A lot of people have willingly and easily jumped into an online environment for work, school, and social interactions. They’ve begun to get a taste of what others who had focused on a flex work arrangement and done a lot of online meetings and team participation have had to endure for a long time. And millions of people have discovered that there are plusses to the ways that we can use technology for our teams. But there are also drawbacks, and fostering an efficient, effective sense of communication and collaboration is one of the hardest.
One of the biggest reasons it’s hard is that doing life over a screen is incredibly difficult. Many people spend hours with work or school online, and then spend a good portion of their free time online too. That leads to lack of motivation and participation. One way, of course, to remedy that is to do a digital detox and to focus on how you can take small steps to reduce your time spent online. That may mean moving some of your free time hours to a non-device time. Or it may mean changing your notifications, so you don’t respond to every little message.
However, right now, that’s not really possible in the work environment. And while many people have benefited from the use of technology at work, many are challenged by those teamwork and productivity issues. A lot of people are balancing more than ever while at home, and that might mean that it’s not as easy for them to tune into team meetings and foster that needed collaboration. That leads to unintended disconnection. So what can team members, bosses, and others do to help their employees work around this, and what can you do in order to help yourself? This graphic offers some ideas.
