The rapid transition to remote working almost 12 months ago meant that not only were people grappling with new routines and working environments, but also with their understanding of what it means to be connected.

For the first time, many individuals and organisations adapted a fully remote strategy, which led to a mix of emotions such as feeling disconnected from colleagues, exhaustion from working longer hours, and feeling overwhelmed with the level of hyper-communication that many managers felt was necessary.

The hyper-communication approach was adapted by many, and resulted in lots of ‘quick’ 60min Zoom calls to discuss a point that could have been covered in an effectively written email. The key learning point here is that, to make sure that your team feel connected, it doesn’t require communicating more, but it does require communicating better.

A way in which a leader can communicate better is by moving from the ‘regular quick check-in’ model to scheduling in ‘deeper check-ins’, to really understand what is happening in the world of the people around them. It’s key to recognise the importance of looking inwardly, if you are finding it difficult to find balance as a result of the need to spend more time online, then there is a strong possibility that those around you are feeling the same.

Burnout from hyper-connection is a real concern right now. The ‘always on’ culture that many feel they need to adhere to by spending more time connected online, has left many people feeling disconnected. Zoom fatigue is a real concept and it is here to stay, which means people will need to implement strategies that will help to set themselves up for success online. This will also require managers and leaders to be more attentive than ever to the pulse of their teams, and one way in which they can do it is via the deep-dive performance diagnostics provided by digitalwellbeing.ie.

A comprehensive diagnostic of individual and team performance is a crucial element of understanding how things currently are and how things are likely to be, and should form part of every leader’s strategy in order to equip themselves and their teams with the tools to perform. For more information regarding our range of diagnostics, contact us on info@digitalwellbeing.ie.

In summary, going forward, in order to become more connected, we will need to spend more time disconnected.