{"id":4399,"date":"2019-07-24T15:55:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T22:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knowyourteam.com\/blog\/?p=4399"},"modified":"2025-02-13T20:11:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T04:11:50","slug":"how-to-build-social-connection-in-a-remote-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2019\/07\/24\/how-to-build-social-connection-in-a-remote-team\/","title":{"rendered":"How to build social connections on a remote team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Virtual team building is tough. Here are 7 ways you can build social connections on a remote team<\/a>, even from afar. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Social<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be shocked if you\u2019re shocked: Building social connections<\/a> on a remote team is the hardest part of managing a remote team. According to a survey we ran this past fall with 297 remote managers and employees, \u201cfostering a sense of connection without a shared location\u201d was seen as the #1 most difficult part of being a remote manager<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200aand the #1 most difficult part of working remotely, in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s predictable. When you work in a co-located office, you walk by someone\u2019s desk and give them a friendly hello, catching up about their weekend. You notice a coworker\u2019s body language appears a little \u201cdown\u201d so you ask if they want to grab coffee later. You share a joke over lunch with another colleague when you realize you both oddly adore the same brand of obscure New Zealand mints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those serendipitous moments of social connection don\u2019t happen with the same frequency or fidelity when you\u2019re working remotely. As a result, the sentiments of \u201cAh, we\u2019re in this together\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019ve got my back\u201d can be absent on a remote team unless you deliberately foster them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholars have described these sentiments as helpful for building \u201caffective trust\u201d<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200aa form of trust based on emotional bond and interpersonal relatedness. It varies from the \u201ccognitive trust\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200awhich springs from reliability and competence. Both are influential to performance, but affective trust tends to be more salient for a team at the beginning<\/em> of a relationship, according to studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other studies show how detrimental the lack of social connection in the workplace can be. In a 2018 State of Remote Work<\/a> survey conducted by Buffer, they found that loneliness was the biggest downside for 21% of remote employees, and one of the reasons that made them more likely to quit. Furthermore, in a separate survey with over 2,000 managers<\/a>, 60% of respondents said they would be more inclined to stay if they had more friends at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data doesn\u2019t stop there: Another study<\/a> revealed that individuals who had 15 minutes to socialize with colleagues had a 20% increase in performance over their peers who didn\u2019t. Not to mention, there\u2019s extensive research<\/a> that exists on the positive impact that social relationships have on life expectancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, how do you build social connections<\/a> on a remote team? I pulled insights from our survey data, as well as from our online leadership community in Canopy, with over 1,000 managers from all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From it all, here are the most commonly cited\u200a\u2014\u200aand reportedly most effective ways\u200a\u2014\u200athat remote teams stay connected:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ditch dull icebreakers<\/a> for dynamic ones<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How many times have you been asked, \u201cHow was your weekend?\u201d or \u201cDo you have any hobbies?\u201d Shrug. Too many times. The questions feel tired, so the answers are tired. Rather, if your icebreaker questions are intriguing<\/a>, cheeky, humorous\u200a\u2014\u200athe answers you receive will be, too. One of my favorite icebreaker questions is, \u201cWhat\u2019s the one song you can\u2019t stand right now?\u201d We recently asked that here at Know Your Team, and the answers were nothing short of hilarious. Looking for more icebreaker question ideas? Check out the 25 specific best icebreaker questions to ask<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many remote teams<\/a> will kick off their weekly meeting with an icebreaker question or insert it during their morning stand-up meeting<\/a>. Even more popular is asking a series of icebreaker questions during the onboarding process when hiring someone new (you can read more about onboarding in remote teams below). In fact, in Canopy we have a fun Icebreakers feature<\/a> precisely for this purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over-emphasize onboarding<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With effective trust being so important to foster at the beginning<\/em> of a relationship, onboarding<\/a> new hires well becomes even more critical for virtual team building. This is underscored by our survey results from last fall: We found that 69% of remote managers<\/a> and employees who responded said they have a formal onboarding process at their