5 best practices for communicating with your suddenly remote team

Editor’s note: We are re-running the top stories of 2020 as part of our year-end countdown.

For many companies affected by the recent pandemic, all employees are suddenly working from home for the first time. We’ve supported both in-office and remote employees for quite some time now and can offer these tips and recommendations for success.

Rule #1 — Provide clear “working time” guidelines.

What becomes apparent quickly about working remotely from home is the lack of separation between work and family life. They get intertwined.

So that 7 a.m. email or 8 p.m. call seems normal when you’re working remotely and constantly connected, but when you’re in the office, that’s considered “outside of office hours.”

If you don’t set guidelines and expectations, expect your communication to get out of control, with team members working at all times of the day leading to frustration or burnout.

Therefore, HR and communications leaders must provide working guidelines, and define “how we work.”  Don’t leave it up to your team members to figure it out. Strong company culture defines what is acceptable and clearly lays out expectations, so groups and teams know how and when they can work together and rely on each other.