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How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote
Best practices in virtual teams communication
- Communicate with the intention of being extremely clear, no matter the medium you are using;
- Don’t bombard your team with messages;
- Establish communication norms that bring clarity in communication;
- See the hidden opportunities in written communications, especially for those who might be less inclined to speak out in groups;
- Create intentional space for celebration.
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22% of Americans work from home
.... while nearly 50% are involved with remote or virtual team work.
This continuing shift calls for a new range of behaviors and skills.
Communication challenges for remote teams
- Body language. Even when we share the same space, the tone of a text or of an email is left wide open to interpretation and can generate anxiety.
- The delay between our messages can often postpone or hide emotional reactions to our comments. Lacking an immediate response, we can become distracted, second-guess ourselves, or even grow frustrated with our teams.
3 types of distance in remote teams
- Physical (place and time)
- Operational (team size, bandwidth and skill levels)
- Affinity (values, trust, and interdependency).
The best way for managers to drive team performance is by focusing on reducing affinity distance.
Best practices in virtual teams communication
- Communicate with the intention of being extremely clear, no matter the medium you are using;
- Don’t bombard your team with messages;
- Establish communication norms that bring clarity in communication;
- See the hidden opportunities in written communications, especially for those who might be less inclined to speak out in groups;
- Create intentional space for celebration.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Working Remotely
There is ongoing turbulence in the workplace due to the uncertainties provided by the new virus, resulting in a whole lot of people working from home. Normally the work-from-home policies are esta...
Common Challenges of Remote Work
Even high-performing employees can face a decline in job performance and engagement when working remotely. This can be due to:
- Lack of face-to-face supervision, which leads to a two-way communication gap and even mistrust.
- There is a delay in the procurement of information as remote workers aren’t able to sense the atmosphere and real-time events at the workplace, leading to a lack of ‘mutual knowledge’.
- A sense of isolation among remote workers, leading to a feeling of less belongingness within the organization.
- Distractions at home due to unplanned work-from-home transition, with employees balancing childcare and many other responsibilities along with work.
Improving Engagement And Productivity
A few specific, research-backed steps that can be taken to improve the engagement and productivity of remote employees:
- Establishing Structured Daily check-ins, by establishing a daily call or touchpoint.
- Providing several different communication technology options, using virtual communication tools like Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc., and making use of video conferencing.
- Establishing clear rules of engagement for communicating with the coworkers or the managers, according to the levels of urgency.
- Providing opportunities for remote social interaction by talking about non-work activities, thereby reducing the feeling of isolation among remote workers.
- Offering encouragement and emotional support by listening to the workers, acknowledging their stress, and keeping their needs and issues in focus.
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Key Ideas
Structure For Success
Remote work days need to have a specific routine in place, which has structure, clarity and consistency.
Each team member needs to be provided with a daily block of time to be heard, maybe ...
A Clear Briefing
Creativity thrives in limitations, and little check-in meetings with a specific agenda and a clear briefing to brainstorm can provide excellent results, as they have built-in time constraints.
Collaboration Time
Online collaborative tools let us literally be on the same page, editing a document together, collaborating using the phone or the built-in chat.
Remote working makes the participants prioritize time, effort and activities. There are less wasted minutes as the participants are prepared and on time.
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Asynchronous communication
There are mainly two ways to communicate within a company: synchronous and asynchronous communication. While the second type has always been widely practiced, as face-to-face meetings or any other ...
Real-time communication drawbacks
While real-time communication inside of a team might lead to solving faster some issues, it also has various disadvantages.
For instance, having your colleagues come to ask you questions to which you feel pressured to answer on the spot leads to you being continuously interrupted, which results in being less productive and feeling stressed or even getting a burnout, as you try to do everything in proper time.
The asynchronous workplace
When the employees are provided with control as to when they are willing to communicate with their co-workers, there are many advantages that emerge.
For instance, having the freedom to decide exactly how your working day should look like leads to more satisfied employees as well as to better communication within the team. Further benefits vary from feeling less stressed due to better planning to greater transparency and more efficient work.
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