How to Stay Connected to Your Team While Working from Home

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Many people are working from home for the first time.   The first couple of days are likely amazing.  You love the freedom that working from home provides.  You love the extra time in your day from not having a commute.

Then after the novelty wears off, you start to notice that you may become a little lonely.  Working from home can be very isolating, especially if you are used to working closely with others.

Luckily, with a little creativity, it is very possible to stay connected while you are working from home. You can start to enjoy the best of both worlds!

I’m going to share some tips for how you can stay connected to your team while working from home.

Video Chat

Video chat is a great tool for staying connected with your team while you are working remotely.  Seeing each other one video allows you to keep that personal connection that many people lose when you are not in the office.  You can use Skype or Zoom to set up video calls.

In fact, video calls allow you to learn even more about your coworker’s lives which can increase connection.  For example, you can learn more about their personal tastes, their pets, family members, and how they dress outside of the office.  This all helps you learn more about each other and humanizes them outside of the office.

Set a weekly video chat at a minimum.  Make sure that you set some time aside in the chat to just talk and connect.   For example, our team has set up a video chat every Monday and Friday where we just chat.  We don’t talk about anything work-related, just the casual chit chat that we all miss from the office. It has been one of my favorite times of the week!

Virtual Lunch Date

Many coworkers are used to grabbing lunch together or hanging out in the break room together.  This time is actually really important to employee’s mental well-being and employee engagement. In addition, a study by Cornell shows that groups that eat together tend to perform better than groups that don’t. It’s important that you don’t lose this personal connection time.

When you can’t meet with someone in person, schedule a “virtual lunch date”.   Schedule time with one or more of your coworkers to eat lunch and chat. This is a great way to stay connected and stay caught up on what is going on in their lives.

Virtual Theme Party

Speaking of food, schedule a “virtual theme party” to stay connected.   Once a week pick a theme for the day, hopefully coinciding with your weekly video chat.

During this “party” everyone can dress up, eat/drink related food, and listen to themed music.

Sounds super cheesy, but cheesy things often connect teams and deepen engagement.

For example, host a “Virtual Fiesta”.  Have everyone dress for a fiesta on your team’s video calls (with festive music playing in your background). For lunch, team members can eat tacos and drink virgin margaritas.   If you send emails fo the team, you can include fiesta themed clip art. Whatever you can do to insert some fun and novelty into the day.

These things all sound silly but they brighten everyone’s mood and break up the monotony of working from home.

Virtual Book Club or Professional Development

It’s always a good time to build your skills.  Use professional development as a way to stay connected to your team while working from home.

You can select a skill that you can all work on for the week, such as public speaking or data analysis.  Or you can all read the same book or take the same online class.

Have each team member do a quick presentation on what they learned (working on those public speaking skills!) during a team meeting.  Just make sure that you don’t make it too formal or involved. The point is to keep it fun and engaging.  Once you make it an exercise, it can backfire.

Ramp up the Recognition

Working from home can be isolating and you can feel that you are on an island trying to get things done.   Your work may not be as visible to your team members and boss resulting in you receiving less recognition. This can be damaging to your engagement and productivity.

To help prevent that, be more mindful and intentional with the recognition that you give. Try to recognize one person a day for something great that they did and be very explicit with it.   People often don’t realize that they are being recognized so make sure they are aware that is what you are trying to do. Write a note saying something like “Heather, I wanted to recognize you for handling that client situation so well.”    The more you recognize others, the more the whole team will recognize others which works wonder for morale.

Another fun exercise is to recognize each person on your team each week on a team call. Knowing that you will need to recognize someone publicly, will keep you on the lookout for things to recognize them for.   Doing this regularly will keep you connected with each other and the work that you are doing.

Tokens of Appreciation

Who doesn’t love a token of appreciation?   Take the opportunity to brighten your coworker’s day in order to stay connected while you are working from home.

It can be as easy as a handwritten note or an electronic Starbucks gift card.   These small gestures will be remembered and go far in building a deeper connection with your coworkers.

How do you stay connected to your team while working from home?   Do you have any best practices or suggestions? Leave a comment below!

 

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