10 practices to build team morale remotely

?“How to build team morale remotely?”

As a leader, manager, CEO, now more than ever, this is the question you may be asking yourself.

From your team’s body language on Zoom calls, you can just tell. People look work thin. Energy levels are depleted. And if you let yourself admit it, you might be feeling exhausted as well.

As a leader, it feels pressing:

You want to turn things around, of course. To lift your team’s spirits and to figure out how to build team morale remotely.

But how exactly?

Here, I’ll share some specific practices for how to build team morale remotely, based on my own little research from the past few years on morale.

A heads up that it’s a long read — but it’s because I wanted to give this important topic the attention it deserves.

Let’s dive in.

Defining “team morale”

Before talking about the best practices for how to build team morale remotely, let’s get clear on what we’re trying to improve, in the first place.

You can’t improve what you haven’t properly identified.

Morale is the outlook and sentiment of your team. It’s the way people feel about the team and the company.

Morale isn’t the engagement of your employees. Employee engagement is the level of involvement and enthusiasm of your team. It also isn’t motivation. After all, motivation is our own drive and willingness we show in the workplace. It’s our inner drive that encourages us to do — or not do — something.

To be clear:

Morale impacts engagement, motivation, and culture, but it isn’t a predictor of any of them.

You’ve likely observed this firsthand. A team has high morale, but their culture is toxic to outsiders. Or perhaps, a team has low morale, but they have high engagement out of fear of consequences if they don’t.

On its own, high morale doesn’t get you anywhere.

Rather, if we want to improve team morale remotely, that improvement in morale must serve as a bigger idea. Perhaps it’s in service of a healthy culture or in service of hitting annual goals, or in service making progress toward your vision.

Whatever larger purpose that high morale might serve for your team, make sure you’re clear on it.

Ask yourself:

• Why do you need to improve morale?
• What is high morale in your team ultimately in service of?

Takeaway:

Team morale is outlook and sentiment. If you want to improve it, it should be in service of a bigger idea or outcome.

10 practices to build team morale remotely

Now that we’ve covered what team morale is and how it should serve a greater idea, let’s get into the best practices for how to build it remotely.

??DO NOT ASK: “How can I help you?”

Asking this doesn’t help the other person at all, it burdens them.

You’re asking your direct report to come up with a thoughtful critique and feedback of you and your role on-the-spot. Instead of encouraging positive sentiment by asking that question, you’re whirring up more stress and more anxiety for your direct report. While your intention may be to help, the question hurts.

?DO: Ask more meaningful, specific questions

Try questions enable an employee to speak from the heart, to level with you honestly, and share things perhaps that they might not normally share with you.

Here are some of the best ones to ask:

• “How would you describe your energy level these days?” - This is a fantastic alternative to asking “How are you doing?” and helps to reveal the morale of the person more accurately.
• “What fears or anxiety do you have around the team, and/or company, if any?” - This question helps pinpoint what might be causing or triggering the low morale — and help you understand if there’s anything within your locus of control to fix it.?
• “How have you been feeling about your own performance lately?” - When you ask this question, you’re trying to see if the level of morale a direct report is based on their own perceived performance level.
• “What are your biggest time wasters?” - If you’re trying to figure out how to build team morale remotely, this question can help identify blockers for your direct report — you can then potentially eliminate those to help improve morale.?

?DO NOT: Require participation in team-building and social activities

When we feel team morale is low, we often seek out social engagements as a solution. But it’s hard to "loosen up" when everyone is working remotely and it’s required.

Make anything required and it automatically becomes dreaded.

Plus, when we default to stacking Zoom social events on the calendar as a way for how to build team morale remotely, we assume because it’s something we like that others will enjoy it.

This is a grave mistake.

While of course, you might enjoy it, the truth is this: Other people aren't you ??

Think of it this way:

Rather than employ the Golden Rule of “treat others the way you want to be treated,” try the Silver Rule: “Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

?DO: Figure out work preferences

Figure out what others truly like.

