Management Café #22: Preventing Isolation in Remote Teams

After a long silence, we return to Management Café, in response to the concern in many organisations: will remote team members feel isolated?

Back in 2020, we published a series on Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams in our flagship podcast 21st Century Work Life series. The series was created in collaboration with ShieldGeo and featured a range of guests, from remote work advocates, seasoned remote workers, psychologists and others.

(If you are interested in the topic, check out episodes WLP221, WLP223, WLP225, WLP228, WLP231, WLP233, WLP235 - summary and link to all here: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/reflection-connection-disconnection )

Last year, Pilar wrote an article for HRZone, summarising what she learned from that series. Today’s episode of Management Café is based on that article: Five Steps to Preventing Isolation and Disconnection in Your Remote Team

The suggested five steps are based on how the series was structured.

The five steps for managers looking to reduce the risk of isolation in remote teams are: 

 1. Understand what loneliness is, what is causing it and how it manifests itself in individuals 

2. Unpick the effects it's having on team members and their work

3. Design communication practices and role-model behaviours that nurture a sense of belonging in different ways

4. Recognise that it is part of an organisation’s duty of care to mitigate the risk of loneliness and address it as part of the overall wellbeing strategy

5. Equip individuals with the tools and skills to help them understand what makes them feel connected to others, and how to proactively find that connection