Connecting in a Remote Environment

With the ubiquitous presence of remote work, the “personal touch” is increasingly hard to maintain, so managers – and companies – are in danger of losing touch with their employees, and loyalty is harder to maintain. Some ideas managers can implement to help counteract this effect include the following: 

• Hold virtual casual, informal meetings separately from scheduled formal meetings, just to let people share what is going on in their lives, share ideas, ask for advice (non-work), etc. 

• Have a “sharing” room on the company website, accessible to employees only, for the above and for sharing things, like pictures, recipes, good news, etc. 

• Conduct an informal poll of employees to see what they might see as useful in this regard.