It’s a very real obstacle at-home workers face: feeling disengaged from their fellow in-office team and coworkers. While in-office employees can easily have organic conversations in the break room or at each other’s cubicles, it takes a more concentrated effort for remote workers to engage with others.
While some at-home workers may excel at reaching out to their coworkers naturally, the onus is on the company or manager to have plans in place to engage remote workers with their in-office counterparts. Let’s take a look at a few ways this can be accomplished.
Here are five tips for engaging in-office and at-home workers together:
1. Virtual Social Get-Togethers
Virtual get-togethers are a great way to involve remote and in-office workers. Utilizing voice or video calls, activities like trivia games, happy hours, yoga sessions, and more can be accomplished virtually. While you may have work-related meetings with employees, social activities will go further to create team cohesiveness and feelings of inclusion.
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2. Group Fitness Challenges
Fitness challenges can help bring like-minded employees together in a friendly competition. Use whatever online communication tools your company has (Slack, HipChat, Yammer, Skype, etc.) to have employees work on a common fitness goal or on individual goals. Consider options like a steps-per-day challenge, a squats challenge, or a group hike effort where individual miles are logged to reach a common goal.
3. Robots
Yes, robots! There are multiple companies out there that market telepresence robots—essentially a rolling, motorized tablet on wheels. Using a special app, remote workers can connect to a telepresence robot that’s located in the office. Their webcam allows them to see and speak with anyone in the office, and they can use the app’s controls to actually move the robot around the office. The at-home worker can almost seem to physically be in the office and attend meetings and even “drop by” a coworker’s desk to chat.
4. Group Chats
You may frequently use communication tools such as Slack or instant message to quickly talk about work-related topics with employees. But consider using these tools for general chitchat as well. Start group conversations with a team or department and ask about everyone’s weekend plans or simply share a funny GIF.
Fun, relaxed conversations like this can provide a nice break to the workday and truly do make employees feel closer together. At-home workers will feel like they’re a part of the team and not missing out on daily office chitchat.
5. Celebrate
Celebrating together is an easy way to bring at-home and in-office workers together. Phone calls or video chats are a great way to celebrate a birthday or have a virtual baby shower. Provide remote employees with a gift card to purchase some cake so they can feel like a part of the in-office celebration. You can also hold a secret Santa or cookie exchange around the holidays, giving at-home workers a way to get to know their fellow coworkers.
It may take a little more effort, but creating unity among at-home and in-office workers is vitally important to having a happy and connected workforce.
Be sure to also check out our other blog posts for more tips on how to successfully manage flexible workers.
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