Care and support for remote teammates

Connection is a key human experience, and though we all have different tolerances for the amount of connections which bring us pleasure, an absence of connection is a kind of torture.

Our colleagues are struggling with heavy workloads, job insecurity, background health concerns, family challenges and restrictions on getting the space and help they might need. The current situation means that all of us are further from shore than we are used to being, and some of us are not waving but drowning.

The news stories are now beginning to reveal the highlights of a growing crisis through lockdown. Parents and children struggling to cope with homeschooling, the collision of home and workplace (and the blurred boundaries this causes), job insecurity, fear of sickness (and fear of getting help for non COVID sickness), lack of hope in the future, lack of light at the end of the tunnel, persistent low mood, and absent joy in home or work life.

This ennui affects both extroverts and introverts alike. Zoom calls don't replace an office yet they are simultaneously intrusive enough and not human enough to cause stress to everyone. Our bosses, customers, clients and teammates can now criticise us in our own homes, our safe spaces are no longer safe.

These small misfortunes are difficult for everyone, but they can be experienced as a singular and impossibly giant misfortune for colleagues whose home lives are difficult. Lack of childcare, not enough space to think, sick relatives, money or job insecurities are events that could once have been relieved (if only momentarily) by a visit to the office and a coffee with a friend. Now, these are problems which are inescapable.

Zoom calls are not personal enough places for some of us to share these problems. Tea and sympathy is not easily replicated digitally. We cannot put our arms around each other in times of serious need via a screen, our inability to read micro gestures means we can't always sense how deep that need is via a lagging video call.

The struggles are real. Increased reporting of lower mood, depression, hopelessness and even suicidal ideation have surfaced. The World Health Organisation estimates a 25% increase in anxiety and depression in the first year of the pandemic.

These friends and colleagues are struggling to cope and often not comfortable explaining this struggle to their managers, teams or even traditional HR departments for fear of stigma or of impacting their performance appraisals. Traditional Wellbeing and team building events are not always possible, so how do we put together the kind of care and support for others we'd like to receive ourselves?

Three little words

"Can I help?" can be the most powerful three word phrase there is (right up there with the other big one!) “Can I help?” means taking a proactive interest in a teammate's wellbeing, using spare capacity we may have to move the needle a little for them. “Can I help” means doing more than letting the "it's all pretty hectic at home too" comment from a coworker pass as a joke without pausing to question whether it really is a joke. Listening for little inconsistencies, checking in to just chat, offering time and a moment away from hectic schedules might be all the help that's needed, but genuinely offering to help is a way to give hope.

A philosophy of little things

Sometimes we just need a conversation and a reminder that someone is looking in on us. Other times the problem is to do with systemic issues that can be related to trying to get work done in old ways that are less than fit for purpose now. Adopting a philosophy of "what is the smallest change I can make" brings a continuous improvement approach to both the work and to our team's wellbeing.

This "next smallest thing" idea can work wonders in smaller, dynamic organisations where incremental improvements can lead to properly considered initiatives which deliver real value to staff. But this process is small enough to be impactful in large, slow moving organisations too - the size of the request or change is small enough to attract minimum bureaucracy but still delivers considerable benefit.

The impact of the "smallest thing" approach is far from small. If your business can widely adopt a philosophy of smallest things it can become a machine for continuous improvement which requires very little oversight, gets widespread adoption and which can create real change. Staff feel empowered to make a difference to their colleagues and work environment and sense that the wider business is pulling together to bring everyone up. Raising morale, improving working conditions and delivering greater client satisfaction and productivity. These are not small changes.

Compassion

Resilience is the newest high-level behaviour expectation for modern distributed workplaces. Coaching and training seminars exist on how to be more resilient, how to cope with the myriad extra responsibilities we all have now that our work and life are more blended than ever. Resilience is vital, training in it is appropriate and useful (it's a skill after all, rather than a predisposition). Here's the thing, the resilience term is often misused. Staff with difficult managers are frequently asked to be more resilient instead of the business addressing the actual issues of eg bullying, unrealistic schedules etc.

For me the idea of compassion is at least as vital as resilience. Compassion means exercising our empathetic muscles and understanding the difficulties of others then acknowledging the contributions they continue to make despite these struggles. It means going further to offer support, smallest changes, offers of help or just listening. Importantly it means doing these things especially when we are ourselves too busy to do them. If we are struggling then others may be struggling more and even if they are struggling yes, the acts of compassion generate positive outcomes for belonging, team culture, effectiveness, harmony and yes, even resilience.

Connection

Find opportunities for staff to connect along immediate project teams and reporting lines. Connection is a key human experience, and though we all have different tolerances for the amount of connections which bring us pleasure, an absence of connection is a kind of torture. Formal or informal social communities, events, or a water-cooler chat space in Slack are all basic attempts to allow (but not force) connection.

