
Building Personal Connections with Remote Workers
Posted by Rebekkah Brainerd
Remember when remote work was once a perk for tech and funky startups?
Those were the days, right? But here we are where remote work has become a regular part of our lives. I don’t think we even realize what a shift this has been because it was done out of safety, and necessity. It was so swift, and severe and somehow we don’t remember the whiplash because it was just - We’re remote starting…NOW.
When we take a minute to reflect on this transition it becomes more remarkable. If you think about our business, we have a duty to keep our children, families, and teachers safe. We are caring for children every day. This is why in our centers, we make sure that our teachers, children, and families live by rigorous safety standards. But the thing that some people may not think about is the corporate teams that support each of our centers and our amazing teachers in our National Support Center.
For our corporate teams, we were able to implement remote working with shocking ease, thanks to the Herculean effort from our IT team. We are so grateful for everything they did and continue to do, to get us back to supporting the heart of KinderCare: our teachers.
These past several months have taught us some great lessons about remote working, and candidly, these lessons are something that part of KinderCare's DNA: personal connection.
Our culture is built around relationships. From the relationships we forge with our families and their children, to the relationships we build with our teachers and teams, we know what Gallup says is true: close work friendships have a profound benefit to health and happiness. And therein lies the rub: Remote working makes it so we can’t rely on our usual daily, in-person connections. We may feel more isolated than ever. To help everyone create more meaning and connection in remote work, we wanted to share a few tips to help stay close to our professional communities.
The big ideas:
- Be intentional in your communication
- When you reach out to someone, give the conversation the attention it deserves.
- Be authentic and kind
- You’ve seen the memes sprinkle that stuff everywhere!
- Communicate more than you think you need
- You’d be shocked how much the little things add up.
Like all quippy lists, knowing how to put these ideas into practice can be the hard part. But, here’s the hack: The first step is making sure your technology facilitates employees keeping in touch. At KinderCare, we’ve been turning to programs such as Slack, Webex, and Microsoft Teams which allow both group and private conversations that can be referred to easily.
Using tools like these, you can implement specific ideas to create more organic connection:
- Create company-wide and team-focused events
- Organize and make sure people can give their input – and make them fun!
- Non-work channels of communication
- KinderCare has a company-wide channel for whatever personal things people would like to share – dog pictures, crafts they made, the sunrise that morning, a podcast that someone really loved, etc.
- Teams can get more personal within private group chats, with can create important camaraderie. Many of us are struggling with loneliness, and trusted coworkers can be good people to lean on.
- Managers and leadership – this may be a good time to lead by example. If you can relax and be vulnerable, others may trust they can be themselves too. Remember to create a safe space for everyone’s struggles, vulnerabilities, and differing opinions.
- Interesting Ice-Breakers for team conversations
- We all know the “what’s your favorite movie?” questions to get people talking. But questions outside the box can lead to hilarity and a lot of fun. Try finding something different and personal, like the last song you couldn’t get out of your head, or the last random thing you learned.
Tips to make these ideas really sing:
- In written conversations, try to use full sentences and give an effort towards grammar.
- Did you know that over 70% of communication is non-verbal? So even in phone conversations, it’s easy to misunderstand or read into things when we no longer have those clues to guide our communication. We all need to make sure we’re getting our words and intentions across correctly!
- With that in mind, know when to move to video chat.
- Emails and phone calls are great, but it doesn’t have the full depth of seeing AND hearing someone.
- The Importance of Check-ins and informal chats
- We all have check-ins with our bosses or those we oversee, but now might be a good time to beef up those meetings. And don’t feel like the subjects must stick to work – many of us are seeking connection in a remote world, and discussing the latest book you read or something funny that happened can create meaningful moments.
While data shows that remote working was trending upwards even before 2020, now it's safe to say that it’s here to stay for many businesses. Due to Covid19, we have had to learn how to live, play, and work while distanced from everyone else.
We’re hoping some ideas that KinderCare has implemented to put relationships at the center of our organization will help you continue to elevate your connections. We think it’s vitally important to connect on an authentic, meaningful level, both for our employees and to succeed as an organization. Our strength comes from our togetherness, and with it, we have the capacity for anything. Even getting through a pandemic.
- remote workers
- working from home