Building Strong Corporate Culture in a Remote Work Backdrop
Organizations today invest heavily in building a culture. A fancy vending machine that gives your people the best-brewed coffee, free access to a pantry filled with amazing food or an amazing workstation perfect for a LinkedIn photo-op or complimentary vouchers/discounts. Organizations have begun embracing the idea of employees working remote and promote this flexibility as one of the biggest perks, one that’s too tempting to let go.
The litmus test that determines whether your culture is working is when your employees show up for work the next day. The pride they get when they know that they’re a part of a bigger cause. Sure, tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Airbnb attract the best of the talent pool, but beyond remuneration and perks, the purpose of your culture matters. It’s easy to create a culture when your whole organization is physically present, in a building. But what happens when your organization constitutes employees who are scattered, and who log in remotely?
Opening Up Team Communication from the Bottom Up
Teamwork is done right only when your team communicates without barriers. Think of your team as a group that plays a game of Telephone. Now, with remote working conditions in place, the game becomes challenging but not impossible. Determine the maximum head count for a team and create a structure so that all members know who to reach out to if they want to call in sick, keep all team members posted on work schedules, get notified of staff shortages, and other team-specific communications.
Encourage teams to maintain the same level of communication expected in a regular office. Instil a transparent environment where employees update their availability, post regular project updates, and participate in team check-in meetings. Assure your employee that their performance is actively tracked, achievements are lauded, and promotions are awarded appropriately. Remind your team that they may be out of sight but not out of the loop, even when they are a thousand miles away.
Create a Hot Hiring Pipeline
Your culture is only as strong as the people who represent your business. A remote team means that you can hire people from different parts of the world without worrying about their accommodation and commute. Given that, hiring the right members is tricky yet crucial. By crafting the perfect job description, you set the expectations. The next part of the journey will be to find candidates who know the challenges remote working brings in and are willing to go further and contribute to making an impact.
To find the right fit, create a hiring process that assesses skills, behaviour, and creativity. Conduct interviews by scheduling appointments, and use video conferencing apps to host face-to-face meetings. Bring your team together so that they can figure out if a person meets the requirements or not. Hiring is not specific to HR or a static process. Keep it evolving as your team grows and keep it relevant to the mission of your business.
Onboardings and Icebreakers
Remember how it felt when you were starting out? The first day at work, the skeptic in you weighing if you would fit in or not, the curiosity to meet the people you’ll work with, the desk space that you’ll own or co-own with a colleague who may put your office supplies inside jello... you get the drill. While a remote setup takes away a few surprises, you can still pull off an excellent onboarding experience for a new hire.
Start off by mailing office merch for a personalized welcome experience that also makes them feel a part of your company brand. They may not have the world’s best coffee machine, but they still deserve a mug that gets them through the day. Introductory meetings, a welcome email, and scheduled regular interactions with trainers and project mates will help your team understand what the new person is like and give them an opportunity to explain goals, expectations, and ground rules.
Ceremonies and Rituals
Casual Fridays, team lunches, and out-of-office retreats are organized to provide teams the opportunity to bond, and provide a platform for senior management to interact with the team. Gruelling nine-hour shifts and stressful deadlines shouldn’t get the best of your team members.
Allocate an hour per workday to host casual meetings where team members get to discuss off-work topics, such as how they would save the world or if they have any book/movie recommendations. Conduct regular competitions that test their non-technical skill sets or let your team attend conferences/workshops that will increase their exposure and give them opportunities to exchange ideas. Companies which care about the overall well-being of their employees and promote bonding activities help foster an effective team that works as a tightly knit unit.
An Evolution
The best community is the one which stands up in times of need. In a remote working community, bonding is of the utmost importance. Organize regional meetups twice a year if your members are spread all across the globe. If your workforce is more localized, arrange for gatherings once every two months. Studies reveal that meet-ups of remote companies have 99% of all employees turning up for the event compared to a non-remote company.
What works for one organization may work differently for another. However, when you invest your time and effort to build a great remote team, the aim is to create the best culture that blends with your company’s DNA. It is the culture of the company that carries on forever, not you nor the person you are video conferencing with. It is the values that inspire your people to go out of the box to deliver an exceptional service or engineer products that make magic.