Better still, try building in deliberate socialising and fun time to the daily routine. This can be meeting time allocated to non-work chat, drop in coffee meetups (software can enable random pairings for this if there's an appetite to do it), shared exercise classes, or shared Zoom moments for the children of employees. These events serve a dual purpose - connecting employees socially and helping differentiate work and play.

Forward thinking companies are hiring Remote experience managers whose task is to help ensure remote working is smooth and snag free, but also to act as an ongoing onboarding buddy and associate for any issues (technical and emotional), helping bring staffers together and build better places to work. Therapists on staff, or in at least one case a non-denominational minister are further advances in making sure the team are well.

Proactivity

Much of the above requires a proactive approach to finding out who is hurting and reaching out to them to offer even small amounts of assistance. Proactive work is tiring and it takes time away from already busy people. An argument could easily be made that indulging people who are struggling right now exacerbates the problem by involving others who now also have less time to spend on important or critical business work. Perhaps the idea of developing such a high support policy feels like it might encourage excuses from others for routine poor performance ("I was just overwhelmed that day") and therefore make difficult performance confessions even more challenging?

Here's the counterpoint - what kind of company do you want to create? If profit at any cost is the goal then maybe taking time to care for and support staff through hard times can be avoided. You could always hire more people and just tell them to be tougher. It probably won't work though, and whilst it might lower costs in the short term your good people will see that you don't care and move to somewhere that does. The business will never become extraordinarily successful because your successful people won't stay. If the goal is to create a real legacy, to make profit and impact and to bring great people together under a common goal then caring for the fallen is vital, significant and rewarded tenfold. Now the business attracts great people naturally because this tribe is something special and the business becomes exponentially better.

Vulnerability

It is hard to even offer help because we find the act of offering itself hard to do. Doing so requires the giver to be almost as vulnerable as the recipient. Even bringing up the subject can be tricky - what if we're wrong and our colleague isn't struggling? What if we're right, but they don't feel able to open up to us and get help? What if they do open up to us, how do we handle that effectively. These problems are magnified for bosses (both admitting a problem and being able to openly connect to an employee who has one). Through asking we make ourselves vulnerable. But it is this vulnerability itself which helps us get to the truth. The "can I help?" message, given earnestly and repeated often displays or genuine intent. Vulnerability and awkwardness will pass, the message of support will last.

If you see it, sense it, feel it, or hear it: say it (tactfully)

As social creatures who became the dominant species on the planet through the ability to collaborate and follow a mission together, humans are extraordinarily sensitive to others feelings and intentions. This is difficult when meeting a new person for the very first time (which is why interviewing is so hard) but much easier with people we know. When you get a sense that something isn't quite right with Sam, then something isn't quite right with Sam. This is intuition you can trust. Sam might not be ready to share, they may not trust you or your intentions, or they may not yet be acknowledging the scope of their issue, but asking Sam is there anything I can help with is still the right thing to do.

We have all been in video calls with someone who looks burnt out, more tired than usual, is edgy or less conversational than usual. We ask if everything's okay and then accept the first answer "I'm fine, just a little tired/stressed/busy" as both the truth and the absolute maximum of the problem. We expect that if the person we're really struggling they would reach out to us, but likely they have someone at home to reach out to for that sort of thing anyway. We think this because it's better than the alternative, that this person is struggling as much as our intuition tells us, but no-one else is helping and so helping becomes our duty. People, even those in terrible pain, will rarely reach out to a work colleague voluntarily for help. Even people with no help outside of work won't do it. Better to toughen up and get over it than show weakness to a boss or colleague. What we all hope it's that someone notices and offers help in a way that makes us feel seen and appreciated and like there is value in us even at our worst. Not everyone gets this and if things get too far the consequences are devastating.

Damage

We can lose people all too easily. Losing people to mental illness, to burnout, to the pernicious effects of stress on the system. In the worst cases we can lose people entirely. Many of the contributing factors to these losses can be exacerbated by remote work. When we lose the personal connection, the light-hearted office moments, the proximity of friends and the morale-boost of teamwork. Some of us are lucky to have strong support networks outside of work, yet it is nearly impossible to find anyone who is thriving as we tick over a year in lockdown. Business effectiveness is an output of the energy and skill of hard working, smart, effective, and motivated employees - there is commercial interest in good employee care. More than that, the belonging of work and the socialisation of other skilled professionals mean that for many people the office colleagues are their tribe. Strong tribes take care of one another.

I wrote this to encourage others, and to remind myself, that proactive care, and reaching out require a certain proximity to ones own discomfort. But that doing so can deliver extraordinary outcomes to friends, colleagues and coworkers who might be in real need right now. The need might not be visible or obvious, but our support certainly should be.