Leading a remote team is new for many managers. After the last few months, you’ve probably worked out many of the technical issues and settled into a rhythm of remote work. With businesses starting to go back to the office, some team members may remain remote due to childcare issues, pre-existing medical conditions that increase their risk, or myriad of other reasons. Some businesses may continue remote working for the foreseeable future. As you navigate shifting team dynamics, how do you know if your team health is as strong as it should be?
A Remote Work Report by HubSpot in 2019 highlighted lack of social connection (29%) and communicating with co-workers (29%) were the two biggest challenges faced by remote workers. If you can’t see your team members and interact with them in the office, how do you know if they are experiencing these problems?
Below are some early warning signals signs that trouble may be brewing in your remote team:
- You stop hearing from someone on your team.
- Your team doesn’t express appreciation for each other.
- Long emails and complex threads make it hard to figure out what’s going on.
- Nobody talks about life outside of work.
- A few project deadlines or client deliverables fall through the cracks.
- Your team members spend their days jumping from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting with no time to get work done.
- People aren’t taking breaks or holidays
Trust and safety can be fragile – over time, missed deadlines, building frustrations, and exhaustion lead to a lack of trust, isolation, and burnout. Protecting your team’s health, safety and productivity is a top priority for you as a leader. You need to be vigilant for the signs above in addition to frequently directly asking your team members about their health. You should do this in a few different ways via a few different channels. You can use an employee health KPI, an employee pulse survey, a team check-in during meetings, and time in your one to ones to directly ask each person for an update on how they are feeling.
