In the beginning of the decade of 2000, Nextel released cellphones that were also used as Walkie-Talkies. It was an innovative technology that revealed how communication was evolving in front of our eye. I recently came across one of their older commercials on TV that got me thinking about the remote teams that face similar challenges in the present. The life coach in my area Nextel TV commercial depicted every phone as an individual dot or team member. The idea was to maintain the team members in contact with each other for ensuring that work was completed. There’s a line in the commercial on TV that says “we don’t agitate the dots” became synonymous with keeping the disruption the remote teams were faced with to the minimal.
Check out this old TV commercial…
In the current business climate, remote team members are faced. With new challenges that may be disruptive and cause agitation in different ways. Isolation. Loneliness. Disconnection. Disruptors of all kinds could break up a team and negatively impact job performance and satisfaction. The team members aren’t just dots or faces on a computer screen They are people that require care and connections. It might be a good idea to think about simulating and connecting with remote employees in new. And innovative ways to ensure that they feel like they are part of the team, not isolated dots. It’s time to work on connecting dots in innovative ways. It’s crucial to foster trust and camaraderie between team members even when they aren’t within the same space.
David Burkus, best-selling author of Leading From Any where recently published an article his thoughts in. The Harvard Business Review about the need for remote teams to feel connected to the company’s overall. As employers and employees relocate their offices to remote areas. As well as altering the schedules of offices and work spaces to accommodate COVID safety procedures. Keeping the teams connected is becoming more the challenge.
Interact and be connected on a personal level.
“The most fascinating aspect of life coaches near me our future work-from-anywhere however. Isn’t the thing it’ll bring on the existing physical “office.” Rather, it’s what it will do to the way we work, particularly the way we work in teams” (Burkus 2021). Burkus is able to pinpoint several easy ways to join teams and create connections. It is essential to create some space, and some time during meetings so. That team members to interact and be connected on a personal level. It is not always possible for everyone to be able to interact the same way however. Providing the time could be enough to reduce the feeling of loneliness they may feel