![](https://digitaltreasure.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/premium_photo-1663957890185-c3766a2a8981.jpeg)
The opportunity to work remotely sounds like a dream to most of us. The convenience of working in your pajamas and avoiding the tiresome commute to the office is everything. You save time, eat better, get more rest, and see more of your family members every day. However, meeting deadlines and keeping in touch with your work team from the comfort of your home can be challenging.
Whether you’re working from home temporarily or on a more permanent basis, you cannot afford to compromise on productivity and coordination. How to stay connected with your colleagues and ensure you are on the same page? It’s easy to drift apart when you’re not seeing each other in person daily, but there are ways to prevent that.
Here’s how you can maintain healthy work relationships and stay connected with your colleagues while working from home:
Stay Connected with Coworkers while Working Remotely
- Sign up with a Reliable Internet Plan
- Show up at Virtual Meetings
- Make Small Talk
- Establish and Participate in Group Chats
- Share a Virtual Coffee Break
- Suggest Online Competitions or Challenges
- Post a Question of the Day
-
Sign up with a Reliable Internet Plan
A speedy and stable internet connection is imperative to effectively work from home and manage virtual meetings with colleagues. If you’re having connectivity issues, it will naturally become difficult to get work done and remain up-to-date on developments within group projects.
Working from home has been a breeze ever since I signed up for Xfinity’s “Fast” internet plan, which provides download speeds of up to 500Mbps and a generous data allowance of 1.2TB. If you’re unhappy with your current internet provider, contact Xfinity customer service and check for availability in your area today.
-
Show up at Virtual Meetings
If you’re always fashionably late at meetings, try being an early bird instead. If you spend the first 15-20 minutes of the meeting getting ready while your camera and mic are switched off, that’s not nice at all. Take your virtual meetings more seriously and show some respect to your colleagues for being there.
Keep your camera and mic on to feel and appear more involved. Make yourself presentable before the meeting and prepare your cup of coffee in time. Once the meeting starts, shift your focus to the matter being discussed and actively take part in conversations.
-
Make Small Talk
The conversations with your colleagues do not have to be about work all the time. Everyone has a life outside their 9-5, and learning about it is a good start to getting to know them on a personal level. If you’re early to an online meeting with a few other colleagues, initiate small talk instead of basking in the awkward silence.
If you don’t know much about your colleagues, you can always start the conversation with a work-related question and then shift to a casual universal topic such as the weather. If that sounds terrible, introduce a topic of interest and see where it goes. If any of your colleagues have a child or pet they have mentioned before, it’s a good idea to ask about them.
-
Establish and Participate in Group Chats
You might already have one or more work-related group chats on platforms like Slack and Skype to communicate with colleagues. If you have a group for casual conversations as well, try to post something there as often as you can.
For example, you can share work-appropriate jokes or memes for some friendly and lighthearted engagement. If there isn’t a group chat for talking about anything other than work, suggest creating one. You could also exchange social media handles with your colleagues to learn about their hobbies and keep in touch outside of work hours.
-
Share a Virtual Coffee Break
Chit-chat over coffee breaks is a norm in every workplace, and you can still have that while you work remotely. Pick a time for everyone to grab a cup of their favorite beverage and join in on a short video call. You can exchange the latest celebrity gossip, talk about your favorite Netflix shows, or touch on other topics of interest.
-
Suggest Online Competitions or Challenges
Collaborative activities are the key to bonding with colleagues and encouraging them to stay connected. Apart from generic work-related polls and surveys, it’s important to organize team-building activities that offer some form of recreation. Examples of activities that can be executed remotely include Holiday costume competitions, art-making contests, and story-writing challenges.
-
Post a Question of the Day
One great way to break the ice and urge everyone to share an important detail about themselves is to post a question of the day. This means you ask a random question every day and let people answer it as they please.
The question can be about their personality or interests, such as “What is your favorite dessert?” or “Who is your favorite superhero from the Marvel universe?”. You can also ask for opinions, such as “Share your thoughts on shifting to EVs to reduce global warming”.
Final Thoughts
Fostering a sense of camaraderie with colleagues results in enhanced teamwork and increased productivity. If any of your colleagues are having trouble staying in the loop, advise them to switch to a better internet provider like Xfinity and say goodbye to connectivity issues.