How to stay connected with every member while working remotely | Proven strategies by Girls In Tech Nepal

How to stay connected with every member while working remotely | Proven strategies by Girls In Tech Nepal
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As we all are in an unpredictable situation due to COVID-19 and Lockdown Phase. “Work From Home” sounds like some fancy thing and I hope everyone is enjoying it. But one of the biggest concerns during the “Work From Home” period is that lots of people might feel quite isolated and very disconnected from their teams. Due to which the concept itself also sounds really challenging and difficult on how to stay connected with all of the team members during these days, especially for the top-level managers.

Are you worried about how to get connected or stay on the same page with your team members during this Lockdown phase? Then you’re not alone!

We’ve listed some of the most effective ways that worked wonders in our own organization.

So, we encourage you to take time with your team members to try some of these or create your own.

Internal skills development training: Internal training gives a prime opportunity to expand the knowledge and skills of all team members. And establishing a skill growth and development program ensures that an organization is always considering future organizational goals by preparing promotable talent. As we believe our team members as our biggest asset, and investing in their growth is vital to sustainable growth and success. And we make the best use of our diverse team members and their knowledge. Hence do internal skills development training.

Daily work catch-ups: Start a daily work catch-up. This helps us to check in with each other, see how we all are doing workwise and personally. Use this time to help each other with any issues and try to motivate each other for the objectives we all are working together.

Storytelling Session: Young and creative minds are always exploring something creative and engaging that they can follow and also can relate to their own experience. So start a storytelling session where experienced team members share their journey, experience, values, and ways of understanding with other team members. It is more than a way of exchanging information and extending ideas, it is the best means of reaching out and connecting with other people.

Team building activities: Team-building activity helps to establish a culture where people enjoy working, collaborate easily, and trust each other. Socializing and making friends in the workplace is one of the best ways to increase productivity and also to understand each other better. And we also started a habit of organizing small team building activities within our team members. Once we played a game where the name of team members was randomly taken using wheel names and the person has to show their talent. We really did enjoy that day and we also felt that it really helped us to build some kind of connection within our team members.

Celebrating birthdays: Celebrations are usually fun, and who doesn’t love a little celebration on their special day. A team member’s birthday is a chance for the person to stand in the limelight and be recognized separately. For one day, it’s their day. Even if the work goes along, as usual, the day feels different when their birthday is being celebrated. People will remain happy and motivated and deeper relationships will be forged within the team members.

Gratitude day: Gratitude is a way for people to appreciate others which is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. When there is a culture of Gratitude in an organization, the team members feel motivated to work harder. So, we also thought it could be a great way of providing a thankful message to our team members and we decided to organize a Gratitude day. At first, we collected all the thankful messages from all the team members using google form and also we asked them to define the team member using 3 adjectives. The moment when I got all of the thankful messages for me, my eyes were almost wet and that was the best moment for me. And I believe it is the same for all of the other team members as well.

Chitchat Time: We are all social creatures and we love to connect with other people emotionally. Yes, it’s always important for everyone to focus on results and work to be done, but the success and growth of any organization depend on the team’s motivation, the ability of the team to collaborate, trust, and understanding between every member. And the best way to build trust between team members is to know each other and to develop an emotional connection. Just because we all are working remotely does not mean we need to stop chatting with each other while working. We can use our formal communication tools like Slack for some quick chitchat. Sometimes it is important for a human being to connect with others with some fun conversation.

Working remotely doesn’t mean we need to be working in complete isolation.

Even when the rest of the team is scattered around different places, we can still build positive relationships with each other. Everybody wants a friendly work environment, where people are comfortable and happy to talk to and work with anyone. So, support your team and ensure that no one is the weakest link by connecting and building relationships with everyone.

We hope every organization or business will come up with their own strategies and methods for maintaining relationships between team members while fighting from isolation and loneliness during the coronavirus pandemic.
Stay safe. Stay smart. Stay at Home.

About the Author

Sabita Neupane has hands-on experience in front-end development and currently working with lots of different technologies like ReactJs, TypeScript. She really enjoys translating UI designs and mockups into fully functional web applications. Since her Bachelor’s days, she has worked with different organizations with a mission to inspire and encourage young girls to take an interest in the IT sector and also to accelerate the growth of innovative girls entering the tech industry.

Follow her on Linkedin, Medium


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