Leaders,
Whether it's being quarantined because of coronavirus, a remote job or a cool workplace culture, it's easy for a team member to feel disconnected from your company.
When someone doesn't feel connected, it's difficult for them to find the motivation needed to do their best work. Also, it's easy for loneliness and depression to set in.
Here's some quick tips from my book " Disconnected - How to Use People Data To Deliver Realness, Meaning and Belonging at Work."
Being Consistent with Your Presence
- Manager Minute - Each day you cannot stop by your employee's desk to give them a manager-minute of friendly banter, move the casual "talking" to over the phone or an instant message exchange. Let them know you are thinking about them and offer encouragement. Keep it light. Avoid giving them another task during this exchange.
- Team Chat - Have an ongoing team chat where you share quick snippets of information with each other. As a leader set the tone by mixing personal and business messages (e.g. welcome a team member back from vacation, praise a team member for a job well done with a recent analysis.)
- Stay In-tune and Attuned - Make having a 30 minute weekly phone check-in with each remote team member part of your job. In addition to being in-tune to what each of your employees is accountable for (their tactical accomplishments), take ten minutes per week to ensure you are attuned to what's going on with each team member as a person.
To get managers comfortable with this, Laura Seredinski, an HR leader who worked for a company that was almost completely made up of remote workers, prescribed a form for them to use with their one-on-one calls. It instructed them to dedicate ten minutes of personal conversation out of their 30 minute call.
"I think a lot of people really did use the form. It changed the connection (between manager and employee)." Seredinski said that they had a few instances where loneliness and depression had set in with an employee and the employee opened up to their managers about what they were going through. As a result, the manager was able to refer them to an Employee Assistance Program.
Key Points:
- Remote work and pandemic isolation have increased loneliness for many — without connection and belonging, productivity, morale, and mental health suffer.
- Leaders must build regular touchpoints — daily check‑ins, team chats, one‑on‑one calls — to maintain human connection and prevent disengagement when people work remotely.