Communicating with a remote workforce brings its own set of challenges. As more Americans are working from home now, it’s important to review how you communicate most effectively to maintain productivity and morale.
- How can I retain productivity without our comfortable office environment?
- Most of all, how can I avoid those awkward video conferencing meetings?
Follow these tips for communicating with a remote workforce.
#1: Take Care in Electronic Communications
Digital communications lack all of the nuances of face-to-face (or even phone) conversations. You can’t read facial expressions or hear voice inflections because most remote work communications are by email, text, or message. Here are a few rules for communicating with a remote workforce.
TONE: Check and re-check your text communications for a tone that might be misunderstood. Avoid terse responses when possible. ALL CAPS could make your email recipient question your intentions or an auto-corrected/typo-laden response could make your text entirely misunderstood.
CLARIFICATION: Along with checking your spelling and grammar, be sure that your instructions or explanations are completely clear. Because email and text don’t have the same back and forth as a phone call or in-person conversation, you must make yourself understood as simply as possible. Add more explanation and details than usual so that there is no misunderstanding.
#2: Create Frequent Opportunities to Communicate
If your company holds all-staff meetings and stand-ups during the normal course of business, continue those schedules while your team is working from home.
MAINTAIN ROUTINES: Routines are extremely important to maintain productivity. Keep all regularly scheduled meetings.
CONSIDER INCREASING FREQUENCY OF MEETINGS WHILE REDUCING THE LENGTH: Gone are the days of stopping by someone’s office or talking at the water cooler. Make a point to schedule more meetings while you’re communicating with a remote workforce than you would while everyone is in the office. Frequent, quick meetings ensure that everyone is aligned and invested in the objectives.
#3: Set & Implement Protocols for Online Meetings
Everyone has been on a conference call with dogs yapping in the background and team members unintentionally muting or unmuting themselves. These are all distractions from an otherwise effective meeting. Implement a few of these protocols for a more effective remote meeting.
SEND INSTRUCTIONS: Send call instructions in advance. Encourage participants to test out their computer microphones and other equipment before joining a call.
SET RULES: At the outset of every meeting make sure that participants are clear on meeting protocols. In two sentences you ask everyone to mute their phones when not speaking and to hold questions until the end, for example.
STICK TO THE AGENDA: Send an agenda in advance and stick to it. Participants will be less likely to interrupt if they know what’s coming.
MUTE PASSIVE PARTICIPANTS: Consider muting participants who are not speaking to avoid irritating audio feedback, dog-barking, and typing sounds.
UTILIZE CHAT: Use chat functions or email to have participants in a call with many participants to ask questions. This will allow you to curate questions and cut down on the feedback and distractions that multiple users on a call may invite.
Build Your Team Morale with a Strengths-Based Culture
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Building a strengths-based culture means developing your employees based on their natural talents.
Imagine if you could spend the majority of your day focusing on your strengths and talents.
Lauren Yates is a principal and co-founder of ThinkWell Consulting, LLC. Here, she writes about consulting, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing.