Put the time and hard work and effort into not just forming relationships, but sustaining and continuing and growing the best existing relationships.
—TOM RATH1
More than three out of four full-time workers are either actively looking for a job or open to new opportunities. Meanwhile, nearly half of companies can’t fill their job vacancies.2 As a result, we’re in a situation that I call “the continuous job search,” in which today’s workers are only a few clicks away from lining up their next job interview even if they’re sitting in an office twenty feet away from you. Because replacing team members is expensive and can really hurt your productivity, the most effective way to retain top people is to support and engage them and give them a positive work experience. Only 4 percent of workers who feel engaged on the job would leave their current employer within a year. But a third of those who feel disengaged are ready to go.3
We work in a world marked by tons of collaborative technologies that are designed to boost engagement, productivity, and results. However, over the decade or so that I’ve been studying workplace trends and employee behavior, I’ve noticed a definite engagement crisis. And I’m not the only one. According to Gallup, about two-thirds of employees are disengaged at work.4 Part of the problem is that all that technology—the very things that are supposed to connect us to our teammates—often ends up making us feel even lonelier. Another part of the problem is the rise in remote work, which despite the best of intentions, contributes to a culture of social isolation. And in social isolation, both strong personal relationships and corporate culture suffer.
With nearly a third of companies offering telecommuting,5 managing freelancers or remote workers has become one of the great challenges for any leader. When we asked employees what they miss out on by not working in an office environment, a third said interactions with coworkers. Anyone who’s ever worked remotely or worked with a remote colleague knows that it’s hard to stay connected with people when you don’t see them and hear their voices on a frequent and regular basis. That’s certainly true for me. Even though I’m highly productive working from home, I often feel lonely and isolated from my team. For me and most other people who work remotely, texts, emails, and instant messages on the phone just don’t cut it. I’ll admit that if I didn’t see my business partners face-to-face at least once a year, I’d be a lot less committed to the future of our organization. Without seeing them or hearing their voices, it just wouldn’t feel like I was part of the company—even though I’m a partner!
The Virgin Pulse and Future Workplace study uncovered some really interesting data on the effects of remote work on engagement.6 For example, only 5 percent of people who often or very often work remotely say they can see themselves spending their entire careers with their current employer. Compare that to the almost one-third who rarely or never work remotely and say the same thing.
As a leader, working from home can be extremely challenging because you can’t ever be sure what your employees are doing unless you ask them, and you feel like you’re on a team of one even though you’re collaborating with others. Your employees may think that you don’t care about them or that they aren’t part of something bigger than themselves.
A lot of companies have seen how a lack of engagement detracts from their corporate culture and in some cases contributes to poor financial performance. As a result, they’re going back to the future. In 2013, Yahoo!, Best Buy, and HP rolled back their remote work policies. More recently, Honeywell, Reddit, and IBM followed suit. These companies had been among the biggest champions of remote work but have since reverted in an effort to rebuild their culture, increase engagement, and get everyone on the same page and focused on the same goals.
“When our company eliminated working from home several months ago, it was disappointing and not fun as a manager to explain to some of my permanently remote employees,” says Kiah Erlich, a senior director at Honeywell. “But as a leader who craves human interaction, it has been one of the greatest things we’ve done. People are actually in the office now. What once was a painful conference call is now a collaborative white boarding session. Instead of more emails, people get out of their chair and walk over to my office. It is a beautiful thing to see, and has not only improved productivity but brought the team closer together.”
Why Companies Changed Their Remote Work Policies
Honeywell: “When employees come into the office to do their jobs, it fosters teamwork and idea sharing. It also helps coworkers make decisions faster and become agile when addressing changes in the global markets.”7
Yahoo!: “Being a Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job; it is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices.”8
HP: “We now need to build a stronger culture of engagement and collaboration, and the more employees we get into the office the better company we will be.”9
Reddit: “While remote work was good for some workers, in the macro scheme of things, the company just wasn’t able to collaborate and coordinate efficiently.”10
I see Kiah’s point, but to me, banning remote work is a rather extreme solution—as is a workplace in which everyone works remotely. What we need is a mix of both: a place where managers take into consideration each individual’s unique preferences, priorities, and needs.
