Engaging Virtual Employees: How to Bridge the Divide in a Hybrid Workplace Culture
Hybrid workplaces, where some employees are working from home while others work from the office, isn’t going away. Ever. So it’s never been more importance to unite virtual, remote employees as one team and bridge the gap between virtual and remote employees. Here are 12 effective ways to unite virtual employees in a hybrid workplace culture. (Read the full transcript of the video below!)
A survey by getAbstract found that 89% of employees working out of their homes, felt isolated from the rest of their team. Now let’s face it, this hybrid workplace where some employees are working from home and some are working at the office, isn’t going away anytime soon; it’s never going to go away, so here are 12 tips to help you bridge the gap.
#1. Talk openly about communication guidelines and expectations. How do people prefer to be communicated with when they are not working out of the office? Text? Is text, okay? Email? Phone? Zoom? How do they prefer? What’s their preferred choice of communication? Interpretive dance, is that okay? Is it okay to text somebody on the weekend, or email somebody on a Sunday afternoon and expect an answer from them Sunday evening? So set up some guidelines around acceptable hours, and preferred means of communication.
#2. This doesn’t just apply to the bosses, this applies to everybody: be uber-intentional about checking in with everyone else in your team, make it a priority, which means scheduling it. Don’t just put it out there and yeah, sometime you’ll get around to it. Schedule it as a priority. The number one way people feel a sense of belonging on their team, in their workplace, is simply when employees check in with them.
#3. Related to number two: remember that there is a difference between checking in with somebody and checking up on someone. For those of you that have teenagers at home, you know there is a fundamental difference between those two things. One of those things can build trust, one of those things can destroy trust, so make sure you are genuinely checking in
#4. This doesn’t just apply to the bosses again, everybody can set up a regular Zoom office hours, where you commit one time per week, a couple hours to just be on your Zoom or video tool of your choice, so that people can drop in and know that you’re available for a face-to-face video conversation remotely.
#5. Talk openly about the jealousies and misunderstandings that may arise between those two camps of employees. Look, in an ideal world, everybody who wanted to work from home would be allowed to work from home, and everybody who doesn’t want to work from home would be given that option. But we know that’s not going to happen, because of the nature of people’s work, some people have to work at the office, some people can have the freedom of working from home, so talk openly about some of the misinterpretations misunderstandings and yes, jealousies that may arise between those two camps.
#6. Consider experimenting with what some companies are trying, library hours, where everybody works on Zoom together for a set period of time. They’re still working individually alone in their homes, but they have that background ambience, they kind of feel connected with the rest of their team because they’re all kind of they’re working on their own stuff. So for those people who miss that ambiance of working in a coffee shop, or the energy of working in an open office next to all their colleagues, you might want to try that.
#7. I’m a huge fan of this: random virtual coffee dates, where everybody’s name goes into a random name generator, you spit out two names from all across your company, and then those people connect virtually for a coffee date. It’s a great way to break down barriers to connect with people that you otherwise wouldn’t normally connect with.
#8. Schedule regular social events, whether it’s a trivia contest, or just a games night or whatever it is, just make sure you commit to it. However, make it optional; don’t turn it into “funishment,” where people feel like they have to go to this thing, even though they’re just not into it, they’re Zoomed out, they’re an introvert, and it’s just not their bag. So don’t require everybody go to your social events that are virtual, but make sure you do offer it as an option for those people that are craving, that are missing that social fun connection.
#9. A simple way to make everyone feel connected is just do a weekly quick question survey, a quick survey question of everybody share the results with everyone. It’s just a way of making everybody feel a little more connected and involved.
#10. Do a weekly recap email message, or better still, a video message of the highlights from the week. Some CEOs have been doing this very effectively, but it doesn’t have to just come from the top. A weekly video recap of what’s happened in your office for all the people that are working remotely can be incredibly valuable to help people feel more connected.
#11. Have everybody share their top three wins of the week. Again, you can do this in a zoom huddle on a Friday afternoon, or just by email, you can compile it somewhere on your intranet site, but that’s a great, simple way to make sure everybody knows what everyone’s working on, and for everyone again, to feel connected.
#12. Since it’s so important to be extra, uber-intentional about working as one team and making everyone feel like they are part still of one team, create a fun award to honor an employee each month, who is the best unifier; the person who is the bridge builder, who bridges that gap between the home team and the away team.
For even more ideas, hop on over to 130+ Ways to Engage, Inspire, and Motivate Virtual and Remote Teams.
Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame business speaker who speaks and writes about inspiring workplace cultures.
