By Jon Clark, managing partner at Moving Traffic Media, a New York digital agency offering SEO, PPC and Amazon marketing services.
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Company culture is something 46% of job seekers value when selecting a business to apply to. However, with more and more businesses taking on remote workers, it can be difficult to maintain a strong company culture.
It is not impossible, though. You simply need to make a dedicated effort to ensure that the culture is strong among your team. Here are some tips to help you maintain a strong company culture when managing a remote group of employees.
Develop collective values.
It is not easy to get team members to embrace collective values, whether they work remotely or even in the same building.
After all, people come from different walks of life and have been influenced by different people, environments and organizational cultures. So, getting them to jointly adhere to a group approach can be challenging. This is even more so when they are situated in different parts of the world.
However, having clear goals and objectives and implementing productive and collaborative processes can get everyone on the same page.
Create mentorship programs.
When building trust and creating a sense of belonging, one of the most important things to do is to help your team members grow and learn from their peers.
To achieve this, you should implement rituals that can help all team members to grow individually and as a group.
During performance reviews, discuss each person’s objectives and set metrics so that their progress can be measured easily. You can also provide workshops on matters such as giving feedback.
Think of creative ways to keep employees engaged.
Actively looking for creative ways to keep your remote workforce engaged is an excellent way to foster a positive culture.
You could host breakfast sessions or virtual happy hours where people from the same department can discuss their challenges.
Sometimes, you do not even need to have a standalone meeting for this. You can start a Slack channel for fun things, such as sharing photos of your pets or what you have eaten for lunch! You can even build games into your regular video calls.
You may think that little things like this waste time. However, they help breathe fresh life into a person’s working day, which can often seem monotonous. They also help ensure that everyone is connected, so they do not feel lonely when working from home.
Prioritize meaningful work.
In a remote team, people can often feel like they must respond to requests immediately to show the manager that they are actively engaged in what is happening.
Nevertheless, it is vital to agree that everyone has sufficient space to have time to do meaningful work. After all, we all know that we need to be completely focus to produce our best quality work.
Make sure boundaries are created within remote teams. You can agree on how this should work, for example, by having some days without any meetings, using status settings on Slack and time blocks on the calendar.
Define how everyone will work together.
Different employees across the business may have contrasting ideas regarding what a flexible working situation entails.
Speak with your team to evaluate their needs, expectations and what is and is not reasonable.
Furthermore, research has indicated that when a team is more engaged and emotionally connected, they work more effectively together. This is why you need to establish transparent processes in terms of communication and collaboration.
Do not overlook the importance of acknowledging the differences in how people work and learn. There are tasks you can make the most of to assist with this—writing personal manifestos and doing personality tests, for example.
Furthermore, provide a virtual space whereby employees can have small breaks to make small talk and get to know one another.
Set a foundation of trust and psychological safety.
Psychological safety refers to having a sense of confidence that the team is not going to punish, reject or embarrass someone for speaking up. There are several ways you can cultivate an environment of psychological safety among a remote team.
From a structural perspective, it is vital to teach teams about giving constructive feedback. They need to learn to give advice without being personal or blaming someone.
You also need to ensure feedback is embedded into your work. Set up sessions and meetings that are designed to provide candid feedback. Video calls are most effective for this, ensuring there are no misunderstandings.
You can also promote psychological safety through how the leaders of your business behave. They must show fallibility, interest, curiosity and humility.
Leaders should set the expectation that making mistakes is okay. It is how we learn from them that matters. Leaders should also promote participation and being proactive.
Good communication is critical when developing a strong remote team culture.
Finally, communication needs to be prioritized in any remote team. When team members communicate well with one another, they find it easier to complete tasks on time and they are more likely to help each other, which creates a supportive team culture.
When workers communicate efficiently and respectfully, they work better and do so happily. You cannot underestimate these two elements when striving for success, irrespective of the circumstances.
Keep your company culture thriving while managing a remote team.
Maintaining strong company culture is essential when managing a remote team. From developing collective values to communicating well, follow the steps mentioned above, and you can ensure your company culture thrives despite the distance between your employees.