Remote workers aren’t the only ones who may feel isolated or disengaged from their teammates. Over the past decade the workplace has evolved from collections of teams in large commercial office buildings to smaller teams with more discrete projects that can be performed in isolation but are completed collectively by the whole team. As a result, your nonremote employees often work alone at their desks, skip lunch, and have almost as little contact with other humans as they would if they were working at home, where the only sounds they might hear are a car going by or a dog barking. Regardless of your team’s size, function, department, or work location, at least one of its members is probably feeling disconnected, disassociated, and lonely and needs to be engaged more.
Employee engagement has an impact on every aspect of your company, from pleasing your customers to strengthening partner relationships to recruiting new teammates. Lack of this engagement can be a massive barrier to your productivity and may slow growth. Highly engaged teams have 41 percent less absenteeism, are 17 percent more productive, and have 24 percent less turnover than disengaged teams.11 The Hay Group found that companies with a high level of employee engagement generated 2.5 times more revenue than those with less engagement.12
As a leader, you want your employees to be emotionally committed to your team and organizational goals. When employees are engaged, they invest more time and effort in their work and relationships. They feel purpose in their jobs and bring the necessary enthusiasm, passion, and energy to their daily activities. Towers Perrin found that 84 percent of highly engaged employees feel as though they can have a positive impact on the quality of their company’s products and services, versus only 31 percent of those who are disengaged.13
Being seen is at least as important as being heard. Seeing other people face-to-face is more psychologically engaging and makes you feel more connected. One study of professional office workers examined how passive face time (being seen at work either during normal business hours or off hours) affects the way people are perceived at work.14 It turns out that passive face time leads observers to perceive employees as either dependable or committed—judgments that observers are completely unaware they’re making.
Aside from making leaders seem more dependable and committed, having a presence at the office may actually make you more approachable and empathetic. Mike Maxwell, KitchenAid global category leader of the culinary-global leader program at Whirlpool, is always on the move in the office and believes in the power of being seen. “In the morning, I get up and see my team and check in with others. Touching base with them on work and non-work-related issues. It helps me be more approachable and I get key updates on things I need to know. There is significance in that face-to-face interaction.” His team appreciates the effort and care because it gives them time to reflect, be open, and connect.
Your physical absence can affect not only your team’s loyalty but also your own career prospects. When you aren’t seen, you aren’t top of mind when it comes to new projects, promotions, and even bonuses. Those who are there command more attention and are perceived as working harder because their efforts can be observed directly, while remote workers—even if they’re rock-star employees—often go unnoticed. As Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, once said, “Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven’t been consistently seen and measured.”15 Being present sends a strong message to others that you’re committed to the company and want to lead. It’s helpful to your employees to understand the importance of presence and all the great benefits that go along with it.
If you want to build trust with your teammates, you need to successfully engage them—and the best way to do that is to be present. As Amy Cuddy, author of Presence, once told me, “Presence allows you to build that trust, because you are saying, ‘I’m here, I care about you. I’m listening and what I am telling you to do is not just based on my own personal opinion but what I’m observing and hearing from you.’”16 You can’t have the same level of interaction (or trust) if you’re using technology as a crutch to engage with teammates.
