Wellbeing of Remote Teams

This is a collection of resources for supporting the work of remote delivery teams, in order for lab teams to do their best work.

Flexible working arrangements have become standard practice around the world. Now, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, more people than ever are working remotely with their teams and organizations if their workplaces allow for it. Some organizations have long been working remotely, and others have been forced to adapt their work-from-home practices virtually overnight. Reos Partners is an organization whose diverse, distributed teams work together on tough, complex and unpredictable challenges. They have a lot to teach us about boosting the resilience of remote delivery teams, something they intentionally take the time to do, with great results. Here, they have shared with us some of their expertise:

Team resiliency and team remote health support is something that is possible in a remote team.

The importance of tending to our relationships (and staying in relationship) should be front and centre. The more that a team is working well, the better that the people on that team will be able to support each other and show up well in their work. We need to focus on how we can support each other, so we can collectively increase our team resiliency not just now but also later.

Here are some team health and team resilience protocols that Reos Partners uses in their work, to foster resilience of remote teams:

• Allow time for using a check-in as a tool for 'co-sensing': This is a simple, effective exercise for beginning (or ending) meetings with a small group of people, where each person in turn answers a check-in question. It enables people to be present with one another and remind them of their commitment to their intention.

• Much like a check-in, it is important to also take the time to check out with one another at the end of an engagement. The Plus/Delta exercise is a good way to frame questions, where plus relates to asking: what is going well? And delta is about identifying potential change: what do we need to improve, or work on?

• Engage your team in a weekly call which engage specific ways to connect with one another.

• When unexpected situations arise (such as COVID-19), assess what your team needs; and you may take actions such as conducting a daily stand-up meeting so people can quickly share what they need and how they can be supported.

• Be intentional about taking the time for building the container for a safer space, with your team and also in workshops and with clients. This means making space to allow people to connect with one another where vulnerability is welcome.

• Every project lead has the responsibility of taking care of team health (the responsibilities are distributed if there’s a breakdown). This expertise is developed in every individual so that the resiliency is in the whole organization.