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I&rsquo;ve run operations at Qatalog for two years now and have seen it grow from a few people huddled around a shared office space to over 35 people across 9 countries. In the midst of that growth, I&rsquo;ve had a lot of ideas about how to keep distributed and virtual teams connected and centered around a culture that supports them.&nbsp;
There are a few things that make distributed teams a complicated thing to connect. Firstly, depending on where your company is based &mdash; there are the timezones. It&rsquo;s always somebody&rsquo;s morning, which is lunchtime in another country, and early dinner somewhere else.&nbsp;
Secondly, providers. It&rsquo;s great to send a package home for the team to do an activity together. However, providers are different in different countries, and despite all the planning in the world,&nbsp; you never know if they will arrive on time (or at all!).
Thirdly, finding the balance of asynchronous and synchronous events. During lockdowns and almost all of 2020, we spent a lot of time online and in zoom calls. Zoom is great for seeing everyone on one screen. However, too much time on video calls can be exhausting.
I compare great employee programming with having happy customers. If you want to find out what works for them, you talk to them. You get to know what they expect and want out of company culture. Here are five ways to keep your virtual teams connected:
<h2>1. Adopt tools that enable transparent collaboration</h2>
Trust is difficult. We&rsquo;ve seen this again and again <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/what-is-work-really-like-today-leaders-and-employees-see-things-differently/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">through statistics</a> and differing sentiments between leaders and employees, remote and in-person employees, product and marketing teams, and so on.&nbsp;
Enabling your team to <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/what-is-a-work-hub/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">collaborate transparently</a> and have visibility into everyone&rsquo;s day-to-day can catalyze teamwork. If your team works well together and has all the tools that enable them to avoid siloes, they are much more likely to get along and enjoy working together.&nbsp;
Building belonging with a <a href="https://qatalog.com/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">work hub</a> empowers employees and enables them to thrive.&nbsp;
<h2>2. Develop team charters</h2>
Team charters are like a manual for how your team operates with your company&rsquo;s mission, goals, and values in mind.&nbsp;
In Qatalog&rsquo;s marketing team charter, the team spells out tenets that they work by, including &ldquo;inspire action&rdquo; and &ldquo;hop off the bandwagon.&rdquo;&nbsp;
You can begin your own team charter by looking at the roles of your team and specifying who is in charge of what workstream. Then you can zoom out on those workstreams and plan out how they can potentially impact team and company goals for the coming quarters or year.&nbsp;
For growing teams, it can be especially helpful to plan out how you see your team expanding in the future.&nbsp;
<h2>3. Plan regular team events</h2>
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/xz659DIMTIG7DotECTpm" alt="undefined" />
For me, the most important thing is to see people smiling, talking, and enjoying themselves. We&rsquo;ve done lots of different events: happy hours, master classes, game nights, team breakfast/lunch. Out of all those options, it&rsquo;s drawing games like Pictionary that are the crowd favorite. They always end up with people laughing and joking together, which is always good team building.
<h3>Ideas for virtual team events:</h3>
