Pretty much everyone is working from home these days. We’ve all become remote workers, and while there are a lot of perks like more time with the family, less time wasted commuting. One thing that gets a lot harder is communicating.
In the office, you could have face-to-face meetings quickly, read your team’s body language to see how they’re doing, and you can glance at their screens to see what they’re doing, but not anymore. Now, you need to make the effort.
Here are my top tips for teams working from home:
Personal Video Calls
It will be tempting to quickly send off messages because it can seem like a hassle to do phone or video calls, but you need to do them. Otherwise, you’ll find that miscommunication happens, leading to more and more mistakes.
So do video calls whenever you can, and better yet, schedule daily calls to make it easier for people to ask questions they might not otherwise ask.
Let People Know You’re Ready to Work
Next, say good morning when you start the day. This lets everyone know you’re up and ready for work. Do the same thing at lunchtime and let people know when you’re out for lunch and when you’re finishing up for the day.
Clarify Priorities and Tasks
For my team, I ask them to let me know first thing in the morning what they’ll be working on that day and what they accomplished at the end of the day. This keeps everyone informed and accountable for the work that is expected of them each day.
Check-In Constantly
If you’re a leader, check in with your team constantly, every couple of hours. Check in with them to see how they’re doing and what they’re working on.
When staff work from home, you can’t wait until the end of the day to find out they were doing the wrong thing.
Clarify Tasks
For staff working from home, when you receive instructions on a task, repeat what you understand your task to be. Send partially completed work to your leader to check to make sure you’re on the right track. Just like leaders, no one wants to find out that they did the wrong thing once everything is complete.
So, over-communicate.
Create Instructional Videos
Another tip I have for you is if you’re trying to explain something, you don’t have to do a call every single time; instead, maybe record a quick video, and it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You could grab your phone and take a video of what you’re trying to explain, and you’ll find it way more effective than trying to explain it over text messages.
Group Video Calls With Everyone Working from Home
Something else we do to keep the connection we had in the office is to start every week with a group Zoom meeting. Everyone gets to see each other, say hi to each other, and get aligned with our goals.
Socialise Online
We also enjoy having a group chat through Slack where we share working-from-home tips, memes, and words of motivation with everyone. We also have a thread where we all share what our home office looks like. You need to find ways to keep the fun at work.
By putting in the extra effort to over-communicate, I think you’ll find that everyone can stay productive and connected even when working from home. Stay safe, everyone.
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