In generations past, leaders were often autocratic and spent a lot of time commanding and controlling the behavior of their employees. They believed in rules, practices, and regulations for how work gets done. Autocratic leaders still exist today in every industry, and you may be one yourself. Take, for instance, Lorne Michaels, the creator of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Since 1975, Michaels has produced one of the longest-running and most entertaining shows on TV. As an autocratic leader, he still demands the best in every cast member and has final approval over every sketch and scene. Thanks to his hard-hitting leadership style, Michaels helped build some of the great comedic careers, including those of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey. Michaels once said, “To me there’s no creativity without boundaries,” and those boundaries helped spark amazing creativity in his team of writers and on-air personalities.18
Steve Jobs had a similar leadership style and built one of the largest companies in the world but was frequently harsh to his employees and had no problem publicly embarrassing them if they said something he didn’t like. His style was unwavering, yet his employees were extremely loyal to him because he saw something in them that they didn’t see in themselves. While both Jobs and Michaels were quite successful (and Michaels continues to be), I think they’d have a much harder time leading today, when organizations are flatter, more collaborative, more social, and less rules-oriented and allow for greater free flow of information.
Today’s transformational leaders are able to adapt to change and new environments, and they prepare their teams to do the same so they can navigate new obstacles with confidence. They create a vision and inspire their teammates to persevere. They encourage the best in others, promote collaboration, and are cheerleaders instead of dictators. As a transformational leader, you must be willing to make the necessary sacrifices and support your team through unexpected challenges. You must be able to communicate your ideas, create trust among your team members, engage with them, and have a strong sense of empathy. And you must create a culture that celebrates success. When we interviewed hundreds of young employees, over 60 percent believed that they lead in that way.19
Part of creating an engaging culture is empowering and trusting your employees with regard to how they get their work done. If you’re always micromanaging them and humiliating them in front of their peers, and you never let them spread their wings, they will feel frustrated and resentful and will soon look for work someplace where they’ll be appreciated and nurtured. Sometimes the best leadership style is one that lets go.
In an insightful New York Times interview, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was asked about his definition of leadership. His response echoes transformational leadership. He said, “Simply put, it’s the ability to inspire others to achieve shared objectives.”20 He then talked about how vision gives the leader and the team clarity about where to take the business and its products. While Weiner isn’t a young employee, he has a lot of experience and insights from being an executive at both LinkedIn and Yahoo!, two prominent technology companies. When I spoke to Drew Houston, the young CEO and cofounder of Dropbox, he said, “If you get results but aren’t a team player, it’ll be hard for you to succeed here.” Houston told me about a transformative leader at his company named Guido van Rossum, the original creator of Python, the popular programming language. Rossum has interns come up to him and tell him why they think Python is inferior to other programming languages, and instead of turning his back on them, he’s willing to have a mature debate with them. Rossum is a true transformational leader because he’s not stuck in his own ways and welcomes feedback, even if it’s not what he wants to hear.21
A few years ago I interviewed Biz Stone, one of the three cofounders of Twitter, about his career decisions and influences. I asked him about the leadership of his cofounders and their relationship as they grew Twitter into the behemoth that it is today. “Both Jack and Ev continue to help me grow into a better person in various ways. Jack is extremely supportive of my current startup. Ev gives me more patience than I deserve.”22 Even successful entrepreneurs need a support system and have to leverage one another’s strengths. Transformational leaders will power the next generation of companies and make the workplace environment better for everyone.
Through countless research studies and conversations with leaders across a variety of businesses, I’ve narrowed down employee engagement to four factors: happiness, belonging, purpose, and trust. As a leader, if you can nurture these factors, you’ll significantly increase the likelihood that your teammates will stay productive, fulfilled, and committed to your goals. When you hire the right people for the right jobs and empower them with the resources and emotional support they need, they’ll be successful. Let’s take a look at these factors in greater detail.
Regardless of your industry or company size, it’s impossible to ignore the power of a happy employee. Happy employees are more likely to refer new candidates to you, brag about you online, work harder, and remain with you even through the hardest times. My friend Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, found that happy employees have an average of 31 percent higher productivity, have 37 percent higher sales, and are three times more creative.23 I know it sounds a little cliché, but when one of your employees is happy, that emotion will spread throughout your team and the rest of your organization.
