How are your colleagues coping with working from home?

How social network analysis is used

Social network analysis helps you see how people are connecting now that many are working from home. You can identify people who are over- and underconnecting - including those that have been isolated.

Template for the study

The following three questions are the type of questions you would ask in survey and analyze the responses to in a social network analysis.

How often do you speak with this person?
Who do you report into?
(Scaling questions) How are you feeling?

What to look for in the analysis

Identify those who appear isolated

As a priority, you should identify those people who have responded but have no or relatively few touchpoints with colleagues. Most importantly, you should see how they are feeling.

For those that haven't replied, you should see whether other colleagues report interactions with them. If they appear to have few (or no) touchpoints, they too should be on your radar.

For all of these people, you need to determine if they have the right level of support from the organization.

Understand how feelings may be affected by group dynamics

For those that report that they struggle, how do they relate to the rest of the organization? Are there clusters of people?

Intervening to help

Finally, as a possible path to help people, you should look at which formal structures they belong to. Could the managers or colleagues have more regular touchpoints with this person - are they even aware?