How to engage your remote teams when you’ve never done this before
The majority of the work from home tips and tools flooding the internet right now are from seasoned veterans, remote warriors who are sharing home offices that look like Apple stores (putting my laptop on my dinner table in my combination living room/dining room to shame). But what if you said goodbye to your team, everyone picked up their bag and maybe a desk plant that needs a lot of attention, and now people are at their separate abodes thinking what do I do now?
There are so many resources for how to implement remote work programs (I like this checklist from Owl Labs) but without the existing systems or even staff and resources to implement these systems, the prospect of a temporary work from home situation can be daunting for industries in which it’s not the norm.
When you go remote, figure out how to utilize your existing tools first
But how do we video chat!?! It might seem like you don’t have the tools you need, but you probably do. Don’t further complicate things by implementing entirely new systems, tools, schedules, or software unless absolutely necessary. We don’t need to get fancy; we need to get through this. If you literally do not use any sort of video chatting or group messaging technology for your company, some big tech companies are offering their remote-working tools for free. There’s a good chance you already use Google or Microsoft, so go with that for now.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
To keep teams engaged, take what you already do online
If you’re worried about how to keep your teams engaged and chugging along as if you’re all in the office together, just think about what you do now and take it online.
Do people eat lunch together in your office? Set up a video chat where people can dial in and catch up during the lunch hour.
Do people share stories and photos of their pets and kids when they’re waiting for other people to show up to meetings? Start a Slack channel where people can drop in #wfhlife photos or a folder where they can submit their cutest pet shots.
Consider ending each day with a fireside-chat-esque email from a senior person where they can share their thoughts and feelings about the situation as well as give company updates and share wins from the team.
Crowdsource home exercise suggestions or free meditation practices.
Make a recipe list of people’s favorite gourmet lunches.
Make one (only one!) living FAQ doc (it has to be a living doc, no PDFs that go out of date as soon as you download them) that your teams can reference and add questions and answers to as they come in. Add a link to the end of all of your emails. I cannot stress enough that there should only be one live, central place for everyone to get the info they need.
Video chat instead of calling. Not everyone is going to like it. I hate it. But it is nicer to see people. I know that. I know it...sigh.
In a week, put together a short engagement survey. If you’ve never done one before, use Google forms.
Always have a well-known place that people can provide feedback, and make an anonymous option if you can.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Just think: what engages everyone now? How can I make that digital?
Learn from this remote experiment and improve for the future
Once everyone is back in the office, don’t just return to business as usual if improvements can be made. If remote work turned out to be better than you thought or people did really well with flexible hours and locations, consider implementing a more flexible policy. The people who love to work from home will be more productive, with fewer folks in the office you’ll save on facilities costs, and you’ll have happier and more engaged employees.
Still lost? Get help with your communication and strategy.