Remote work has an interesting, almost contradictory, effect on employee engagement. According to Gallup, employees enjoy the biggest engagement boost from remote work when they’re virtual for 3-4 days per week. But if employees work remotely five days a week, engagement can start to slip. Understanding https://remotemode.net/blog/tips-on-how-to-make-friends-when-you-work-from-home/ this, companies can build more inclusive and equitable remote work policies that attract and retain top talent from anywhere in the world. Employees who feel included and fairly treated are more likely to stick around and will have an easier time connecting with their coworkers.

As more and more companies and employees embrace remote work, leaders and managers will need to re-learn and re-think some of the old ways of doing things. From team collaboration and meetings to performance management and schedules, remote work is transforming how, when, and where we work. It’s also important to recognize and share cultural differences among your team members, as it is always interesting to learn more about your colleagues’ cities neighbourhoods or countries. Many remote teams appreciate sharing funny memes of YouTube videos to take a break from work while still keeping in touch with colleagues and having a laugh together.

strategies for making work friends in a hybrid/remote environment

Learn how to manage your remote teams and lead the way (remotely). In addition to regular one-on-one meetings and team check-ins, pulse surveys help leaders “get a pulse” of their remote teams to see how things are going. They give people leaders valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not, and help identify gaps or opportunities in performance and engagement initiatives.

• Even the introverts among us have a need for some type of human connection at work.
• If you’re a bit of an introvert or you’re already at your computer screen, finding online interest groups is far easier than you anticipated.
• No matter where your employees are, managers are tasked with helping them do their jobs successfully.
• When setting goals for the future, talk to your boss and team about infusing collaborative elements into your projects.
• Ask for feedback during one-on-ones, team meetings, and through surveys to get insight on how your team members are feeling and identify ways you or the company can improve.

Such a channel where co-workers congratulate each other for various milestones makes everyone feel included. A marketplace where current and aspiring remote workers find new job opportunities and up-skill with online courses. Remote companies can use our recruiters to source local and global talent. Set up a virtual coffee break, lunch break, https://remotemode.net/ or happy hour with them, but don’t ask for an hour, ask for minutes maximum. You could help them imagine what it must be like in your shoes by joking about the challenges of learning about your new organization from afar. When setting goals for the future, talk to your boss and team about infusing collaborative elements into your projects.

Tips on How to Make Friends When You Work from Home

For many of us, all we need is a computer and a decent Internet connection in order to get things done at work. A culture of communication doesn’t mean micromanaging everything workers do or scheduling endless meetings. Rather, it means normalizing the idea that employees should keep one another — and their managers — updated on their work. You might set up team-specific communication channels, like in Teams or Slack, or hold morning stand-ups where everyone briefly shares what they’re doing that day. Weekly virtual coffees have become
increasingly popular with remote teams because they are the easiest way to
replace the water cooler chat.

You can even ask remote colleagues who live in your area to co-work with you. Repotting will elevate the friendship from work bae to full-fledged bud. The more friends repot, according to one study, the deeper the friendships. Instead, go to the museum, or happy hour, or have your co-worker over for dinner. Where once we were all required to commute each day, back and forth, to a communal workplace in order to do our jobs effectively, this is no longer a hard and fast rule.

Schedule an informal meeting just to chat.

And even when I do go back to an office, it won’t be the same office as most of the people I work with day-to-day. The reality is, in a world of video conferencing and asynchronous schedules, it’s never been harder to maintain friendships at work, let alone strike one up in the first place. In the office or at home, employee recognition remains a key driver of employee engagement and performance. When employees are remote, it can be easy to feel disconnected or even invisible to the rest of the team or organization—especially if your workforce has a hybrid mix of in-office and at-home employees.