All companies worry about employee engagement, especially those who work remotely. There are books written (see below) about what a problem it is, and how to better engage with your people. It’s a big deal that will cost you if you ignore it. Turnover and lost productivity are just two of the problems you'll have to deal with when your people don’t care enough to give that … [Read more...]
The Worst Assumption You Can Make
With a remote team, you can’t just cast an eye over the office and see how things are going. We get visual (and sometimes verbal) cues that things are progressing nicely. Or not. But when you work apart from the members of your team you are running on a mix of trust and assumptions. Trust, of course, is good. Assumptions are necessary to function, but there’s one assumption in … [Read more...]
Why Should Gig Workers Be Engaged?
Most of what you read about (and we write about) remote work is for employees: people who have a boss, who work for the organization that pays them, and do as they’re told in exchange for a steady paycheck. But as the world of work changes, more and more of our teammates may be contractors or temporary workers. Does employee engagement apply to them as well, since they’re not … [Read more...]
Fighting Isolation and Loneliness on Your Remote Team
For many people, working from home during COVID has been a big success. At least it’s worked better than many people anticipated. But the longer it goes on and the more uncertainty there is about what the return to the office will look like, or even if it will occur, the more we have to deal with a hidden and very destructive force—isolation and loneliness. As the leader, you … [Read more...]
Planned Spontaneity
We hear all the time that the hardest part of being a connected, engaged member of a remote team is the lack of spontaneous communication. We say it an awful lot ourselves. And it’s true. When you work from home, every communication requires at least a little planning and effort. You don’t just bump into someone at the coffee machine, or see Alice walking down the hall and make … [Read more...]