How to have crucial conversations with your employees when working remotely

Almost a year ago to the day, eCommerce leader Shopify announced they were making the move to be digital by default. With their offices closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shopify started to make plans to close most of their offices in 2021 – making the move to remote work permanent for their more than 5,000 employees. 

It was a big move.

Over the last year, we’ve seen more and more companies adopt similar digital by default and hybrid workplace plans as their employees have adjusted to not being in the office every day. One of the questions we’ve been hearing from leaders is how to keep dialog open and create alignment in their companies when not everyone is in the same space.

Our friends at the Communitech Academy offer a program called Crucial Conversations designed to help leaders with that question. The program is open to Communitech members only, but we were lucky to be able to sit down with facilitator Jennifer Porritt, CHRL, CTDP, to learn more about how leaders can make sure these types of conversations happen no matter where your team has their laptops.

Thanks for making time for us! In addition to the programs you facilitate for the Communitech Academy, can you tell us a little about what your consulting work focuses on?

I focus on developing emotional, intelligent leadership. The bulk of my work is around working with the Brené Brown Dare to Lead program, using assessment tools around emotional intelligence to dig into what helps people tick, what keeps them building their self-awareness to create connection and maintain meaningful connection – especially during these difficult times.

So what makes a conversation crucial? Are we talking about performance reviews or team issues?

When we talk about the idea of a crucial conversation, there are three elements that we consider to make a conversation crucial. The first one is opposing opinions. So I have an opinion about something, or I have a perspective on something, you hold a different perspective on the same issue. The second piece is strong emotions. If I’m feeling some passion around the idea or I’m invested in it emotionally, then that’s part of the secret sauce around the crucial conversation. The third piece is high stakes. We’ve got something on the table that’s really important to the both of us. There’s a meaning behind it for me personally and for you personally. Or it could be a high stake business issue, too. 

When you’re talking about opposing ideas, that’s one we’d imagine people have a hard time with since body language is so difficult to read over video calls. Do you find that your clients say these conversations have become more difficult?

Well, we certainly do rely on having these conversations through Slack. I think a lot of it is because we’ve become so transactional in our working styles now. We’ve really lost connection with more of that organic water-cooler kind of chat that perhaps might have diffused an issue before it became an issue. I think just the lack of ability of people to be able to have those casual connections and collisions has really meant that we fall into these behaviours where we get emotional about something, we get hooked about something. And we get almost too scared to have the conversation. Then when we’re sitting at home, and we’re not connecting with someone in person, the barriers are even greater.

The way you’re describing it, it almost sounds like what happens on social media. The lack of in-person conversations creates those opportunities for things to be misinterpreted.

Right. If you’re sitting at home, it’s easy to make up stories about what’s going on for the other person. It creates that kind of container where the emotions become even stronger. You know, it’s hard to even casually say to somebody – hey, can you and I have a conversation and engage with each other? It’s hard to do that even working remotely now. 

Do you find having these conversations is more difficult for emerging leaders?

That’s one of the big challenges. You have people who are just learning to develop those skills. Then it’s like, oh, I don’t know if I should interrupt this person, I don’t know if now is a good time to have the conversation. There’s a lot of barriers that are either in our own minds or just even through technology, that perhaps keep us from engaging with each other before those conversations become crucial.

Are there any suggestions for leaders dealing with having these conversations remotely?

I kind of look at it more from a preventative lens. Make it a priority to connect with your people on a regular basis. Even if it’s for a half-hour, check-in, do it on video, put away all the distractions. Close down all your other windows and just really concentrate your time and focus on each person. It sounds like a lot to invest, but oftentimes, it’s the lack of having that regular connection with people that can create some of these issues – make them bigger for people. 

Have you seen any struggles with the move to remote over the last year where organizations or leaders have struggled with having these conversations?

It’s interesting that you asked that question. I was just at a webinar where Wiley Publishing presented on building teams. They’ve done some research in the last few months, and it suggests that 50% of respondents are concerned about working virtually, 35% are finding it hard to communicate and connect with colleagues, and 49% feel out of the loop of what’s happening in their own teams and organizations.

That’s a pretty big stat for that.

The other one is that seven out of ten are struggling to maintain a sense of camaraderie with their teammates.

We talk a lot about building camaraderie through the recognition of employee milestones like birthdays and anniversaries. One of the goals is for people to share that on their internal comms, whether it’s Slack or Teams, to build up that sense of camaraderie. Do you think we’re losing something in the translation from in-office to remote?

Yes, the implications of that are that work becomes less personal. We talked about the loss of that sort of organic or frequent, impersonal interaction, which then contributes to loss of cohesion. I think we're all learning a lot about empathy right now. I feel like I'm constantly tapping into my calm and my sense of common humanity. We are all in this together in different ways and we experience it differently. 

You can learn more about the Communitech Academy Crucial Conversations program on their website. We’d love to show you how recognition can help you build a strong culture wherever your employees are working. Contact us today to learn more.