<ul>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Game time! <a href="http://wordrawapp.com/online_generator.html" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Pictionary</a> or other drawing games are always a hit, and we also love <a href="https://codenames.game/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Codenames</a>.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Happy hour. Happy hours are a great way to celebrate team milestones. You can also send <a href="https://www.shakerandspoon.com/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">cocktail kits</a> to your employees or have a <a href="https://www.cocktailcourier.com/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">specific recipe</a> for everyone to try making together.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Masterclasses. Does someone on your team have the perfect shakshuka recipe? Or someone who knows about origami? Host a masterclass for them to teach the team their expertise. Or, try an <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/s/experiences?af=&amp;c=.pi0.pk113255333253_481540564225_c_303480525523&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjwsZKJBhC0ARIsAJ96n3US5KyAV08eN7HFoKzwk7waGx1ACkZ1RMg_bGorAQffYL6LXjT3lbYaAvbEEALw_wcB" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Airbnb virtual experience</a>.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Coffee time. Setting up the <a href="https://slack.com/apps/A11MJ51SR-donut" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Donut app</a> in Slack is a great way for team members to get to know each other. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Team meals. Every two weeks we order food (or send Doordash gift cards) so the team can have breakfast, lunch, or dinner together &mdash; depending on the timezone!</li>
</ul>
</ul>
Even an hour-long gaming event requires planning ahead. Outside of scheduling so the majority can attend, you want to think about event frequency to ensure you aren&rsquo;t being too repetitive.&nbsp;
For the times we&rsquo;ve ordered cocktails for the team to engage in a happy hour, shipment takes about two weeks. For things like this, beginning an events calendar and planning everything out at least a month in advance is a good cadence to get into when you&rsquo;re starting out.&nbsp;
You&rsquo;d also need to take into account that not everyone likes being in the limelight &mdash; some people may just want to join and listen in. And you&rsquo;d need to provide a possibility of meeting up in smaller groups where they may feel more comfortable. That&rsquo;s why set up Donut coffee meetups that give people the possibility to meet in a more relaxed setting without an agenda.&nbsp;
<h2>4. Set aside budget for moments of delight</h2>
Investing in small moments of delight for your team goes a long way. The team is the most valuable asset a company has. Having a team that is diverse, happy in their roles, has fun working, and knows each other &mdash; that's a great cocktail for success.&nbsp;
Having worked as an office manager for many years, I do feel 2020 introduced me to a totally new way of running an office. Sometimes I feel like I am working for a logistics company and my essential tools have become a scale, measuring tape, sending plastic envelopes, customs envelopes and documents, pen, and sellotape.&nbsp;
Every penny we&rsquo;ve spent on swag has been worth it. We recently ordered sweatshirts for the team and people have already started wearing them.&nbsp;
<h2>5. Prioritize team health and mental breaks</h2>
A healthy team is a happy team. If you have leadership that focuses on productivity above all else, it&rsquo;s likely your team will start to see and mirror that.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s important to offer your team benefits such as PTO and ample vacation time so they feel the freedom to take time off when needed. Vacation policies should be well documented and available, so employees can easily access this information. Additionally, mental health benefits have been increasingly popular for companies to offer employees. Here at Qatalog, we offer <a href="https://www.talkspace.com/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Talkspace</a> to every employee.&nbsp;
Thinking about team health should be a daily thing, not just mentioned every quarter as a reminder to take vacation time. Try taking walking meetings with your team to prioritize time outside and away from your desk, or other fun activities that put an emphasis on your team as human beings, not just worker bees.&nbsp;
<h2>Team building benefits everyone</h2>
The benefits of team building are visible almost immediately. Cultivating a healthy culture with your teammates improves communication, productivity, boosts morale, improves retention, and so on. So add that calendar invite, or simply start polling your team to see what virtual events they&rsquo;d be interested in participating in.

