How to Stay Connected as a Work-From-Home Team

It’s tough to keep connected in the modern era of lockdowns and work-from-home.

Despite all the challenges, there are solutions! We’re looking at the role of fast, simple check ins to keep a team connected while they’re working from home.

The Perils of Work-From-Home

Work-from-home can certainly be effective, but it poses some new problems for managers.

For a start, work-from-home reduces the amount of face-to-face time that team members get to spend with each other. It’s much harder to judge the level of engagement or the effectiveness of teamwork without regular interaction.

Work-from-home also needs new approaches to communication. Zoom, Teams or Google Meets becomes a necessity, and it’s not always productive nor a substitute for face-to-face meetings. As a result, many teams face challenges to stay focused and on track.

Work-from home requires new patterns of feedback and an overall increase in feedback, particularly given the challenges to progress and alignment while working from home. Perhaps the existing process for feedback was effective, but without the convenience of being in the same place, it’s all too easy to slip.

Employee wellbeing should be considered in any workplace, but wellbeing becomes particularly important when team members are suddenly isolated, cut off from each other, and facing new distractions. The office and the routine of work can play an important role in the wellbeing of team members, and the shift to work-from-home can be a shock.

The Role of Check Ins

A check in is a quick catch up. Check ins are also known as pulse checks, one-on-ones, sit downs and a variety of other terms.

Before the era of lockdowns and social distancing, check ins were typically done in person. Check ins have now embraced a range of tools to make it easier for teams who are working from home to stay connected.

This new era of tech-enabled check ins have become important tools for teams across the globe. Checking in helps teams stay aligned and focused. It’s an essential technique for managers to share goals and priorities, and provides an opportunity for team members to keep informed and resolve barriers.

Check ins are also an important tool to monitor and respond to issues of employee wellbeing, including isolation, loneliness and depression. Check ins play an important protective role in staying on top of wellness issues for the whole team, and also a reactive role by quickly identifying problems and making changes when issues occur.

Data to Inform Managers and Keep Teams Performing

Regular check ins provide essential information for managers. Instead of allowing a problem to fester, regular check ins ensure that issues are resolved promptly.

The payoffs are enormous. The insight from timely check ins can keep a team engaged and on track. Check ins can act as a safety valve for wellbeing issues for individual team members, minimising the risks of losing an employee due to time off or uneccessary resignation.

A Simple Way to Check In

iyarn has been built to power insightful check ins and transformational conversations. Make the shift to regular check ins now!

The platform is ideal for teams with members who are working from home. Check ins are easy to set up and the insights are actionable.

Reach out to us at iyarn for a demo or start a free account to get started.