There is a difference between meeting and making contact. Of course, you can organize a meeting and ensure that colleagues come together, but how do you provide an environment where people can make contact. In this blog, you will read three tips that will help you reconnect with colleagues within your company after the long corona period.
When you organize a meeting, make sure there is an atmosphere that invites people to make actual contact. How do you achieve that? You can read that in our three practical tips.
1. Set aside enough time
It is vital that people feel that there is enough time. We all know that restless feeling of having to look at the clock because you're almost supposed to go to your next appointment. So make sure that enough time is set aside in people's agendas to contact each other in a relaxed atmosphere. This works both ways: the colleagues themselves are more comfortable, and the interlocutors (probably the other half of the group) feel more heard because there is more than enough time to make contact. Involve people at the front, so also ask what they think they need in this area.
2. Choose your environment consciously
We are all familiar with 'Skippie ball session on the heath'. It is often jokingly when a team goes out into nature for an activity. Yet it has been proven that a pleasant environment is more inviting to make contact than sitting with each other in a stuffy office building under the fluorescent lamps. So pay attention to that.
3. Pay attention to the invitation
Also, think about what questions you will ask each other when you are together. What will the setting look like? Determine this in advance, and create the conditions under which you have contact with each other. This preliminary stage and thus the tone of voice of the invitation is essential. Also, involve people from the organization and discuss what they need to feel at home at such a meeting. By looking at the connection in this way and creating the right conditions together, reassurance is made. People are more likely to adopt a vulnerable position if it is evident in advance the frameworks.
Connect through collaboration
To make connecting a bit easier, you can opt for a targeted activity so that things can quickly get hands and feet. I recommend Knowing Me Knowing You. It has been a long time since we have contacted each other, and we have often communicated remotely. If you can create the right setting and are willing to make an effort as an organization, then reconnecting is within reach for every company. Get in touch and we can assist you in ideas on creating real connections among your collegues.