Virtual employee programming helps to connect your team and benefits everything from productivity to culture. Here are some of our tips.

5 ways to keep virtual teams connected | Qatalog blog

The tools, virtual events, budget, and practices your team needs to stay connected.

5 ways to keep virtual teams connected

I remember in the mid-2000s when I took a vacation from work, I emailed a project status to the team, set up my automatic responder, said goodbye, and that was it. That shout farewell was the last communication I had with my workplace for a week.&nbsp;
Now if you look at today&rsquo;s working world, vacation time has become something entirely different. That&rsquo;s coming from the lack of traveling in the past year, the proliferation of hybrid and remote work, increased benefits (like PTO), and the rise and fall of hustle culture to mass resignations.&nbsp;
Let&rsquo;s start with the obvious: our work and home lives have become blurred. So has our vacation and work time. We&rsquo;ve been on a permanent staycation, but now it&rsquo;s time to check out and check in to what time off looks like in a post-pandemic world.&nbsp;
<h2>Employees have a surplus of vacation time post-pandemic</h2>
In 2020, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/31/this-is-what-happens-to-all-those-vacation-days-that-never-got-used.html" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">92% of Americans canceled</a>, postponed, or didn&rsquo;t book a vacation due to the pandemic.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/uk50oYjYSIik8rpGqtLG" alt="undefined" />
So we had a lot of vacation days piling up. Some companies had policies in place to carry over underutilized vacation. Others, like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/business/economy/vacation-days.html" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Cond&eacute; Nast and Bank of America</a>, changed their use-it-or-lose-it vacation policies to accommodate employees and the inability to physically go on vacation.&nbsp;
Now that vaccination rates are on the rise, there seems to be a push to get workers to use those backlog of days and take needed vacation time. It looks as though this is especially true in the technology industry, where companies such as Google and Cloudera are finding ways to ensure their teams take time off (rest time = better productivity).&nbsp;
<h2>What vacation time looks like for the distributed worker</h2>
The future of business travel remains a looming question as countries reopen for travelers. We&rsquo;re sure to see a rise in post-pandemic vacations, with a newfound ability to balance work with leisure time thanks to <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/get-hybrid-in-order/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">remote and hybrid models</a>.
This can be both positive and negative. For one, the ability to take longer family vacations and balance work with play is an appealing one for many reasons: extra time with family and friends, better deals for more extended stays, you get the gist. However, that completely turned-off vacation mindset is necessary for recharging and reducing burnout.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.axios.com/covid-workcation-rise-pandemic-e4d50e83-2233-4fd8-90dc-03ee4a00e7ac.html" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">74% of Americans</a> who are working from home said they&rsquo;d consider taking a workcation &mdash; going on a vacation, but working while there. When a distributed worker goes on a workcation, there seems to be little difference between opening a laptop at a hotel desk versus at the kitchen table (side note: your editor is currently doing just that!).&nbsp;
Hotels are adding conveniences to attract these new workcationers. &ldquo;Work From Hyatt&rdquo; is one of such packages promoting staying plugged-in while enjoying a quasi-vacation. These offerings include WiFi, IT, and personal assistant teams &mdash; plus the known benefits of staying at a hotel. So when the workday has finished, you can leave your lounge/office chair for a dip in the pool.&nbsp;
The proliferation of workplace software, remote/hybrid working models, the pandemic, and our always-on-duty work culture has resulted in our ability to consistently balance work life with home life. These workcations are a continuation of that dynamic, but one that focuses on <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/becoming-a-world-class-knowledge-worker/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">benefits to the knowledge worker</a> rather than encroaching on home, family, and relaxation time that needs to happen for the average person to enjoy returning to work every day.&nbsp;
In its most flattering light, this balance is a win for knowledge workers because it presents the opportunity for us to take our work where we want. But it&rsquo;s also important to establish the difference between a workcation and a true vacation so your employer and coworkers know what to expect from your time off/away/still-online-but-from-a-new-location.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>What employers should expect moving forward</h2>
There is no longer a one-size-fits-all approach to vacation time. Employers will have to adapt their policies to meet the needs of their workforce. That may mean giving employees a nudge to log off and use their surplus days or a gentle reminder of the importance of a mental break to avoid burnout.
Here are some ways to encourage employees to take vacation time:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Bring back TGIF Summer Fridays usually entail taking the entire day off or leaving early on Fridays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The concept isn&rsquo;t new, but it is getting renewed consideration by companies this summer. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-06-06-more-than-half-of-organizations-are-offering--summer-" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">55%</a><a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-06-06-more-than-half-of-organizations-are-offering--summer-" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;of businesses</a> in North America offer Summer Fridays, which increase productivity, loyalty, and employee retention.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Start at the top Kristen Hayward, Head of People at email company Superhuman said, "<a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-companies-want-people-to-take-vacation-time-now-and-how-managers-are-encouraging-them-to-do-it/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">a company's actual vacation policy</a> is the everyday behavior that people see." Company culture impacts employees&rsquo; willingness to take a vacation. For example, a manager who checks in every hour from vacation may make team members feel they have to do the same. Encourage your executives to take an unplugged break and have them spread the word about it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Pay to play It may sound a bit absurd, but some companies are giving employees a vacation bonus as part of their benefits. Buffer, Evernote, and Veracode give employees $1,000 to use on their vacations. Buffer even adds an extra $500 for each family member. And it works. <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/get_employees_to_actually_take_vacation/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">80%</a> of Buffer&rsquo;s workers collected their bonuses compared to just 36% who took a vacation in the year prior.</li>
</ul>
The concept of &ldquo;fair&rdquo; vacation policies is nuanced for every organization, depending on your size, work culture, and existing policies. For <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/building-a-digital-office-in-a-hybrid-world/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">hybrid companies</a> with employees worldwide, there are also cultural differences surrounding vacation time and the importance of taking a break. Whether your vacation policy is flexible or fixed, you should be connecting with your employees to ensure they feel the policy is fair and enables them to take time off. After this last year, we all need it.&nbsp;

