It is easy for businesses to underestimate the challenge of building a strong company culture across remote working teams. The shared behaviours, values and goals which define an organization can be filtered through a conventional office environment, whereas for remote teams, business leaders must find innovative ways to effectively nurture their company culture outside of the office.
As the popularity of remote and flexible working continues to rise, firms must ensure they are ahead of the game in understanding how they can instill a positive company culture across their team. This article proposes five ideas for how businesses can build a strong culture, communicate with their employees, encourage collaboration and focus on creating a strong community moving forwards.
1. Fine tune the values and goals of your company
The values of a firm define the vision and decision-making process of the organisation. They are at the very core of the business and identify how the firm conducts itself and reflect how employees are expected to behave. To build a strong company culture, firms must evaluate their values and mission to ensure they appropriately echo the voice of the organization.
Once a business has defined their values, they can then be communicated to the wider team to allow employees to be involved in championing the goals of the firm.
2. Ensure employees understand the company culture
Research from Deloitte shows that only 28% of executives understand the culture of the organization they work for. For remote teams, ensuring employees fully comprehend the culture can be challenging. It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure every individual in the organization understands what the firm expects from them and how they can contribute to the mission of the business. The company culture should be accessible to employees on the website and included in any handbooks for new employees.
3. Communicate regularly and be transparent
Whilst working remotely, employees can begin to feel isolated as they lose the face-to-face contact they would experience within an office environment. This can lead to imposter syndrome where employees doubt their own ability or confusion over how employees are progressing in a professional capacity. To combat this, firms must maintain full transparency with their employees to ensure each team member understands what they must work towards to progress, as well as the pay and benefits structure they could be moving toward.
4. Encourage employees to collaborate
To maintain a positive company culture, business leaders should encourage their employees to communicate and collaborate virtually. When teams begin to work remotely, they can easily disconnect from one another resulting in the loss of crucial shared ideations, problem-solving and joint projects. Firms should invest in video call software and urge teams to organize regular meetings. This will not only keep up morale and ensure employees feel valued, but also provide a catalyst for continuing to promote employee collaboration.
5. Organize regular company social events
Organizing social events for remote teams offers a unique challenge to businesses as they lose the ability to rely on a simple pub visit or trip to a bowling alley. Despite remote events not being as ideal as the aforementioned social activities, they are important for boosting staff morale and showing appreciation for employees.
Employers can test the waters with social events by organizing fun activities such as quizzes or virtual escape rooms. These events offer a chance for employers to channel their company culture and allow employees to form friendships and bonds outside of their professional obligations.
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