Kendall Koff is the Chief Executive Officer for RailPros.
To cover how we move forward, I need to start in the past. In March 2020, my executive team met virtually to develop a plan for moving our workforce 100% remote. The immediate goal was pausing in-office business for 15 days, at the government’s request, to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. We developed a plan and companywide communications, confident that our workforce could make the temporary shift to working remotely.
Even then, our team believed the timeframe would extend and this event would provide an opportunity to learn what’s required to be successful, what challenges are present and what barriers need to be overcome in a rapidly changing, remote-work environment. That said, none of us believed the encouragement to work remotely would continue for more than eight months.
The American business community and its workers adapted to remote work with varying degrees of success. The knowledge accumulated across a broad spectrum of businesses provided volumes of material on processes, tools, scheduling, training and oversight. While these and other items are important, my focus here is the critical and changing flow of communications when managing remote workforces.
Remote communication must be intentional.
It’s not possible in a remote environment to replicate the ease with which conversations occur in the break room, over a cup of coffee, on an elevator ride or in the hallway between meetings. An in-office experience allows what we call “accidental communications.” It’s the communications that are exchanged simply because we’re in close proximity to one another. Many of these are business-focused, but a corresponding high percentage are also social. Combining the two provides a powerful force that binds people together in a common purpose and organically forms teams, social circles and subcultures within the business.
Adapting accidental communication into a virtual/remote environment is something my team and I recognized as critical in the pandemic’s early days. Our success in the first 15 days, and for several months beyond, gave us comfort that we’d transitioned well into the remote work environment. Looking deeper, as we’ve continued to allow a significant portion of our workforce to remain remote, we’ve gained a clear understanding that the communication strategy for remote workers needs to be deliberately different from that used for an in-office team.
The focus on communicating with remote workers doesn’t require scrapping current tools, but you should examine the tools you’re using to ensure they’re effective. Here are the strategies my team uses and the enhancements we’ve initiated, along with how others can do the same:
• Employee onboarding: Ensure your onboarding process for remote workers builds a foundation for understanding the company profile, culture and vision. This enhances culture and helps all team members stay connected and engaged.
• Monthly newsletter: Distribute a newsletter to employees to share relevant company information. We also highlight new employees and life events sections.
• Townhall: We use these meetings to broadcast virtually and provide team updates on key company performance, big projects and initiatives. You can also give specific focus to individual, team and project successes.
• Annual employee reviews: These should reinforce your values and encourage alignment and personal success. We’ve added easy, engaging ways to promote feedback through this shared portal and related surveys.
• Social media: Leveraging social media can strengthen your team and brand. We intentionally share individuals and teams to promote our company as an excellent place to work.
• Leadership meetings: We’ve increased in-person leadership meetings and worked on democratizing decision-making and strategy planning in a team setting.
• New employee welcome call: Conduct monthly outreach to all new hires from the CEO, chief people officer and chief safety officer.
• Special project communications: Set the expectation that a new initiative or change must have a direct, timely communication plan provided to the team or affected stakeholders.
• Team leaders: Discuss with leaders their personal communication strategy and commitment to their staff. The goal is to ensure a healthy communication cadence and understanding of how ad hoc communication occurs for new issues, initiatives and projects.
• CEO roundtable: This group formed in my company as another channel of communication with leaders who help problem solve. If you form a similar group, use it to specifically address communication tools and support information-sharing across the company.
These tools and modifications have helped create a more vibrant communication network in my company. We’ve made reasonable progress, but we’re in no way prepared to declare full victory. There’s still significant work to do, for us as with many companies. What our experiences have taught me is we need to improve the use of these tools—regardless of our shift to remote workers—and look for additional channels to enable effectiveness in a remote environment.
All leaders are responsible for clear communication.
My biggest takeaway is the need for a highly engaged workforce that is mutually committed to communication. The responsibility for a well-informed workforce cannot rest solely with corporate headquarters or the corporate communications officer. Every leader and person of influence in an organization must have a communication strategy that’s both personal and effective. Leaders in remote teams must clearly communicate so no one feels orphaned by a lack of communication.
My key takeaways for enhancing remote communication are:
1. Develop a written communication strategy.
2. Identify each channel your organization currently uses.
3. Examine each channel for effectiveness. Modify as needed.
4. Commission a cross-functional team of people to review communications across the company. Set a specific team goal; examine and take feedback on each communication channel; ask for recommendations for improvements and suggestions for any new channels; and develop outlines and strategies for field leaders to communicate effectively and to create an echo that builds on companywide communication.
5. Measure, act on what you learn and modify the plan.
6. Set a reoccurring time to review your strategy.
I’m convinced that focusing on communication today can pay dividends to the business in terms of employee engagement, retention and even recruiting. My hope is that sharing a few of my thoughts on this area may be an encouragement to you as you consider communications within your own company.
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