These are the words I send to any team members I interact with on a consistent basis. I send them first thing every Monday morning.
Working remote is a very different experience, but one thing that is obviously lost in translation is physical team interaction.
If you send a Slack/Teams message or email and don’t hear back, the person may as well not exist.
While there are ways to arrive at communication plans with individuals who like to communicate in different ways, I think it is important to include some semblance of team building into your weekly/daily appetite. These are human beings, colleagues, and friends we are talking to, after all!
Funnily enough, the universal reaction to sending this good morning message is initially, “hi… what can I do for you?” People are conditioned to react adversely to such messages as a ploy to get attention and ask for something.
Sending this simple message conveys:
- You care about the people you work with
- You are invested in them
- You are not only talking to them when you need something. It is a team effort!
And… if you don’t get any such messages, I would like to say, “Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend.”