I call these “ work preferences “ — the proclivities, leanings, and habits of how we all like to work.

To encourage positive team morale, you’ll want to ask your team members what their work preferences are, particularly around social events, before you mandate any mandatory fun activities.

Start with these work preference questions:

• Where on the spectrum of an extrovert to introvert would you place yourself?
• How much social interaction do you typically enjoy at work?
• What’s your biggest work-related pet peeves?
• What does “work-life balance” mean to you?

Learn your team’s work preferences.

?DO NOT: Say “ASAP”, “Urgent”, and “Should”

When we’re trying to figure out how to build team morale remotely, we tend to use words that we think will accelerate progress. So we find ourselves saying things like, “ASAP,” “urgent” and “should” more often.

But, these words only give us the illusion of control. Rather, there are alternative words we can use.

?DO: Give choice. Try saying…

Instead of "ASAP":

• “Is this deadline reasonable?”
• “What trade-off will we need to make so X is delivered by this time?”
• “What can I take off your place so we can accomplish this?

Instead of “We should do Y…”:

• “What’s your opinion on how to move forward?”
• “What do you think is the best way to approach this?”
• “What advice would you give me if you were in my position?”

Instead of “These are your goals…”:

• “What goals would you get excited about achieving?”
• “What should the team accomplish that you’d be proud of?”
• “What kind of work would make you feel energized and “I’m glad I did that?”

We as leaders can give options and create alternative pathways for our team. And it doesn't need to be grand. Choice on even the smallest of levels can help improve team morale.

?DO NOT: Strengthen deadlines and the frequency of check-ins

This one can be tempting to do.

Especially in a remote environment where things feel more opaque to you, it can often seem like the only way forward.

But, things don’t move faster because we’re touching them more.

Rather, we cause interference and add baggage. The more pressure we put on a direct report in the form of check-ins and deadlines will continue to erode team morale.

?DO: Clarify expectations and progress being made

If we want morale to be high and to speed up the progress being made, we must make clear what is expected from our team and what that progress is.

What accelerates work and people feeling good about what they are doing is:

1. Knowing why they should be doing it
2. Seeing that progress

This is how to build team morale remotely.

Consequently, instead of more deadlines and check-ins, you must define what success is, clarify the expectations to get there, and create a system where people can proactively share progress.

To create a system where your team can proactively share progress, you can use a tool — perhaps email, or Google Docs, or even software that asks everyone to share each day, “What are you working on?”.

?DO NOT: Try to “measure morale” all the time

When we try to measure morale, we often fall into the pitfall of overcomplicating it and overstating it’s influence on engagement, motivation, and culture.

For example, some teams will be focused elements completely unrelated to a team’s true needs for positive morale. Or other times, a team will inflate their scores, giving the guise that morale is positive when in reality it’s not.

We also overuse team pulse surveys, inundating and overwhelming our team with too many questions too frequently, and failing to take action on the results.

Instead, pause and ask:

What is this all for?

The truth is that we do all this measurement because we’re attempting to understand how our team is feeling so we can do something about it.

If we want to figure out how to build team morale remotely, rather than trying to simply measure it all the time, we should try to create an environment where team members feel comfortable telling us the truth of how they feel.

?DO: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable telling you how they truly feel

You cannot improve morale unless your team is willing to tell you their true state of morale and what is affecting their morale.

In order for them to be honest with you, they must be able to trust you.

From my experience, the most effective ways to build trust are:

1. Show vulnerability
2. Make intentions clear
3. Follow through on commitments

A trusting environment enables your team to tell you their true state of morale, which is what you’re seeking in the first place.

Wrapping Up

I hope that rethinking of our usual impulses around team morale — and clarifying what morale is to begin with — can help us make progress, not to short-term blips of enthusiasm, but toward longer-lasting positive sentiment.

As we all work remotely these days, many of us for the unforeseeable future, that longer view, not short term view, is one to aim for.

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