If people in your team are not reaching out to one another, you need to help them. Promote communication because otherwise it will have to be channelled through team managers. That means extra work for team leaders, which is something you might not want.
Work gets done? But that is not enough
When members of a team are working at the same workplace, social interaction should not be ignored. People will overhear conversations and see what others have on their desks, be it pictures or papers. This can even prove overwhelming: for instance, it can be hard just remembering people's birthdays if there are so many of them. However, social interaction is somehow easy if you sit together in one office.
If the setting is different, such as when a team works remotely, there may be only a few chances for random interactions. Especially if your colleagues are working in different time zones and use different languages, they can feel isolated. Then creating even the smallest social interaction may be challenging. This reminder comes from an article on the management-issues.com website.
Reconnecting your team
What can you do to promote social interactions and foster relationships?
- Make it easy for others to get to know their colleagues. Firstly, ensure that everyone knows what others look like. Share pictures of team members on a platform.
- Use social media or any kind of platform to post brief bios or profiles of colleagues. One of the benefits of this is that others will know where to find quick answers or help with certain tasks.
- Devote some time at the beginning of meetings to conversation. Share information about other people with the team – of course provided it is not private or sensitive. Don’t kill off any interaction as soon as it begins: on the contrary, try to encourage it.
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