The social and emotional impact is not insignificant.

Our team has been working remotely since March 4. We are fortunate that we all transitioned to working from home without much disruption. Our IT infrastructure was already cloud-based, making the functional aspects of the transition seamless. And we have a highly functional team, made up of individuals who take pride in their work. They have proven their ability to maintain productivity and quality while working from remote locations.

However, as many teams have discovered during the past year, the more challenging aspects of working remotely have been the social and emotional isolation. The inadvertent connections, conversations and sharing of information (personal and professional) that happen naturally in the office, are harder to orchestrate when everyone is dispersed.

Here are a few of the things we’ve done to help navigate these remote pandemic times:

• Morning Stand-up Meetings: Each morning we connect as a team via MS Teams. Pre-COVID, this was a 15-minute quick-to-the-point meeting. Each person would share his or her projects and deadlines for the day. Sometimes we would use extra time to brainstorm or discuss a particular challenge or campaign. Since working remotely, this meeting has evolved. While we all still talk through our project lists, we have extended the meeting and use the morning call to chat and catch up regarding topics beyond work. Discussion topics range from sharing weekend plans, TV/movie recommendations, current news/events, recipes, gift ideas, hiking suggestions, day-trip ideas, and much more. The meeting has helped fill a need to connect with each other.
• Happy Hours: At the start of the pandemic there was a wave of Zoom Happy Hours. But after a day filled with Zoom calls, I was not compelled to jump on another video call, even if I had cocktail in hand. Yet I missed those “down time” gatherings with my colleagues. We tried unstructured happy hour Zoom calls with varying success. Then we learned about playing Codenames online. As a competitive, close-knit group, this was a great find. Our happy-hour gatherings took on new energy. We rotate the code spymaster and change up the teams from call to call. We conduct on average one Codenames/Happy Hour per month.
• Holiday Challenges: We created a Spooktacular Halloween Challenge after learning about a Halloween Bingo game one of our clients created for its team. Lauren created a challenge list of activities. We would send in/share photos as we accomplished the task or activity. Each task had a point value. At the end of the challenge, Lauren tallied up the points. The winners – Megan, Christie and AnnMarie received prizes (e.g., Fran’s Halloween Gift Basket, Glassy Baby, etc.) shipped to their homes – and bragging rights! The shared photos generated lots of discussion and engagement across the team – and helped us all get in the Halloween/Fall spirit. The Holiday-themed Challenge is underway now!

Below are a few additional tips for creating social connection and mitigating some of the challenges of remote working:

1. Be gentle and patient with yourself and others. It is a time of increased anxiety and tension for most of us.
2. Take time to step away. Give yourself permission to take a walk or get a break. It is particularly challenging to maintain work/life balance when we are all working from home and our work is always present.
3. As we are not visible to our colleagues, it can be helpful to communicate more often than we might if we were all in the space place.

What are some of the ways you are maintaining engagement with your colleagues?