Remote work has become far more common than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the most recent numbers released by Forbes, 12.7% of full-time employees work in a remote fashion, and 28.2% work in a hybrid fashion as of 2023. This increasingly large segment of the overall workforce must be properly managed to achieve the best possible productivity and results from your team. Much of this comes down to promoting a good company culture across remote teams.
With that in mind, let’s explore some of the ways that any company can promote a strong company culture across remote teams and why it matters.
Why Does Company Culture Matter With Remote Teams?
There is a temptation to think that company culture does not matter as much when dealing with remote teams. After all, they are located in a geographically different area than the rest of the team. However, this is not a temptation that you should give into. The reality is that your remote team matters just as much as those who are working in your main office. Maintaining a strong company culture throughout can help your entire team understand their value to the operation.
Wrike.com also notes the following upsides of building and maintaining a strong company culture with your remote teams:
Building an effective work culture can do more than just get the work done. Increasing employee morale, reduced absenteeism, and enhanced employee productivity are some of the many benefits a company can gain.
All of those upsides contribute to the overall sense that a strong company culture must be properly maintained throughout the workforce. To claim the fruits of a strong company culture, start examining how you can create and maintain that culture in the first place.
Tips for Building a Strong Company Culture With Your Remote Team
The value of building a strong company culture is hard to deny. The question is what strategies you can utilize to create the culture throughout your company.
1) Create a Good First Impression
Bringing new remote employees into the fold immediately is the best way to make them feel welcome and like they are a part of the team. Try to get all of the bureaucracy of hiring a new employee out of the way and make things as smooth as possible for them to begin the process of working for you. Not only does this mean that they can get down to work more rapidly, but it also means that they will feel themselves being folded into the family more quickly. That can boost their morale and help them build connections with the rest of your team.
2) Build Connections Between Employees
As we just mentioned, it is important to build connections between different employees. Remote employees ought to be included in this process as well. Insight Global explains what a connection between employees means and what it looks like:
Connection in the workplace is a sense of feeling valued and appreciated by your colleagues. It’s that feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself—a team, a mission, or just the daily work routine. It’s a sense of security and trust that allows people to feel safe in expressing their ideas and working together.
It takes time to build connections, and those connections are bound to get stronger as time goes on. Continue to work on fostering the relationships and connections between employees.
3) Battle Against Isolation
Fortune Magazine reported on a pre-pandemic study conducted on the topic of isolation among remote employees. That study found that isolation increased by 67% among respondents who switched from in-person employment to a remote job. It is a serious issue that must be addressed. Those facing feelings of isolation may experience the following:
- Feelings of depression
- A drop in productivity
- An increase in illnesses and days of work missed
- An increase in the number of employees who leave their job
Feelings of isolation can grow quickly among remote employees. When improving your company culture, focus on combating that by increasing the amount of face time that remote employees get with you and with their co-workers. They need to have the opportunity to see and interact with the people they work for and work with, which allows them to feel less isolated and more in touch with people who are performing the same or similar duties.
4) Explore Gamification
A great way to bring remote employees together with the rest of the team is to play games. You heard that right, you can play games at work and still be productive. Many managers are exploring the concept of gamification as a way to encourage more interaction between employees who might not otherwise have engaged with one another. However, when you make things fun and add a gaming element to it, everyone can get in on the fun.
Some multi-player games that are great for team-building include the following:
- Parabol
- Jackbox Games
- Skribblio
These, and many other games, are highly enjoyable and are a great way to build communication and cooperation between employees. Utilize them to get people to start speaking with one another in ways that they might not have otherwise.
5) Keep Work Fun
Don’t be afraid to keep an element of fun in the workplace. Ask people about themselves and allow them to share aspects of their personal lives if they choose to do so. This shows that you care about these individuals on a personal level. It also means that not everything about the workplace has to be rigid and stiff all of the time. People can let loose a little as long as they keep things professional.
Your remote workforce will look to you to help rope them into the rest of the team. Running a business is an extremely busy thing to take on, but you need to take time away from that on occasion to build your company culture. It requires a little work on your part, but the rewards that you can reap from it are well worth the trouble.
For more information on how to create and maintain a strong company culture across your remote team, reach out and contact us today.
