Alex's Sand Box

Feeling connected can help us feel a sense of belonging, shared empathy, care, and feeling wanted and needed. At a time like this, that connection is necessary regardless of whether your workforce is normally remote, transitioning to remote, driving a truck, at the hospital, or on a construction site.

Here are 3 best practices for helping your employees feel connected:

1. Frequent communication – In the first article of this series I outlined the importance of an effective communication plan. No news IS NOT good news in a situation like this.  Information reduces uncertainty.  Even when there is nothing big or seemingly noteworthy to share, outreach alone can create trust and comfort in the knowledge that there’s still someone there.  Consider sending a brief daily or every other day communication.
2. Individual outreach – Assign someone the responsibility to reach out to every employee at your organization. Ask your supervisors to take this on.  Everyone at a company should already have a supervisor, even the CEO.   Ask every supervisor to reach out personally to each of their direct reports to check-in with them, ask them how they’re doing, provide any updates, answer questions, and thank them for their continued efforts on behalf of the company.
3. Get together often – Encourage frequent informal and formal meetings for departments, committees, or even with the entire organization. This may not work for every job role or company but try to think outside the box.  At People Element we recently found that virtual video get togethers can be as engaging as our in-person meetings.  It’s hard to hide in the crowd on a video conference.  We’ve had quick, 15-minute company huddles, department meetings, company-wide meetings, and a happy hour, all via online meetings.  Consider having virtual lunch meetings, potlucks, or birthday celebrations.  There are several good free video conferencing tools if you don’t have one: Zoom, Google Hangouts, and Skype are just a few of the many.