Collaboration depends on solid communication. If your teams have difficulty communicating, you may find these methods helpful.
According to Brosix, 40% of employees worldwide feel a lack of communication and collaboration within their company. At the same time, 33% of the global workforce believe there is a lack of transparency in internal communications.
The McKinsey Report states that well-connected teams are 20-25% more productive.
Finally, a Grammar Report on the State of Business Communications found that poor communication costs U.S. businesses more than $1.2 billion a year (or $12,506 per employee).
Let that sink in for a moment. When a company fails to empower its employees to communicate and collaborate well, it can lose considerable profits. No business could survive such a loss for an extended period. And yet, companies don't pay as much attention as they should to their team's collaboration and communication.
In other words, if your teams aren't communicating successfully, your company is losing productivity and profitability.
But what can you do?
Firstly, we are talking about remote teams, which offer special challenges. You see, those teams that work internally are probably already communicating well. They also don't need to rely on special tools that allow them to communicate. Teammates can simply go to each other's offices and discuss. However, remote teams present a different set of challenges that you must overcome.
Let's dive in and see what you can do to improve communication between your remote teams.
Time zones can be problematic
One of the first things you should consider is that your remote teams may not all be in the same time zone. How do you manage remote teams across time zones? In the United States alone, there are six different time zones. In South America, there are five different time zones. Worldwide, there are a total of 24 different time zones, so the likelihood of your remote teams not being in the same time zone as you is very high.
You need to keep this in mind when scheduling meetings and other events. Think of it this way: you might have a manager in one time zone and three different remote teams in another. If your manager decides to call a meeting and schedule it at a time that is convenient for them, but may result in remote teams having to meet late at night, those teams will not be happy.
This is a situation where the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. The coach should be the one who should be bothered, not the teams. Otherwise, these teams will be unhappy (at best).
Don't require remote teams to attend internal meetings
Some companies require remote teams to attend internal meetings. Sure, these companies can afford the travel expenses, but the truth is that the hassle of traveling to the office for a meeting that could have been handled via email can be very frustrating.
When you are faced with the need to hold an internal meeting, set it up so that remote teams can participate remotely. After all, that's what services like Zoom are for. Even though this meeting is annual and offers very important information (and learning experiences), forcing these remote teams to attend in person can be a struggle for some.
By the way…
If this meeting can be an email
Ask your team if they would rather read a long email than sit in a meeting. You'll find that the vast majority of your team will say they prefer to read email.
This happens more often than you're probably willing to admit. In many cases, a team meeting is not an opportunity for collaboration, but an opportunity for a manager or senior member to monologue about things of little relevance. This information could have been disseminated via email rather than holding employees hostage in a meeting room (or on Zoom). Focus on efficiency. There are many practices for managing distributed IT teams, and timely and concise communication is key to keeping it simple and straightforward.
Offer a virtual water cooler
Water cooler chat has been around for decades and serves as a way for professionals to talk about non-work related topics. People might want to talk about their favorite football club, politics, games, pets or any random topic.
This brings your team members together with a camaraderie they don't get in standard meetings. The problem is, colder chats aren't exactly possible for remote teams unless you give them the resources to host them.
You can use Slack for team communication. If so, create an open Water Cooler channel for your remote teams to chat about whatever topics they see fit. Of course, you may need to monitor these water coolers to help prevent bullying or discussion of topics that may be considered sensitive by some.
Set ground rules for these Water Cooler virtual channels and make sure you enforce them. But know that this space will greatly contribute to fostering team spirit and collaboration.
You can even host regular trivia contests on these channels and give away prizes. There's no limit to what a virtual water cooler can do for your team's camaraderie.
Invest in the necessary tools
You may feel that remote teams are not a viable channel to spend precious budget dollars. However, if you want these teams to communicate and collaborate successfully, you're going to have to spend the money.
This means investing in software and/or hardware to improve team communication. You may need to pay for Slack or some other cloud-based communication/collaboration tool.
If your company simply doesn't have the financial budget, you can always opt for an open source solution, like Rocket.chat. Note, however, that with these solutions, you will have to invest time from your administrators or IT department to not only deploy them but also keep them running smoothly.
Encourage personal connections
One of the best things you can do is encourage your remote teams to foster personal connections with other members. When friendships begin to develop between team members, these employees will be much more willing to go the extra distance to communicate and collaborate with each other.
This will also encourage more fun during meetings. Laughter is a great way to bring employees together. As these team members develop personal connections, meetings will become more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Conclusion
Improving communication with your remote teams will not only benefit collaboration, but it will also go a long way toward benefiting your company as a whole. The good news is that increasing communication between remote teams isn't as challenging as you probably think. Even better, you probably already have all the tools you need to do this. In the end, it will just take a little more time and effort to make this a reality.
