How to Develop an Amazing Remote Company Culture
By: Ronita Mohan
Remote teams are becoming an important part of the workforce—over 40% of American employees are working remotely some of the time. With so many employees working so far away from their teammates and managers, creating a solid company culture can be tough.
Here are a few tips for developing an amazing remote culture that will promote a healthy atmosphere in your company no matter where your employees are located.
Appreciating Feedback
It is important to understand how one communicates with remote workers and how that communication method is affecting them. Because, most likely, the conversations you have with remote teams will be taking place over text and email. As helpful as it is to communicate using tools (which we will also discuss in a moment), human emotion does get lost in the process.
So when remote workers are told to do something or to correct something, it can come across as abrupt or peremptory. Managers of remote teams need to realize this and need to be open to understanding what works best for their teams. Remember that different remote workers have different needs and communicate in various ways—always be open to feedback, and understand how to share negative feedback.
Listen to what your team has to say—not just about the work they are doing, but also about how you are communicating with them. Understanding how remote teams are affected by the channel of your discourse, and accepting the feedback they give you about it, will make a massive difference to how they perceive the company culture.
Communication Tools
We’ve mentioned that communication between companies and their remote teams takes place largely via tools. It is particularly important for companies to understand the usefulness of tools as a method of improving company culture, especially as so many still use emails to communicate.
Emails can feel impersonal at times and there’s also a live element missing with email communication that can better be captured by other tools. Having the right tools helps to make sure that you can effectively develop a remote company culture.
The tools you use should have some audio and video capability so people, no matter how far they are, can feel connected to each other and the workplace. This will also help remote workers participate in office events, even if they can’t physically be there. All of which add to the company culture for a remote team.
A team chat tool like Chanty is free to use for small businesses or teams, with paid options that include audio and video calls for groups and one-on-one meetings. Right Inbox is another communication tool worth checking out. The email scheduling feature is perfect for remote teams as it allows users to schedule an email so that it’s reaches co-workers inboxes at the right time in different timezones. There are a number of team collaboration tools that will make it easier to share projects, brainstorm ideas, and update team members in real time.
If you want to create a positive company culture for your remote team, look at the tools available to you and see which ones work best to bring your teams closer together.
Clear Goal-Setting
People often equate company culture with such things as gaming equipment and spa days, but it actually has more to do with the way people work. In fact, employees’ desire for perks has recently been debunked by a study on company culture myths. Employees much prefer traditional benefits and a healthy work environment where their goals are outlined and where they aren’t left in the dark about matters pertaining to them.
And this attitude is even more important when working with remote teams. For a remote worker, not having clear goals set out for them can be disorienting and unnerving. Not only will it make it harder for them to work but their attitude towards the company will become more negative. Nobody wants to feel lost, especially when they can’t just walk around the corner to a manager’s office and ask for clarification.
Creating a gantt chart will help you keep track of all your remote team members, their tasks, and their deadlines. This will ensure clarity in the way remote teams work. If you want to create a healthy remote company culture, you need to make your goals clear for each employee, the team as a whole, and the company.
In-Person Meetings
Effective communication is the cornerstone of managing remote teams. And with so many team members being far away—geographically and temporally—maintaining a system of communication at all times is necessary for the company to work.
But when it comes to creating company culture with your remote teams, communication needs to be even more nuanced. This is to ensure that remote workers feel positive about their work and that they are connected with the organization. While using the right tools to keep communication lines open is important, there has to be some face-to-face meeting time in your schedule.
Remote workers who are in the same geographic area as the company should be given opportunities to meet managers and team members in-person at the office. You can also share invitations to events or meet ups between colleagues that will allow teams to ‘hang out’ outside of the workplace. This will build a sense of community with employees within and without the office space and create a positive environment.
Mark Lindquist, marketing strategist at the fully-remote sales engagement platform Mailshake, underscores the importance of in-person meetings with the extended team. “A few times per year, we have an “on-site”, where most of the team that’s scattered across the US comes down to Austin for a few days of strategy talks and just hanging out. Being able to build relationships with team members who you don’t see face-to-face very often has been a huge morale boost for the team. It makes it so much easier to have productive conversations with coworkers when you’re genuinely friends with them, rather than just colleagues. It can be hard to build those relationships when you live in different cities, so in-person meetups are essential.”
You can do this even for the remote teams who are located in other countries—if you have multiple employees in a particular location, organize events where they can meet each other. According to Alex Birkett, growth marketer at HubSpot and co-founder at Omniscient Digital, HubSpot’s remote employees are encouraged to formally and informally get face-time with other employees. “First off, we have several marketing team events throughout the year, including, of course, Inbound,” he says. “Beyond that, I also usually take a trip to one of our offices - usually Boston or Dublin - every few months to zoom out on strategy and hang with the team. We also periodically get together with different team members and organize weekend trips or events. It’s important to get face time, especially for an extrovert like myself.”
Video calls should be made a priority—even if it is for one meeting a week. Seeing one’s manager and team mates can create a better connection between remote employees. It will also stave off the feeling of isolation that often accompanies remote work—seeing and hearing your fellow teammates and managers is a strong reminder that the remote worker is part of a team aiming for the same goals they are.
Transparency
There has been a push towards companies becoming more transparent recently, and this is even more necessary for organizations with remote teams. Highlight your company’s values on your website and during the interview process—mention if you’re using an ATS system, for example, or if there’s someone manually tracking resumes. You should also be transparent about what expectations there are for teams—remote and in-house.
Let people know about the salary tiers on offer, as well as benefits and days off. Nothing breeds resentment like feeling someone else is getting better benefits than you are, and not knowing why. Is a strategy working? Or is it failing? Share your analytics and stats with team members, particularly remote employees who can’t get the vibe of the office. Transparency is a key component of a healthy company culture—it shows remote teams that they are considered an essential part of the company, even if they aren’t physically in the office.
It also makes it clear that there are no secrets to be kept in the office—good or bad, people should know what is happening inside the organization.
Conclusion
Creating a strong company culture that makes your employees—remote and in-house—feel positive and productive is becoming a very important part of running organizations.
Follow the above steps to create a positive remote company culture. Start by accepting and appreciating feedback from your remote workers. Use the right communication tools to make it easier to talk to your teams, and always set clear goals so everyone knows what they have to do and why. Create opportunities for in-person meetings as that will make people feel more connected.
And finally, be transparent in your dealings with your teams so that everyone knows what is happening within the organization and how it can impact them.
Ronita Mohan is a content marketer at @Venngage, an infographic templates and design platform. She regularly writes about content marketing, productivity, ways to better oneself, as well as pop culture, and diversity.
