Fostering belonging in remote teams

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In order to build a successful remote team, it is important to promote both belonging and empathy among each other. Three good principles are:

  1. Acknowledging each other
  2. Bringing people together
  3. Promoting inclusion

Ideas on how to foster belonging in teams:

  1. Not only work related channels in Slack
  2. Share and celebrate successes, interesting facts, but also decisions in writing or by video in Slack
  3. In video calls, insist everyone connects with their personal video
  4. Make an appointment for virtual 1-to-1 coffee
  5. Always have a virtual meeting room open to just say hello
  6. Arrange fixed times for virtual breaks and meet in the meeting room
  7. Arrange Virtual Lunch Dates
  8. Just as in real-life meetings, allow people to arrive in virtual meetings
  9. Yeah, I know, it’s hard:
  10. Just pick up the phone, call and chat a little bit.

And very important: Have fun!