As humans we have a natural need to be accepted by others, and in the workplace those “others” are our team members. When I was growing up I never fit in, and I had trouble making friends. Without a sense of belonging and with no close friends, I had trouble performing academically, and I wasn’t happy. In college I joined a fraternity, which gave me an immediate sense of camaraderie and acceptance because everyone went through the same grueling six weeks of pledging. I didn’t have to worry about my social life because it was already established for me after the older fraternity brothers accepted me. That helped me focus a lot more of my time and energy on excelling in my internships and classes, and the results were extremely positive.
In the workplace your employees want to feel that they belong to the team, which is why so many leaders hire for cultural fit in the first place. They want someone who will fit in from day one. When employees have a sense of belonging, their guard comes down and their performance goes up. Belongingness is often overlooked at work because we’re so focused on our goals that we don’t pay enough attention to how those around us feel.
To create a sense of belonging, you need to make your employees feel they’re part of a community every single day—one that helps fulfill their aspirations, supports their well-being, and makes them feel respected. A study by professors at UCLA found that threats to belonging result in an experience that’s similar to physical pain.24 And that’s just the beginning. Other studies have found that not belonging or feeling a lack of acceptance can also lead to depression, reduced problem-solving skills, and a decrease in on-the-job effectiveness.
“The interactions that my team has outside of the office are the most important for engagement and retention,” says Jill Zakrzewski, customer experience manager at Verizon. “Our bond is created during happy hours, team barbeques, and at the ping pong table, not over a spreadsheet or email. Because we have real relationships outside of the office, we’re quick to support each other inside the office.”
When you have a purpose, you feel that you matter and have a direction to go in. Over the years I’ve come to realize that my purpose is to help my generation through their entire career trajectory, from student to CEO. My purpose became clear only after years of writing, experience working with companies, and mentoring young professionals. Now, whenever I make a business or life decision I consider whether it works with my purpose. If not, I disregard it. This keeps me focused and keeps me from wasting time on activities that don’t help me support my peers in their success. I know it’s my purpose because most decisions in my life have guided me to it, and I get excited whenever I think of the possibilities of seeing it through.
I spoke to Michael Porter, famous for the “Porter’s Five Forces” framework and a professor at Harvard Business School, about the impact my generation has had on the workforce. He said that today’s young workers are “more aware of society’s many challenges than previous generations and less willing to accept maximizing shareholder value as a sufficient goal for their work. They are looking for a broader social purpose and want to work somewhere that has such a purpose.”25 Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why and perhaps the biggest champion of purposeful work, expanded on Porter’s comment. As he explained to me, “Great, inspiring leaders and organizations, regardless of size or industry, all know why they do what they do. It is this clear sense of why that inspires them and those around them. It is what drives loyalty. And it is what drives their success over and over and over.”26 Purpose has always been important but was often overlooked by previous generations. Now it’s one of the hallmarks of a career and one of the key determinants of whether someone will stay with or leave a company.
Trust is the hallmark of any good relationship, be it work or personal. When your employees trust you, they’ll tell you things that you may not want to hear but that you truly need to hear. They’ll be more open with you, provide feedback, and be able to voice issues without stressing about feeling judged or making a fool of themselves. Paul Zak, a researcher at California’s Claremont Graduate University, found that countries that have high levels of trust between citizens are more economically successful. In one experiment he monitored his subjects’ oxytocin levels. Oxytocin plays a role in social bonding, regulating social interaction. Zak found that when people feel trusted, their brain produces oxytocin, and the more they feel trusted, the more oxytocin they produce. In addition, individuals who felt trusted were in turn more trusting of others. In the workplace, employees at high-trust companies experienced 74 percent less stress, had over 106 percent more energy, were 50 percent more productive, took 13 percent fewer sick days, were 76 percent more engaged, felt 29 percent more satisfied with life, and were 40 percent less likely to burn out.27 Without trust, employees feel that they can’t bring issues to your attention and can’t rely on others to help them complete tasks. Ultimately, employees who don’t trust others or who aren’t trustworthy themselves won’t last on your team.
