Connection: The Missing Link For Hybrid & Remote Teams

By Susie Hall , President of Community & Customer Engagement at Aquent

Remote. Hybrid. No matter how your team is working, there’s something missing: connection. As humans, we thrive on interactions. At work, even more so. COVID forced us apart, and now, workers are craving connection, meaning, and purpose more than ever. Without those, staff become disengaged, unmotivated, and ultimately leave to find it elsewhere.

Given that 1 million Australian employees quit their jobs during the Great Resignation, companies clearly haven’t figured out how to provide those crucial elements at work. That leaves managers to solve this problem while continuing to interview, hire, onboard, innovate, and deliver results. Exhausting.

A powerful way to engage teams is rituals. In Harvard Business School’s report “Rituals at Work: Teams That Play Together Stay Together”, researchers found that performing a group bonding activity led to a “16% increase in how meaningful employees judged their work to be…” which improved motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity. Sounds great, right? But before you go out and institute a Walmart Cheer of your own, figure out what your team would actually go for — and find valuable.

In recent roundtables, leaders in the InsideOut Design Leader Community brainstormed ways to create rituals that connect their dispersed teams. Some are best for onsite, and some better for boosting remote relationships. Leaders suggest a mix of both in-person and virtual options to build an inclusive culture.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, successful rituals share three traits:?

1. Relevance
2. Intention
3. Authenticity.?

Read on for real-world examples from some brilliant senior leaders to spark ideas to explore with your team.

Relevance

Instead of creating rituals that seem fun but have little or nothing to do with the work, consider creating rituals that tie into their actual job and enhance their skills.

Mystery Guest

One senior leader hosts a weekly call to introduce her team to others around the company. She brings a mystery guest (camera off, muted, name disguised), and attendees ask personal questions, which the guest answers in chat until they guess their identity.

Feedback Loop

Feedback is a gift that shouldn’t be reserved for annual performance reviews, so use rituals to share it regularly. One leader uses Kudoboard for this; another uses a Miro board with everyone’s name on it, asking team members to pick five people to write something nice about and connect those comments with their own name.

Continue reading this article on our Aquent Australia blog?here.