Since we’re remote, it’s also important that the many things we’re doing are as visible as possible to people at the company. We have many, many, many project chat rooms, one of which is the Lounge. All topics welcome, usual banter includes cat gifs, earworm youtube videos, sportsball stats and anything else shiny or hilarious that catches our eye. We have an annual all company retreat, but we also have more focused retreats pretty regularly for smaller teams within the company focused on particular things. Invest in a tech platform to make it easy to communicate with others.
This article by founder, Joel Gascoigne, really helps enlighten why. Have an always on policy with regards to chat software – even if you aren’t at your desk, someone should be able to message you, so you can see it next time you are in ‘work mode’. Be careful, however, not to ask people to work around the clock – this can breed contempt and your colleagues will suffer quickly from burnout and won’t be as effective. Depending on the size of your team, the more casual and laid-back you are with team communication channels, typically the better they become at being open and transparent. Here are eight inspirational slide decks from companies willing to share their cultures far and wide. Tools like Notion and Asana are also available to help managers and employees keep things running smoothly in their professional lives.
Invest in remote work culture tools
This is especially key if you are managing remote employees and leading from a distance. This is a great opportunity to talk with your employees, find out their preference for communicating, and set some parameters that everyone can follow. Lay some ground rules for when an email is appropriate, versus a phone call, versus an online chat. For example, some organizations have decided that email is the appropriate platform for sharing updates, while more interactive tools like Zoom are better-suited for problem-solving. So consider which virtual collaboration tool or approach would be most helpful, and discuss with team members. Basically, don’t build a remote team just to save a few bucks and fatten the bottom line.
See our previous article, 190 brilliant examples of company values, for inspiration on creating your own company values. Improve your employee engagement in less than two minutes Get started for free today. In this article on Monster, the writer shows evidence that employees aren’t the only ones who benefit from working from home; a company can benefit just as greatly from a remote employee. Many studies have shown that remote working has valuable effects on employee productivity, happiness and general wellbeing. For example, this article on Harvard Business Review points to an experiment in a Chinese call center, where employees were given the opportunity to volunteer to work from home for nine months. This is not likely the last time a momentous shift will happen in the corporate world.
Stay in Touch
For example, my chief of sales might be working on closing a major deal, and my marketing team might be hunting for new announcements to make. When the two parties know about each other’s initiatives, my whole team becomes tighter, and everybody wins. As remote working environments become more standardized during the global pandemic, we will start to see the need for establishing positive and healthy work cultures. That’s why clear regular communication with employees, regular social events, and upfront, honest interactions are so important. Still, remote work’s impact on company culture is a huge challenge for employers, particularly when onboarding remote workers and successfully building close bonds between teammates.
If you feel lost, check what your peers are up to; you can look at what other companies are doing and what their executives are saying. When you reach your conclusion, it’s time to think of how you will communicate it with your employees before moving to implementation (e.g. updating the employee handbook, revisit benefits, etc.). Working with Motivosity can help your team build recognition into your company culture so that employees feel valued for their hard work.
The downside of remote teams
While you do not need to be on-call 24/7, make a point to be online and reachable at least a couple of hours a day. Designate regular “office hours,” or updating your status on platforms like Slack. Consider tag-teaming with other leaders so that there is always a manager online, build team culture and establish a chain of command so staff have a backup option if one party is unreachable. Leaders should touch base and check work occasionally but not to the extent that team members suspect doubt. Showing faith in remote workers empowers employees to do their best work.
Shared experiences form the basis of culture, but it can be a challenge to form a consistent culture in virtual offices when environments and working hours can vary greatly. Not to mention, cultivating a sense of togetherness is tricky https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ when team members are so far apart. However, it is possible to create a strong remote work culture in 2020. A lack of centralized headquarters can lead remote workers to feel more like contractors or freelancers than normal employees.
Get People Engaged With Remote Activities
Time and budget are always at the forefront, but what about engaging your team members who may have a disability, struggling with mental health, or have other outside responsibilities? Check out something like a mini-wellness session and record for others to watch later, and feel involved. For some clients with hybrid teams, I’ve seen quarterly reviews of their time/calendars – to see how they are using their whole day.
- Remote work is no place for egos to surface and become bottlenecks to company growth.
- You can reduce the confusion about what to post where by having a simple guide, and ensuring everyone is across your thoughts.
- I penned the process we went through, and the ideas I had considered, in this post, Creating company values that boost company culture.
- My company mandates that everyone turn on their cameras during internal meetings.
- Cross pollination between departments encourages new viewpoints and perspectives, leading to more efficient and innovative solutions.
- Something as simple as keeping that tab open will keep the door open for communication, creating a more cohesive and collaborative workplace.
Budget funds for online courses, attending virtual seminars, or getting a new certification so they’re incentivized to expand their skills. I believe some level of asynchronous communication is also important for a healthy remote culture. Fully synchronous culture requires all-day communication and necessitates all teammates being in the same time zone. For teams that are distributed across time zones, fully synchronous communication simply isn’t possible.
What is remote work culture?
An annual meet-up is an excellent opportunity to celebrate your business’s wins, recognize employees who’ve stood out, and outline your goals for the year ahead. If you have the budget, rewarding your staff with gift vouchers, food deliveries, a meal, or a party is a great way to boost morale. Ensuring employees have an adequate tech stack for accessible communication and collaboration. An alternative to holding more formal meetings is to send staff a monthly pulse check to see how they are getting on with their work and how they are feeling.
They still can – encourage them to take those breaks the digital way. They could invite teammates and hop on a coffee break and chat when they feel like it. How can you overcome this communication barrier and work together effectively?
Traps That Can Ruin Your Remote Team Management
As we put 2020 behind us and head somewhat bruised and battered into the new year, it’s pretty clear that the traditional on-site work environment has become a thing of the past. The year ahead will require many business leaders, managers and workers alike to make significant — and possibly permanent — adjustments to the way they work to survive, and dare I say thrive. By understanding the 3 key leadership tensions that today’s managers are grappling with, your organization can help address them, improving retention and overall performance. If you’re managing people who are working from home or located elsewhere, it’s critical you improve your virtual communications. Schedule one-on-one conversations to find out how your direct reports are doing and feeling and what’s important to them. The pandemic and its aftermath is a great example, because it precipitated this huge shift in how we work, and because of that, new ways of conducting business have to be established.