How to Establish Good Communication with Your Remote Team

Team spirit, Employee engagement, Excellent work performance, High productivity and engagement, these are some of the many aspects effective communication in the workplace affects. Positively or negatively it’s up to you. Its importance is even greater with remote teams. Isolation, lack of information, and collaboration make the digital workspace dysfunctional. It ultimately makes achieving business goals impossible. Given what’s at stake here, why not make communication as smooth as possible? Here are some ways you can establish good communication with your remote team.  

Have Coffee Together 

Most remote employees take breaks at different times during the workday. They share them with their friends or families. Why if you set coffee drinking at the same time every day and share the ritual with your coworkers? Drinking coffee isn’t the point, but the informal conversation and bonding are. Such an informal virtual gathering lets you blow off some steam during the day and relax. Also, you and the team bond sharing mutual interests and personal stories. Forgetting about work for at least 10 minutes brings you closer and strengthens your team spirit.

Share Updates 

Team leaders find monitoring their employees’ performance during remote work challenging. To overcome this common obstacle, you can encourage regular update sharing. By checking in on your team as often as you can, you also prevent many problems from ensuing. For example, a team member might be in over their head with the workload. Then it’ll slow down the project completion and interfere with the deadline. For updates, you can use communication tools, such as Blink or project management tools. Meetings, video calls, or messages will be enough to keep everyone on the same page and focused on their tasks.

Be Clear About Responsibilities 

No employee can do their job right if they don’t know their job. Since your team is remote, it requires much clearer instructions than employees in an office. They can’t come to your desk and ask for clarifications. But, they can jump in on a video call. To avoid having every team member call you and ask you questions, be clear about their responsibilities. Make sure every team member knows their role, tasks, duties, and expectations. You can check in on their progress on daily or one-on-one meetings. Also, please make yourself available, so employees can message you if they have a pressing matter to discuss.

Use a Suggestion Box 

Not all employees feel confident suggesting or criticizing anything or anyone in the workplace. Especially openly and in front of others. However, every business has room for improvement, and that’s what suggestions are for. Good or bad, they help direct the business and create a healthier work environment. Since you’re working in a digital workplace, why not use a virtual suggestion box. The best part about having a suggestion box is its anonymity. This way, employees will feel more comfortable leaving feedback, especially negative ones. By protecting their privacy, you’re getting an honest opinion as well as useful ideas.

Hold Stay Interviews

Every organization would rather like to keep its employees than hire new ones. It costs them money and time, which most companies aren’t willing to spend. Between daily check-ins and meetings, you should organize stay interviews. The term is relatively new, but the process does wonders for employee retention. The goal of hosting the interviews is to learn more about an employee’s aspirations. What’s it going to take for them to stay in the company? This way, you can tailor the employee experience to suit their ambitions and help them grow professionally. 

Send Newsletters

When managing a remote team, it’s hard to recognize the effort of your team members. Also, board meetings usually take place behind closed doors. So, it takes a while before employees get updates about new policies and practices. To simplify the communication chain, you should send corporate newsletters. Like regular newsletters, corporate ones contain information about the latest corporate events. You can also use them for employee recognition. For example, introduce an Employee of the month section. Similarly, you can interestingly introduce team members, so everyone can get to know them better.

Combine Various Tools 

The key to efficient communication in remote teams is the combination of various tools. For example, video conferencing, voice calls, text messaging, collaboration tools, etc. Using them together makes the information and communication flow smoother. When selecting the channels, keep in mind your employees and communication goals. Then, make sure the selected tools are user-friendly and easy to understand. To make sure everyone knows how to use certain tools, provide training. Also, specify which tools they should use for urgent matters, project updates, meetings, etc.

Good communication benefits your employees as well as your business on many levels. Use tools to share information and connect with employees. Recognize their effort, act on their feedback, and help them achieve their goals. These are great starting points for better communication in the workplace.