The WFH excitement is wearing off, what now? – it’s time for virtual leadership to build the sense of community.

About two weeks ago, I shared my experiences learning from working across a virtual world. Whilst I listed four basic factors for ensuring working in a virtually connected world will work, these four (Clarity, Communication, Managing group calls, Recognition and Appreciation) were practical, well developed and often written about. Then I shared the fifth, an often missing element, creating a sense of community, was what I had learnt as the most important and perhaps least discussed issue.

When people headed to their homes a couple of weeks ago, the novelty of working from home was still a positive and potentially disguising factor on what the truth ahead may be. I fear for some the truth is becoming, or will soon became, the reality. The physical social isolation, lack of informal unannounced chats, meeting of eyes in a group discussion, technology failures, family issues, financial issues, and the feeling of the body language the team are now missing. You can cope with this for a couple of weeks, but in reality, this way of working has not been our norm.

So, what can you do? Here are a few tips on firstly, recognising the issue first, and secondly, finding solution:

1.     Speak with each of your team individually and ask how they are feeling, what’s good, what’s not good, what’s working, what’s not working – both in relation to work, working style and other factors around them. It is important they can share their thoughts safely and openly, which is even harder to do in a virtual environment. Ask for their ideas on what they need to help solve the challenges faced. Be open, we will be working in this environment for a while. Get what you can from it - no need to respond yet, just be grateful for their feedback. Making the conversation safe and secure is critical. It’s helpful if you share your feelings in this area in a very open and sincere – and yes that word - authentic - manner. Let them know you want to bring the team together to discuss this and you would like their thoughts in the discussion. You may be surprised on some issues – it maybe the mobile phone provider has bad reception in their area, the internet connection is weak, laptop issues, or more personal issues with kids home or family situations.

2.     Bring your team together (virtually, of course) after you’ve spoken to everyone – hopefully within 24 hours. Share with them that you have spoken with each of them and together you have each shared what’s working and what’s not working, ideas they have had and how each of them are feeling. Start off sharing how you are going – the good and bad, and some of what you have learnt from your chats that is safe to share. Your behaviour here will help determine the environment for them to share with others. Then it is time to ask each team member to put their thoughts forward. It must be inclusive, non-judgmental and safe for all. Fail in any of these areas and it is a potential disaster, so you must pay attention and set the safe environment. Build a short list of actions you can take as a team, and if necessary, to support one or two individuals who are struggling more.

3.     Decide on only 2-3 immediate changes (only 2-3 as you must ensure they get done and we always try to do too much). Agree on an implementation plan, agree on how the team will judge change, agree to review and when. Follow up with each team member after - express your thanks, see again how they are feeling and support them in any changes you have agreed to make. Do the review on schedule and learn what worked and what didn’t.

4.     Keep iterating, keep learning, keep sharing. More than anything it is so critical the virtual world is safe for people to speak up, to share their thoughts and to see leadership supporting them. Teams that can iterate in this area will build cohesion, trust and increased satisfaction, they will be more productive and deliver better results – individually and collectively.

The virtual leader engages with their team individually, and collectively. You cannot expect the excitement and novelty of the WFH world to be sustained. I have seen the engagement, energy and productivity wane as novelty wears off and the tyranny of distance gains on people. As a virtual leader you need to create an environment which is inclusive and safe and get your team to help solve the problems. Build the sense of community. The leader facilitates the team action and maintains a learning and growth team environment to enhance job enjoyment and safety, acknowledges the challenges of the world we are in and helps each person and the team achieve their goals. Its not much different to a leader in the physical world, but in the virtual world it’s that much harder to build that sense of community.