How To Foster A Team Identity
Jul 17, 2024
The world has changed over the last few years and so has the way we work, but what does that mean for our teams? What does this mean for leadership? I argue it means we need to look deeper into how we are adapting, and ask ourselves have we done enough? In our pre-pandemic world 30% of employees worked remotely, compared to post-pandemic and that number has jumped to 48% according to a survey by Gartner. That's almost half of our workforce working remotely!
Fostering a team identity is a crucial component in keeping employees engaged, especially when you work remotely.
Why is this important? Your team needs to know what their purpose is, what their goals are, and how this all fits into the organizations goals. If these things are unclear I guarantee you have unengaged employees.
70% of America's workers are not showing up to work with a commitment to deliver their best performance. Of those 70%, 52% are not engaged, and another 18% are actively disengaged (Gallup).
How do you start to create a team identity?
Develop Your Teams Purpose, Values, & Goals
First things first, why does your team exist? Sit down with your team and write down what your purpose is. Managers of virtual teams must ensure clarity of goals and gain member commitment. In order to do this you must align the team goals with organizational goals. Once you have the organizational goals you can start to create your purpose and how that aligns with the company. Spend time as a team sharing ideas about these topics. Creating visual depictions of the ideas can simultaneously foster visual thinking within the team.
Recognize Individual Expertise & Make Sure Your Team Knows Each Other
This one seems a little obvious to me but you would be surprised at how many teams are working remotely and don't know the people who make up their team. Part of creating a team identity is making sure the team knows each other. Team members need to learn about each others background and unique skills. In a remote environment the opportunity for these things to happen naturally are taken away so you need to be intentional about creating the opportunities for them to happen.
Answer the Questions, "How do we want to work together?"
Once you have defined your purpose, values, and goals and established the roles on your team it's time to define how you will work together. First, ask "who are we?", as a team figure out how your team will work best together. Everyone has different preferences for how they want to communicate and how often they want to meet as a team as well as one on one. Meet with each individual on your team and talk about these things and listen to their input.
Next, come up with a strategy for how your team will communicate. What should be communicated through email vs. Teams or any other collaboration tool. Create a digital notebook that is shared with everyone and store all the information there. This way your team members can refer back to it when needed.
Create A Sense of Belonging
Everyone wants to feel appreciated for the work they do and they want to know that their work has meaning. Make sure to show appreciation often, even for the little things and encourage your team members to do the same. Meet regularly and provide space to talk about anything but work.
I've literally been in meetings where the leader spoke for an entire 60 minutes straight! No matter what type of meeting you are in there should be space for discussion and questions. There should never be a scenario where one person is talking for an entire hour and if that is the case the your employees are not engaged and probably browsing the web.
It's really not that hard to create a sense of belonging but you do need to create the space for it. Ask how people are doing, schedule casual coffee chats, and remind your team of how important they are as people.
References
https://www.cooleaf.com/blog/4-ways-to-create-a-sense-of-belonging-with-a-remote-team