Employees have a surplus of vacation time post-pandemic. We discuss new "workcation" trends and how companies can encourage time off.

Navigating the new journey to vacation time | Qatalog

An unplugged vacation is more of a reality yet few are using their surplus time.

Navigating the new journey to vacation time

&ldquo;Out of sight out of mind&rdquo; is a phrase that entirely negates the benefits of remote work, yet we see it time and time again in arguments <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/building-a-cross-functional-hybrid-team/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">concerning hybrid and remote models</a>.&nbsp;
I think in the global shift to remote work, possibly the opposite was the case. On a personal level, I dove into my work because it was an activity that was available to me when everything else went into lockdown. As a collective, knowledge workers have proved just how well they can operate &ldquo;out of sight,&rdquo; with the U.S. workforce seeing a reported <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-22/yes-working-from-home-makes-you-more-productive-study-finds" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">5% increase in productivity</a>.
This trend proves something we&rsquo;ve known to be true for a while now &ndash; working in a traditional office setting is now the legacy model of work. For managers, this means embracing the cultural shift, trusting your team, and allowing employees to work during hours that make sense for them.&nbsp;
In other words, for a modern organization to thrive, its managers need to embrace employee autonomy at work.&nbsp;
<h2>Ditch strict supervision and rigid schedules</h2>
<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autonomy" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Autonomy,</a>&nbsp;by definition, refers to the ability to govern oneself. Autonomy in the workplace does not mean employees do whatever they want, all the time, with no supervision &ndash; it means trusting employees to meet their responsibilities in a way in which they&rsquo;re most productive.&nbsp;
Sure, this could mean you&rsquo;ll see they&rsquo;re away on Slack for a couple of hours on Monday morning, but it also means you might not see their active status while they are working later on Monday night &ndash; less tired, more focused, and producing higher quality deliverables for your company since they&rsquo;re alert and distraction-free.&nbsp;
In other words, you will see the results of employee autonomy in the work that they produce.&nbsp;
Empowering employees with autonomy boils down to one reality: if employees are getting their work done, it really doesn&rsquo;t matter when, how, or where they do it.&nbsp;
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/IV9w9tqfRz2kND7w3Yfg" alt="undefined" />
Employee monitoring or work from home monitoring softwares that track your employees&rsquo; minute-to-minute activities directly contradicts the trust remote organizations need to build into their culture.&nbsp;
Unfortunately, work is often associated with a rigidity that doesn&rsquo;t apply to the way many people do their jobs anymore, resulting in a rise of employee monitoring software. Not everyone needs to work 8-5, Monday-Friday (and they don&rsquo;t need to do so from the same office, either).&nbsp;
The solution? Don&rsquo;t rush to conclusions or worriedly message employees if their peak productivity hours don&rsquo;t fit into the traditional schedule. Simply let their work speak for itself. If there are clear patterns of slacking off or misalignment, that&rsquo;s the time to course-correct. However, as a manager, it&rsquo;s your job to set up your employees for success &ndash; and in 2021, that responsibility has been amended to include &ldquo;wherever they might be working from.&rdquo;
<h3>Autonomy and asynchronous work go hand in hand&nbsp;</h3>
Nearly <a href="https://hrexecutive.com/requiring-employees-to-return-to-the-office-get-ready-for-them-to-quit/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">three out of five workers</a> would consider quitting their jobs if it meant returning to the office full-time. However, 35% of employees still want to go to the office at least some of the time, which has only strengthened <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/15/eat-a-banana-get-off-twitter-how-to-be-more-productive-at-work" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">the new standard of asynchronous communication while working.</a>
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/Bx5Jx96PRNqzGrcCLjX2" alt="undefined" />
And keep in mind &ndash; successful businesses have been communicating asynchronously for more than a hundred years. At an international company with offices around the globe, employees have to rely on their peers and fellow teams located around the world to complete the tasks for which they&rsquo;re responsible to help the organization thrive.&nbsp;
