When you work in a remote work setup, it brings a lot of challenges in handling teams and creates a communication gap that creates misunderstanding.
Having good communication skills and using them correctly are two different things. If the issues and concerns are not appropriately conveyed, it affects the productivity of your employees in both hybrid and remote work cultures. It is even more challenging in a remote setup where the boss and employees are not talking face-to-face. In such times, you need to ensure regular virtual meetings so that the issues of the workers are addressed promptly. Let us discuss this in detail.
Create a Good Workspace
A good workspace brings a lot of comfort along with a positive environment to work better. Every business must consider having a workspace that does not make their employees uncomfortable; it should be a place where it becomes easy for them to work with utmost motivation. A negative work environment makes it very hard to have effective communication. Have a space that offers minimum interruption to your employees.
Be Clear About Expectations
While working in a work-from-home setup, sometimes people form expectations that one might be able to meet. Communication is the key to everything, having a clear understanding of your personal requirements as a leader and what your team needs will help you achieve a good functioning team. Openly discuss with your team the timings when you are reachable and issues on which you can be approachable. Moreover, allow them to have some freedom with their time, but distance shall not stop them from asking for help when needed the most.
Make an Inside Newsletter
A leader must always make sure his team is timely updated on new updates. The loyalty of your employees is very important for the company’s success. When you work in an office setup, it is easier to provide information about what’s happening around you; a quick meeting towards the end of your shift can be enough to talk about the company. However, it becomes tough to keep up with this when you have your employees working from their homes. So, you can create a newsletter and schedule it to be shared every week and on special occasions. In this newsletter, you can talk about everything that is happening in the company and holds importance to your employees.
Keep in Touch Regularly
With the working-from-home trend, it has become very challenging for companies to stay in touch with their employees. But, it is very important to know what your employees have been doing and their concerns on a regular basis. What can be done here is you can create a format for regular check-ins for yourself and your employees. These check-ins must be assigned to a specific time, and everyone must adhere to and plan their schedules accordingly. The agenda of these should be planned well in advance with topics related to daily activities to keep track of the tasks assigned.
Use the Right Tools
To make communication easy and effective with your team, there are many tools that can help you smoothen the process. Many digital apps and software are available that can help you in managing your projects, as these apps will allow you to keep a tab on everyone’s task completions. Create group chats for every team and separately for the team leads, make sure every employee is submitting a day-end report on these chats as well, this will also help you improve their productivity.
Use Video Calls
Sitting at different locations in the comfort of your home creates challenges in maintaining the productivity of the work. The physical distance affects the proper working of the operational tasks and creates doubts about the employees’ availability. Suppose you wish to overcome this disadvantage of working remotely. In that case, you must incorporate more video calls in your working model, as these video calls can help you ascertain everyone is motivated enough to work. They can help you in knowing your employees and making a personal connection with them, talking face-to-face helps solve issues that might be documented in the chats.
Create a Virtual Hangout
Coffee or lunch breaks in an office work environment are a great way to connect socially and relieve stress. Although such casual conversations are more common in person, including video meetings in regular schedules can sometimes make them be perceived as formal. Recreating that simple feeling online is difficult, but you can try it by creating a virtual hangout. This is the time when your team gets together to chat and relax, like a virtual break room. You can also do fun activities together or start virtual clubs to help everyone feel more connected.