4 Tips to encourage Small Talk on Your Remote Team

 Thu 01 April 2021

4 Tips to encourage Small Talk on Your Remote Team

Small talk is something many of us miss about going into the office, and for good reason: It helps people feel emotionally connected and boosts collaboration and creativity. As a manager, how can you ensure your team has a healthy culture of small talk, no matter where employees are working from? Here are a few strategies.

 (1)    Encourage new social rituals. Build in time at the start of every meeting for members to greet one another, exchange pleasantries, and ask playful questions. You may even schedule recurring, virtual coffee hours where employees can just hang out and chat every week.
  (2)   Re-create “casual collisions.” Use virtual tools to facilitate internal networking events that pair up employees who don’t already know one another for real-time social interactions.
 (3)    Keep it light. No matter where small talk is happening in your virtual workplace, be sure to steer your team away from serious topics and gossip.
   (4)  Emphasize the upside. Small talk, especially over Zoom, may be uncomfortable for the introverts on your team. So it’s important that you publicly tout the benefits of informal social interactions to encourage those employees to take part.

This tip is adapted from “Remote Workers Need Small Talk, Too,” by Jessica R. Methot et al.