feels like to ensure that interactions and communications are smooth, that people feel supported, and you’re still making time to be a team.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop
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