How To Create More Meaningful Connections When Everyone Works From Home

Source: Fast Company, Donald Fierros
Photo: cottonbro studio/Pexels

For companies that have chosen remote work, this COO writes, leaders have to be intentional in their efforts to foster connection and culture.

I’ve always loved the old adage: “You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes”—that people’s interests and personality come through in the small ways they present themselves. Before remote work, back when people actually worked at offices, all this meant was that you could learn a lot about your teammates simply by seeing them in person and absorbing (sometimes unconsciously) little superficial clues. Noticing their workspace, what trinkets or photos they bring, what they choose for lunch, and so on made it much simpler to find common interests and spark up conversations. It created connections that organically contributed to workplace culture.

I sometimes think of this after a draining day of Zoom meetings—where daily opportunities to notice those small details have been replaced by a grid of heads that have become the hallmark of remote work. If noticing coworkers’ shoes is a symbol of our natural ability to connect and socialize, never have we been so “shoeless.”

Remote work is the way

It’s not that I think returning to the old days of the workplace is the solution. Working remotely has too many benefits, both in personal time management and how work is done—especially since collaboration tools are growing in capabilities. Gone are the days of having to snap photos of notes on an office whiteboard after a brainstorming session, replaced by useful tools like Miro. I also don’t miss the weird social rules of the office, where it was looked down upon to have your head in a digital device—like you weren’t paying attention. Remote work lets you focus, offers flexibility, and sometimes even presents unexpected surprises unique to digital collaboration—like encouraging usually silent team members to speak up.

While many companies struggle with remote and in-office working policies, the future is undoubtedly “shoeless.” The question is, how do we embrace that without also losing coworker connections that promote understanding?

Going “shoeless”

Deciding to go shoeless wasn’t easy, even for us—a company already accustomed to digital collaboration tools. Like everyone else, once the pandemic subsided and we had to decide whether to come back to an office, there were strong opinions from leadership and employees. In fact, understanding the rationale behind those strong opinions is what drove me to figure out how to manufacture these little moments that accumulate to create culture.

Create ‘interest cues’

Just because a public workspace is just a tiny rectangle in a Zoom grid doesn’t mean people shouldn’t put in the work to make it theirs. That means keeping it tidy—clean with good lighting and nice, crisp picture quality. But also curate everything in-frame, from the background color, to your coffee cup, to the art on the wall. Encourage employees to ask themselves: What does my Zoom rectangle say about me?

Audio is a big cue, too. Make sure sound is coming in clear, and not creating background noise. And make note if you see people start to settle on a work uniform. Instead, find small ways to reward day-to-day self-expression.

Small social gestures can become great bonding tools, too. For example, one of our remote work team members never worked in our pre-pandemic physical office. But every day since he started working remotely, he begins his day with a “good morning” message to the team in Slack and ends his day with “have a good night.” When I told him that I really appreciated that gesture, he responded that he was just mimicking what he would do at an in-person workplace.

Everything is an opportunity to become a conversation starter and a moment for building community, so curate spaces and habits accordingly.

Create moments to connect, IRL and online

Whether anyone realizes it or not, a company’s culture has a big impact on business—filtering down into the way a company treats employees as well as the quality of its products and services. So, even with a remote workforce, put in the effort and resources to build a culture that thrives on and offline.

That could mean anything from big annual offsites where you bring your full remote work team together for a few days and enjoy the outdoors together, to smaller local meetups for team members in the same city. On an even smaller, virtual scale, you could just formalize group opportunities to play online video games together on lunch breaks, talk about favorite shows, or catch up. Whatever you choose, treat it as seriously as other aspects of your work, making sure you’re building in moments to connect on a frequent basis.

Go all or nothing

Going “shoeless” means making a concrete choice, so don’t make the mistake of being ambiguous—sending some people back to an empty office, part-time. The remote working world is filled with too many examples of companies trying optional or required “in office” days that ultimately failed or caused employees to quit.

Work spaces aren’t typically designed to only have a small percentage of employees in them. Those that show up can feel the desolation. Others face unique challenges—empty offices where it’s still hard to find a quiet space to have a call, broken conference room tech without a tech support team to service it, and a general resentment toward those coworkers allowed to avoid the office. It’s the quickest way to erode a community and not worth the trouble.

Work culture shouldn’t be all about work and career climbing. A team should have some level of shared interests and all get along. It makes the work better and allows for more respect. This is more true now that many companies have traded the reliable structure provided by an office for more ephemeral, remote ways of working. So, as digital tools become our primary conduit for intra-office connection, take every opportunity to remind employees that they are people too, with stories and personalities worth getting to know.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91158618/remote-work-success-team-building