Every business relies on effective workplace communication to function optimally. It fosters better work relationships with your team and collaboration with other departments, ultimately boosting overall productivity.
However, it can be challenging to do this if you’re working from home. After all, building trust and connections with your boss and co-workers is more difficult if you don’t see each other face-to-face.
Fortunately, there are many ways you can do to get better at communicating with your remote team. One secret ingredient to helping you improve your remote communication skills is empathy.
Here’s how you can use empathetic communication to level up:
Practice Active Listening
Listening well is a fundamental trait of empathy. It helps you get a feel for your teammates’ emotions and how to respond to them appropriately.
However, listening well goes beyond simply hearing what the other person is saying. It also involves observing their body language and facial expressions to glean the meaning and intent of their words.
This practice is called active listening. Doing this during meetings makes the person you’re talking to feel appreciated and is the foundation for successful rapport.
Aside from virtual conversations, you can also use active listening when reading and responding to emails. Take note of the tone in your boss’ or colleagues’ emails so you can construct an appropriate reply.
Be More Mindful of Your Words and Actions – Especially in an International Team
The growing popularity of online jobs means geographical boundaries are no longer a hindrance to finding employment. That said, it also means working in a diverse team – where cultural differences may make communication challenging.
Fortunately, another way empathy helps improve your remote communication skills is by making you more mindful of your words and actions at work. This helps you better navigate cultural differences in your remote teams and lessen the risk of misunderstandings and accidentally offending them.
Approach Workplace Conflicts With Empathy
Arguments and misunderstandings are a natural part of working. However, what matters is how you handle and resolve these situations, especially in a remote setup.
Here’s where being empathetic becomes an advantage. Instead of becoming defensive, empathy enables you to see and understand the other person’s perspective. This helps you collaborate with them to develop a compromise and resolve the issue.
Find New Ways to Socialize With Your Team
One unfortunate downside of working from home is it can cause feelings of isolation and loneliness among remote workers. This lack of connection can make showing empathy to them much more challenging.
Fortunately, just because you can’t physically see each other doesn’t mean you can’t bond with your team anymore.
Before you start your daily meetings, take time to check up and chat with your teammates. Additionally, you can invite your team to play online board games every Friday or so to help you get to know one another.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for (or Offer) Help
If there’s one thing many employees don’t like doing, it’s asking for help. They believe doing so makes them look incompetent. However, this stubbornness can cause problems for you and your team.
To avoid this, start by being open to asking and offering help to your team. Doing this will help you do your job better and encourage everyone else to do the same.
A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way
Empathizing with others is often an overlooked skill. If not for it, however, communicating and collaborating at work will be challenging, especially in the absence of face-to-face communication.
Following the tips above, you can utilize empathy to help improve your remote communication skills so you can be more productive and satisfied at work.
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