It’s hard to establish the kind of trust I’m talking about when you’re relying on your cell phone all the time and not having in-person conversations. Texts, instant messages, and emails are technically forms of communication, but they aren’t nearly as useful for creating strong relationships. It’s a lot easier to trust someone who’s right in front of you, speaking with you face-to-face.
Joe Lawrence, director of field training with the US Air Force, says, “Trust is my number-one priority. My formula for trust is to be visible, interested, and involved. I make it a point to get into their classroom for an hour of instruction. I go to their office if I have a question or want their feedback. I make every effort for them to know I value their time as much as I value my own. Then I reflect on the things I see that I can remove from their path or a resource I can add to make their lives easier.”
As an entrepreneur, one of my biggest fears is feeling isolated and lonely. Whether you are working from home or are the sole person responsible for a project, it’s easy to feel really alone and not part of the team or organization even though you are. If you’ve ever had these feelings in your career, you know that the only solution is to make a concerted effort to reach out to others or ask for help. The key is to redesign tasks and processes so that you (or someone on your team who’s feeling isolated) can have more interactions with teammates on a regular basis. Try assigning two people to a project instead of having everyone work solo. This may occasionally delay projects, but it’s better for your employees’ mental and emotional health. Many Silicon Valley companies strongly encourage their employees to come to, and live near, the office. They’ve found that more frequent interactions between team members create new relationships and ideas and lead to better problem solving. In our Virgin Pulse study, 60 percent of respondents said that they’d be more likely to stay with their current employer if they had more friends at work. That’s especially true for younger workers: Gen Z (74 percent) and millennials (69 percent).28
It really all comes down to in-person communication. Of workers who feel that they don’t have enough face time with members of their team, 48 percent said they aren’t engaged and 78 percent said they often or always feel lonely. In addition, people felt that having more face time with their coworkers would reduce the amount of time they spend going back and forth on email, increase their on-the-job learning, boost their confidence and productivity, improve their relationships with their colleagues, make them more committed to the organization, and give them a better chance of getting a promotion.
Engagement isn’t something you do once a week or year. It’s the interactions you have with your teammates throughout the day, every day. Over the years I have researched the top ways that employees want their leaders to engage with them so they can do their best work.29 None of them have anything to do with technology (although it could help in certain circumstances). Here are eight practices great leaders apply to engage employees.
1. Listen to teammates, value their opinions, and create a culture of respect. Your employees want to share their thoughts with you without having to go through ten layers of management to do so. If they know that you’re listening to what they have to say and that you’ll actually take action on it (because actions speak much louder than words), they will take you seriously and will continue to share. When employees feel ignored, they’ll see sharing their ideas as a waste of time and effort.
2. Give employees meaningful projects. They want projects that have an effect on their team, their organization, their customers, and the outside world. No one wants to feel like a mindless cog in an even-more-mindless wheel. They want to see how their tasks add up to larger projects and initiatives and the impact they make. As a leader, one of your biggest challenges is to tell a compelling story to your employees that will make them fully understand how their daily tasks fit into the bigger picture. Whether your employees would like to admit it or not, a simple biweekly paycheck doesn’t cut it when it comes to engagement; people want to feel that they matter. To assign the right projects to the right team members, you need to hire the right people and set expectations so that employees know what they are responsible for and have the tools and support to succeed.
3. Mentor employees and give them feedback so they can thrive. Unfortunately, the word mentor is overused and misunderstood. For instance, some people say that anyone you learn from is your mentor; others insist that you can have only one mentor in your career. In truth, mentoring is the pairing of two individuals to create mutual support and success. Although many people think that the mentee is the only one who reaps rewards from the relationship, for the arrangement to be a success, both need to benefit. Successful mentoring happens when you truly invest in your employees, setting aside time to help those who are struggling, have questions, or could use some guidance.