company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wade Foster<\/a>, CEO of Zapier<\/a>, a remote company with 200+ people, has a specific onboarding process that\u2019s often partially in-person. He explains: \u201cAirBnOnboarding, which when we hire folks within the first month, we actually do like to have them spend a week in person out here in the Bay Area. So we\u2019ll rent an Airbnb, we\u2019ll bring their manager out here, them out here and then spend a week working alongside them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other companies follow a similar model of a \u201cbuddy system\u201d for onboarding (you can read specifically more about buddy systems in remote companies below). At Help Scout<\/a>, a remote company with ~80 people, they give each new hire what they call a \u201cwork best friend\u201d (they have a fantastic write-up on their entire onboarding process here<\/a>). At Automattic<\/a>, a remote company with ~1,000 people, they \u201cdo a mix of self-guided training and buddy feedback,\u201d as explained by Valentina Th\u00f6rner, Happiness Team Lead at Automattic. Valentina shared with our other 1,000+ managers in our online community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cEach new hire is added to a mega-check list that will guide their work during the next 12 weeks. The list includes tasks for the new hire (e.g. \u201cfinish the course on debugging shipping extensions\u201d), for the lead (e.g. \u201ccheck access to scheduler tool, Zendesk, etc etc\u201d) and for the buddy (e.g. \u201ccheck in with new hire about xyz\u201d). We constantly refine and add to the check-list. It\u2019s easier to just check off a \u201cno-brainer\u201d task then to realize that every other hire\/lead did NOT think that was a no-brainer and forgot about it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Build a buddy system<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As discussed, many remote companies offer buddy systems for onboarding\u200a\u2014\u200abut they also implement them as a fun way for every to interact socially and get to know each other better. In fact, in our survey, we found that 51% of remote managers<\/a> and employees reported having a mentor mentorship program or buddy system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can take the form of assigning someone an official \u201cmentor\u201d, with whom they have one-on-one meetings once a week or bi-weekly to ask questions and get acclimated to the company. It could also include randomly pairing 2\u20133 people every week to have a fun video chat over something non-work related. Either way, carving out and designating a specific relationship that\u2019s shared between people is a way to be purposeful about encouraging social connections on a remote team- rather than merely hoping that an informal connection will form on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, mentorship within a company not only benefits the mentee. A 2013 study<\/a> found people who have the opportunity to serve as mentors experience greater job satisfaction and a higher commitment to their employer. The benefits of having a buddy extend both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set scheduled video chats<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you can\u2019t talk to folks face-to-face, the closest thing you can get to is to chat over video. It may seem unnatural at first, but as one survey respondent remarked: \u201cGet comfortable with the awkwardness of video calls, and have them often.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help Scout organizes 15\u201330-minute coffee breaks over video between randomly assigned team members called Fikas<\/a>. At Litmus<\/a>, week to week, they get \u201cCoworker Coffees\u201d over video, drink beers on Skype, and play video games online. Other companies, as discussed in our community, will hold book club discussions or have specific topics or themes about video chats, such as food, music, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, when video is used for social connection on a remote team it should feel more and more like second nature. The most common frequency for video chats, according to our survey, was several times a week (32% of respondents).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carve out a dedicated non-work chat channel<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a remote team, you likely already have some sort of non-work-related chat channel. Many Watercooler members who work remotely remarked on its importance. Whether it\u2019s a #cats channel in Slack or a place to say \u201cgood morning\u201d to everyone once you hop online, it\u2019s essential for recreating the \u201cwatercooler chat<\/a>\u201d that you might have in an in-person office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most remote managers<\/a> and employees in our survey shared that this kind of synchronous chat was their primary mode of communication (45% of respondents said this). Given this, a non-work related chat channel should fit well already into your existing workflow as a remote team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invest in company retreats\u200a\u2014\u200aand do \u2019em right<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, when it comes to social connection, nothing beats meeting in-person, face to face. According to our survey, we found that the most common frequency of meeting in-person was \u201cseveral times a year\u201d (25% said this) and that they spend on average $1,001\u200a\u2014\u200a$5,000 per employee (29% of respondents said this) to accomplish this. This can take several forms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n