Social capital and other measures of social connection are associated with better health, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, organizational identification, and knowledge exchange. Without the ability to stop by a colleague’s desk or grab a cup of coffee like we would normally do in a traditional office setting, people are turning to chat, emails, and unscheduled calls.
Be sure to communicate with your colleagues about your communication preferences and to learn about theirs too. Consider creating a team agreement to outline communication expectations and preferences.
Stay connected
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Create social channels using Teams meetings and chat to host small group lunches, social hours, and other casual spaces that can mimic the “water cooler” in the office regardless of work location.
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Keep regularly scheduled 1:1s and consider splitting one 1:1 meeting into 2 shorter meetings throughout the week.
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Channel conversations in Teams are a great way to keep the whole team in the know.
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Consider setting up bi-weekly virtual team huddles or parallel work spaces.
Intentional communication
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Reduce or replace meetings with asynchronous methods include Teams channels, chat, OneNote, and document collaboration.
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Use Teams effectively for chat and learn more about when to chat, email, or meet.
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A Team that has a place that everyone is expected to update regularly and is considered the ground truth should be able to reserve meetings for critical decisions and team members who find asynchronous work hard.