4. Model transparency, providing full access to company information so that everyone’s on the same page. Have weekly meetings in which you fill in your team on the latest company news and acknowledge both the victories and the setbacks so they always know exactly what’s going on and where they stand. By acknowledging both, your team can find ways to bounce back from setbacks, share in the glory of big wins, and become future-proof.
5. Coach employees, don’t just mentor them. When you’re coaching, provide actionable feedback and advice, using specific examples from your experiences so that they fully understand what to do. Both the employees and you should keep notes so that you can track progress against mutually established goals and expectations. Michelle Odland, business unit director for Old El Paso & Totino’s at General Mills, does monthly or quarterly coaching sessions with her employees because it not only helps their development but helps her do her job better. “To truly learn something is to teach it, so explaining and discussing different development concepts with each employee helps me more deeply appreciate and understand the concepts.” To Michelle, a coaching session is a two-way street, and dialogue, which reinforces the value she places on her teammates, gives her critical feedback. It also reaffirms to them that their voices and perspectives matter. This coaching style gets both parties on board and invested in each other, which furthers their development.
6. Always be there for your employees. Arguments will arise between your team members and other people. Your employees need to know that you have their backs and will support them when they need it most. Let’s say one of your teammates is working on a cross-functional team and isn’t being treated fairly. If they can’t handle the situation on their own, you may need to step in and straighten things out. When you protect your employees, they’ll be much more engaged and loyal to you as a result.
7. Provide opportunities for employees to grow and develop. Putting yourself in the employees’ shoes shouldn’t be too hard because you were there just a few years ago. Just as you did earlier in your career, employees want to expand their skill sets and continue to move up in your organization. If you don’t find new ways to promote them or challenge them with new responsibilities, they’ll become bored and disengage. So, sit with them and discuss their individual career plans so you can tailor opportunities and challenges to their wants, desires, strengths, and abilities. If you’re not able to find new, appropriate challenges for them on your team, you may need to help them find a new role with another team; if you don’t, they’ll leave anyway.
8. Celebrate teammates’ achievements, making them feel good about their jobs and being part of something special. This means that if someone does a bang-up job on a presentation, gets promoted, or has a birthday or a baby, make a point to say something to that employee and the group about it. It’s a great way to show that this person matters and that you care on a human level. When you do this, you’re contributing to a culture of joy and recognition, and that teammate will acknowledge others when they do something great or have a special moment. Although you could probably get away with a text or an email, be human and have an actual conversation. The genuine emotion you’ll give off is much more powerful than anything digital.
With more and more employees choosing flexible work arrangements, chances are good that you’re managing one or more remote workers now or you will be in the not-too-distant future. But although some people might think that managing someone they rarely see would be easy, it actually takes a lot of skill. Collaborative technologies can be useful for maintaining contact with your remote workers, but it’s your responsibility to create a more personal relationship with them by phone, in-person visits, or videoconferencing.
When remote teams are disengaged, it’s almost always the manager’s fault. In one study, a fourth of virtual teams were ineffective due to poor management. Highly effective teams, however, had management who promoted accountability, motivation, purpose, process, and of course, relationships.30 Managers of the most successful teams have a consistently open line of communication with their employees and ensure that those employees know what’s happening in the organization and have the tools they need to succeed.
Remote workers face a number of unique challenges. First, they’re much more likely to feel isolated, lonely, and depressed because they have less human contact than your other employees. Second, they have many more potential distractions around them, such as noisy people in a coffee shop or their kids playing video games in another part of the home. Third, although their intention behind working remotely was to have more flexibility, they often end up losing track of time and working around the clock. When you’re in an office you have a more defined workday because you see people coming and going at around the same time every day.
You won’t be able to overcome all of these challenges, but you can definitely help by giving remote workers regular attention. Be sure that your goals and your telecommuting policy are clear so there won’t be any issues later. Explain how important remote workers are to the whole team’s success and ask for regular updates so remote workers get in the habit of checking in with you. Make sure you aren’t just relying on high-tech collaboration tools to engage with them. Instead, schedule at least one weekly phone meeting or videoconference so you can maintain an emotional connection with them and ask whether they have any project updates or need help with anything. Issues that don’t get resolved quickly can fester and quickly become much bigger problems.