Autonomous, asynchronous teams also display soft skills like discipline and accountability, and most of all, intrinsic motivation. Without the looming physical presence of their superiors, employees now operate with motivation from a place of passion and interest. These are all traits we ask our employees to possess, and in order to work asynchronously, they must display that sense of job autonomy.&nbsp;
<h3>Bringing trust into the picture</h3>
No organization can function without trust. Employees trust their company&rsquo;s leaders for a sense of purpose and direction. In turn, employees are trusted to hit their goals and bring a passionate, innovative approach to work. Organizations with high levels of trust provide <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-neuroscience-of-trust" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">3x the total return to shareholders</a> than those with low trust.&nbsp;
Autonomous teams might use a <a href="https://qatalog.com/projects/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">project tracker</a> and hold individuals accountable for updating their progress and providing resources for the team, for example.&nbsp;
<h3>Empower employees to take control</h3>
Your employees want to grow, and autonomy allows them to flex the muscles they need to do so. Autonomy helps employees master resourcefulness, time management, and goal setting for the projects they&rsquo;re most interested in. Granting them autonomy is giving them free rein to help the company grow in the way they best see fit &ndash; and in doing so, fuel their own professional growth.&nbsp;
To help empower employees in this way, consider adopting a <a href="https://qatalog.com/work-hub/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">work hub</a> that connects workers with the information and resources they need to operate autonomously. Features like the dynamic <a href="https://qatalog.com/directory/">directory</a> outline who&rsquo;s responsible for what, which allows an inquisitive worker to reach out, connect with team members, and run with an idea.
<h2>Using autonomy as a driver for employee engagement</h2>
Employees who have autonomy don&rsquo;t sit idly by as the workday progresses. Autonomous employees are self-driven and manager-resourced to work in a way that&rsquo;s best for everyone &ndash; and that&rsquo;s a huge boost for employee engagement. In fact, multiple studies show there&rsquo;s a clear connection between these two ideas.&nbsp;
<h3>Autonomy and job satisfaction research</h3>
One of the most noteworthy pieces of research on autonomy and job satisfaction was conducted at the University of Birmingham, which found that there is indeed <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424215501.htm" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">a connection between job satisfaction and workplace autonomy</a>. A Gallup poll focused on the same topic aimed to quantify how much job dissatisfaction stemming from a lack of autonomy can cost an organization, which ended up being as high as <a href="https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/162953/tackle-employees-stagnating-engagement.aspx" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">$550 billion in lost productivity annually</a>.&nbsp;
Now, these studies are a bit dated. But newer research backs up these findings as well. In a <a href="https://language.work/study/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Qatalog study</a> designed to understand what&rsquo;s driving burn-out, the problem was broken down into two levels: knowledge and trust. To build a track record that builds trust, teams need a reliable management structure to confirm the power of autonomy. This means teams need visibility into each other&rsquo;s productivity and results in addition to feeling valued enough to share ideas and feedback.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s clear that workplace autonomy is a data-backed way to increase worker productivity, happiness, and engagement. By providing employees with the resources they need to pursue their preferred working styles, you&rsquo;ll be increasing the likelihood of high-quality outputs, strong retention rates, and more productivity &ndash; all from the comfort of your home, beach, office, caf&eacute;, or wherever you&rsquo;ll thrive.&nbsp;

Employee autonomy is proven to lead to higher job satisfaction and employee retention rates – so, how can hybrid employees stay autonomous?

Autonomy is the key to employee engagement | Qatalog

Employee autonomy is proven to lead to higher job satisfaction and employee retention rates – so, how can an organization better empower its workforce?

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