Maintaining
Positive Relationships with Co-Workers While you Telecommute
Maintaining
positive working relationships with co-workers can be a challenge under the best
of circumstances. When you are a telecommuter, however, it can be even more
difficult. Here are some tips to
help you stay away from some common pitfalls.
Stay in touch:
Make sure that you stay in contact with your co-workers on an on-going
basis. Working from home can make
it easy to get caught up in the work while forgetting about work relationships.
You won’t be commiserating at the water cooler (which can actually be a
nice thing!) but you will still
need to stay connected. Make a point of contacting key co-workers once a week at
least. Begin the conversation with
a few minutes of chit chat – any topics that are comfortable – sports,
weather, family (if you’ve established this kind of personal relationship).
Once you’ve gotten caught up, then jump into the business at hand.
If you don’t have anything really pressing business-wise, at least
bring them up to speed on what you are working on and ask how their work- load
is. Offer assistance if appropriate.
The goal is to re-create that walking down the hall or riding in the
elevator banter that you would have if you worked in close proximity day to day.
Be a Team
Player:
Co-workers who are in the office day to day are probably working
collaboratively on projects on both a formal and an informal basis all the time.
It may be something as small as helping with a line of code on an Access
database, but they are helping each other out and are building relationships.
As a telecommuter you still need to help. But it will be harder.
When there are
formal team projects going on make sure to take the initiative to offer your
assistance. If you have certain days where you work in the office, see if
some of the key meetings can be held while you are physically present.
If that does not work, try to be flexible with your schedule and offer to
come to the office on one of your work from home days.
As an alternative, you can request to be present via speakerphone.
Make sure to make the extra effort to add valuable input though.
It is much more difficult to be an active participant in a meeting if you
are not physically there.
To help
informally, make sure to take advantage of any opportunities that arise while
you are checking in and staying connected via phone.
Ask if there is anything pressing going on.
Take initiative. Unfortunately,
without physically being there, you will have to be much more diligent about
looking for opportunities to jump in.
Be Flexible:
You probably did set up a schedule to work with when you made your
proposal to telecommute. And yes,
sticking to this schedule would be great! There
will be times, however, when it will be necessary to be flexible with your
schedule. As in the example above,
your co-workers may not always be able to schedule meetings around you.
They all have things going on too and you don’t want them to feel put
out by your work arrangement. As a
result, you should be prepared to come to the office on days when you would
normally work from home. Be as
flexible as possible – as long as it doesn’t interfere with your overall
productivity. In the long run it can work to your advantage too! There
may be times when it is useful for you to change your schedule around to meet
your own needs. Co-workers and
bosses will be more flexible with you if you have been willing to work around
them at times.
Get Credit for
Your Work: Under normal circumstances it is often very hard to take
credit for the work that you have done. You
never want to feel like you are blowing your own horn.
But how many of us have learned in hindsight that our accomplishments
have gone unnoticed or that others have received the credit for our work?
Then at a crucial moment, like being up for a promotion, our career is
hurt by the fact that we have not worked to be noticed.
As a telecommuter
your challenge is even greater. Out
of site can be out of mind! And you
do not want your supervisors or co-workers thinking that you’re a slacker just
because you are working from home! Make
it a point to keep your supervisors and co-workers aware of the activities that
you are performing and what you are accomplishing while you work from home. Send e-mail updates weekly or monthly to provide specifics of
where you stand with your projects. Also
send a list of accomplishments. It
will be hard to do at first but will prove well worth it.
When the management in the organization re-evaluates the effectiveness of
telecommuting, they will have a strong example from you to keep allowing
employees to work from home! And
you will hopefully end up with more opportunities for promotion as a result.
Maintaining good
working relationships is important under any circumstance, but is more crucial
while working an alternative work arrangement that may be experimental for the
organization. Follow these few tips
and you should be a great role model for continuing the practice of
telecommuting and expanding the program!
Kirsten Ross is mother of two sons and is
a Certified Human Resource Professional (SPHR) dedicated to helping women
achieve more life balance and to transforming the design of work.
Visit Womans-Work.com at http://www.womans-work.com
to search our revolutionary flexible work job board featuring more than 35,000
fresh work from home, part time, job share, flex time and telecommuting
opportunities, search for a job share partner or
read valuable career, life balance and family articles. You may also email
her at mailto:KRoss@Womans-Work.com
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