“Whenever there’s a lag of communication across a remote workforce, people fill that void with assumptions about what’s happening or not happening in the business, and with rumors, and they feel very disconnected and very uneasy about the business,” says Rajiv Kumar, president and chief medical officer at Virgin Pulse. “Constant communication—and never leaving remote employees feeling like they’re on an island—is critical,” he adds, “whether it be company-wide town halls, webinars, emails, PowerPoint presentations, updates on health of the business, social emails, [or] announcing accomplishments.”
If you want to take things a step further, consider mandating that your remote employees come to the office a few times every year. While this may seem harsh, it’s for everyone’s benefit because the extra face time will result in deeper relationships. Antonio McBroom, the chief euphoria officer at Ben & Jerry’s, told me that he requires that remote workers “travel to their primary place of business quarterly to reinforce our team dynamic and the importance of the work we’re doing.” In addition, “any professional development or beyond-the-job opportunities that we have at our home office, we also try to incorporate the parallel for remote workers.”
Empower your remote workers by giving them plenty of autonomy and control over the projects you assign them. Micromanaging may seem like a good way to engage them on an ongoing basis, but many people telecommute for the freedom and opportunity to do projects independently. As long as they’re producing quality work, give them the flexibility to do things their way. I know it sounds a little counterintuitive, but this will make them feel more included and will encourage the rest of the team to engage more with their remote colleagues.
As you know, my goal in this book is to push you to increase the degree of human connection you have with your teammates. However, it would be absurd to ignore the powerful role technology can play in facilitating communication and collaboration. When you have remote workers, technology can be a vital asset—as long as you use it properly. If you select the right tools, train your employees on how to use them, and then leverage those tools when collaborating, you’ll be more successful. If you champion a tool and then fail to use it, your team will eventually stop using it as well. Some tools can limit the often-overwhelming flow of emails we receive every day and enable us to communicate more quickly and efficiently with people who aren’t at our location. Use these tools for real-time dialogue and to promote your weekly staff meetings for both your traditional and your remote employees.
Finally, try not to treat remote workers differently than your traditional employees. A lot of leaders pick favorites (usually people they see every day), leaving remote workers feeling they can’t succeed or aren’t getting as much attention. That’s why it’s so important to show empathy and concern for your remote workers’ well-being and to ensure that they’re achieving their personal and professional goals, not just the team goals you’ve set for them. Nawal Fakhoury, learning and employee experience manager at LinkedIn, takes this message seriously. “Managing remote teams is similar to managing regular teams but will require greater emphasis on building trust, fostering communication, and implementing team processes,” she told me. Her solution? “I spend double the amount of time with my remote employees as I do with my teammates next to me. I hold regular 1:1 meetings where we focus on what’s going on in their life outside of the office, learning about their work environment, and always asking, ‘What can I do to support you?’ All meetings are conducted via videoconference so we can make eye contact and pick up on the body language to truly get a sense for how the remote employee is doing since I don’t have the benefit of seeing them in their element.”
Remote working can be a benefit, a choice, or something that’s forced on someone by circumstances beyond his control. So, take some time to understand exactly why your remote employees are in that position, and do everything you can to create a positive employee experience for them. At the same time, it’s important to understand your remote workers’ communication preferences. Vivek Raval, head of performance management at Facebook, always asks of his remote workforce, “Do they like to video chat? Are they the kind of person who appreciates informal phone conversations not tied to specific meetings or tasks? What can we do to make them feel like part of the team? Can I schedule a visit to where they are located to show a commitment and share some important face-to-face time?” By asking these questions—and more important, listening to the answers—you’ll be able to pick the right communication channels for each person’s preferences.