Six Tips to Keep Your Remote Team Excited

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April 3, 2024 Business

Among the challenges companies face, it is worth highlighting the engagement of remote teams. In this post, I gathered valuable tips to optimize the union between teams that work at a distance! For many corporations, remote work started out of the blue, with no time to prepare or organize.

With this, the lack of interactivity has been noted as a major obstacle to developing the spirit of remote teams. But why is this so important? As much as there are videoconference meetings, virtual contact is more impersonal, which only allows for the exchange of informal ideas that often result in productive insights.

In addition, having a closer relationship favors sharing experiences and mutual collaboration. The good news is that there are many ways to bring the team closer, even from a distance. And that’s what we show in this post. Continue reading and check it out!

1. Make social interactions a habit

If the idea is to favor social interaction among the team, there is nothing better than for the leader to “set an example”. Know that this is one of the skills of a good manager. After all, it won’t be good to encourage team members to get along if the manager doesn’t give them the space to do the same with him. Be open to interacting with your team and make sure everyone knows when and where you are available for conversation, for example, every 15 days or monthly. Another tip is to attend meetings to interact and be interested in employees’ lives.

2. Perform synchronous and asynchronous activities

Sometimes, team members working remotely are in different time zones or work different hours. For this reason, it is interesting to carry out both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Imagine how “excluded” an employee who lives in another country can feel without ever being able to participate in online chats.

Another point is people who prefer to avoid participating in video interactions. Giving in is not always possible, as contact via videoconference is important in most cases. But offering activities where the camera can be turned off is also a great idea. Therefore, promote online and offline tasks and events with as many participants as possible.

3. Turn in-person events into virtual ones

If there’s one thing the pandemic has shown us, we can adapt. Companies that never imagined having teams working remotely discovered that working remotely in addition to being possible is very productive and advantageous. Good relations at work are fundamental, as they generate more employee satisfaction and commitment.

One way to do this in face-to-face meetings was to promote events, such as meetings and training sessions. However, with the shift to remote work, conducting a timeline presentation becomes crucial. This involves converting these face-to-face activities into virtual ones, ensuring seamless communication and collaboration. But how does the distance work? Well, the most efficient way is to turn these face-to-face activities into virtual ones.

To ensure that the team will understand your virtual meetings, you can provide them with a copy of the meeting note after your presentation. In addition to videoconferences for a chat, some companies send kits with food, drinks, and gifts or a voucher to order snacks through delivery apps. These treats make employees happier and more engaged.

4. Accommodate individual circumstances

Somehow, remote work ends up invading employees’ space. If before, the team might not know what the members’ living room looks like or even their children’s faces, today it is widespread, due to video conferences at home. Despite this, only some have an ideal home office for work, which can cause discomfort.

In this case, the solution may include the anywhere office — a hybrid work variable — as a working modality, going beyond the home office. In this model, the remote team member can work wherever they want. Coworking is a great example of where activities can be carried out smoothly and efficiently, as they are offices equipped with all the resources employees need. In addition, it helps to reduce rental costs when returning to work in the post-pandemic scenario. This is why understanding work from home stipends is really important, since with these kinds of benefits employers can make coworking more attractive for their remote workers.

5. Bet on Fun Slack #channels

For those who have yet to learn, Slack is a commercial communication platform. That is, it is a corporate messaging application. Therefore, it has more important features for companies than WhatsApp. Within the program, creating channels for posting photos and exchanging messages is possible. How about organizing some with themes outside of work and fun?

Thus, employees can learn more about their colleagues, likes, hobbies, and routines, facilitating integration. Some channel suggestions are: #pets and #kids: for your drooling children and pets; #hobbies: for musical skills, landscaping, arts, etc.; #random: for memes, gifs, and other random internet finds; #topchef: for chefs to show their gastronomic talents; #netflix: to share ideas about movies and series.

6. Call for a virtual coffee break

That coffee break doesn’t have to be just a memory. You can call the team for a virtual coffee break during working hours to have that coffee and have a relaxed chat. Using an AI Meeting Assistant that summarizes and transcribes meetings can indeed be a helpful tool to alleviate worries and have more time to enjoy coffee with coworkers during and after meetings. To make it even better, sending gastronomic treats or coupons to order food is also very valid. These breaks serve not only to rest at work but to generate productive insights.

7. Create a virtual office for teams working remotely

Have you ever thought about reproducing the office virtually? When they are all together, one member can watch the other work, exchange ideas and help each other. In remote work, this can be reproduced through a virtual office, which works as follows.

The first employee to start working opens an open video chat for any other team member to join. That way, as members arrive, they can shake hands, ask each other questions and talk about a specific task, for example, without all the formality of a meeting.

The intention is for everyone to stay connected throughout the day as if they were in an office.

You can use a videoconferencing platform like Slack, Skype, or Google Hangouts. We know that maintaining the spirit of teams working remotely is a challenging mission. However, by putting the tips into practice, it is possible to integrate, engage and increase the confidence of the virtual team, as well as in the face-to-face offices.