Many companies are experiencing a growing realization that their “corporate culture” matters to the success of their teams. The corporate culture tends to be a wide variety of elements, including:
- How people treat each other and communicate.
- Traditions, processes, and strategies that are common in the organization.
- “Thoroughness” or “blunt honesty” are highly valued personality traits in a company
Many markers of corporate culture seem surface-level: a company appears playful and creative if it hosts a ping-pong break on Thursday afternoons or design-focused if its offices are full of modern furniture. While the physical space of an office can promote or hinder corporate culture, it doesn’t define the cultural norms.
The fact that culture is something other than just the optics of the office is welcome news to those who want to foster a particular corporate culture in a remote team. There will definitely be moments where creating a positive remote culture is different than promoting your workplace values at the office, but it is still possible to create the culture of productivity, teamwork, and work-life balance that many companies strive for, even in a remote team.
You can promote these five key aspects of your remote team culture without working onsite.
What is the Tone of Our Communication?
While there are some basic standards for professional communication in the workplace, the standards for email and instant-message conversations aren’t as explicit or well-known, especially if you also have members of your team from various generations. One thing to consider making explicit with your remote team is the tone of communication: if your company values expediency, can you create a routine set of abbreviations that allow you to communicate effectively without sounding terse and angry? If your company values politeness, what are the appropriate levels of formality for informal contexts like a Slack channel? Look at examples of communication with your remote team, perhaps during a video meeting, and ask them what their first impression of the messages are. You may realize that your team was experiencing frustration or feeling discouraged because no one was clear on what certain communication meant.
What are the Hallmarks of our Customer’s Experience?
Consider “touchpoints,” or moments when a team member interacts with a client or customer. Your interactions shape their impression of the company, so set clear guidelines to replace in-person service. Discuss the best customer interactions with your team and create methods to provide this level of service throughout.
What are the Reasonable Requests for Workplace Flexibility?
A company committed to remote work may seem highly flexible, but coverage needs or response-time concerns often mean that employees can’t simply “work wherever you want, whenever you want.” Help your team understand which requests for workplace flexibility will get considered and approved, and make sure they know that, as a remote team, they may experience different kinds of check-ins compared to in-person settings.
Workplace flexibility goes hand-in-hand with good management, and a highly hands-off approach to remote work can eventually result in lowered productivity due to lack of accountability. At the same time, if you deny a request to start work an hour earlier in order to be able to get a child off the bus in the afternoon, and there’s no compelling reason to do so, you will be burning an unnecessary bridge with that team member. Establishing the balance of workplace flexibility helps team members feel confident about what will and won’t be approved without feeling like any of these decisions are capricious.
How Do We Get to Know Each Other?
If you aren’t having after-work happy hours or lunch in the break room, how do you connect with your team members? Can you reach out to each other at industry conferences or hold “office hours” with an open video chat line on certain days of the week? While avoiding wasted time is important, especially during big projects, you still need a way to understand your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Reading a leadership book together or taking a StrengthsFinder evaluation can help keep the conversation focused on work while learning more about each team member’s thinking and contributions. Ensure that your team feels increasingly understood over time, as this camaraderie can guide them to make better workplace decisions.
How Do We Approach Challenging Contexts?
The way a company handles problems is key, and when the leadership of a remote team solves a problem, the team members learn a lot about the corporate culture. Whenever something difficult arises, do your best to outline the rationale for the eventual solution. Extrapolate your values from these situations when you need to solve challenges with your team members, whether they involve interpersonal issues, a major mistake, or unrealistic client expectations. Throughout these conversations, you establish norms that help your team members stay calm in a crisis and align with your company’s values, making these moments truly important.
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