Tips for Working Well in Teams (Even Remote Ones!)

Due to COVID-19, the number of professionals working remotely is on the rise. While this is a boon for safety, it isn’t always kind to teamwork. Creating a sense of connection and collaborating effectively can be hard when you can’t gather together physically. As a result, the relationships’ quality may diminish or fail to grow, hindering the team as a whole.

Luckily, there are steps professionals can take to facilitate better teamwork, including when working remotely. If you don’t know where to begin, here are some tips that can help.

Focus on Connection

Crafting a sense of camaraderie usually doesn’t happen by accident. Instead, it’s the result of team members getting to know one another, allowing them to form bonds that extend beyond their shared tasks.

Taking a few moments to learn about each other’s lives can be powerful for forging connections. That means that team-building activities may need to be a priority. Whether it’s sharing fun facts about yourselves at the beginning of every meeting or holding a virtual social gathering every week or two to chat, seize opportunities to bond.

Centralize Group Work

Nothing is more frustrating than when a team member needs a deliverable that another person was tasked to create, and they can’t find it. Similarly, learning too late that the project has changed, causing you to spend time on an activity that ultimately wasn’t necessary, can be infuriating. Both of those situations can breed harsh feelings, harming the overall dynamic.

Thankfully, all of that can be easily avoided. By centralizing group work, everything will have a proper place in a location that every team member can quickly access.

In some cases, this could involve something as simple as a shared folder and a dedicated channel for collaboration. At times, it may require project management software. However, as long as the goal of having everything together in a single place is met, the approach is less important than the result.

Acknowledge the Work of Others

When you’re working together in an office, gestures of appreciation are often commonplace. Even offering a simple “thank you” when a teammate drops a deliverable off with you goes a long way, allowing you to express your gratitude.

However, when the team is working remotely, these small gestures may get overlooked. In some cases, this is merely because conversations and information exchanges aren’t happening in real-time, so that a person may overlook a common courtesy.

But taking the time to acknowledge the contributions of other team members is vital. It ensures everyone feels appreciated and valued by the remainder of the group, which is critical for keeping morale up.

So, make sure to take a moment and thank your colleagues for all that they do. That way, they won’t feel undervalued. Plus, it will allow everyone to build strong connections, making it easier to work together in the future.

If you’d like to know more about working well in a team, the staff at The Advance Group can help. Contact us today for help finding a new job.

 

 

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