How to Build a Strong Culture with a Remote Team

Although it was a scram­ble for many busi­ness­es to adapt to remote work­ing when the pan­dem­ic hit in ear­ly 2020, now, hav­ing a team of employ­ees spread across the coun­try, or even the globe, has become the new nor­mal. Thanks to mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, it’s eas­i­er than ever for com­pa­nies to make the switch to home or hybrid work­ing, and more are doing so due to the rewards they reap in return.

Mov­ing away from office-based work­ing saves your staff the expense and stress of com­mut­ing, enables them to spend more time doing the things they enjoy and gives them greater flex­i­bil­i­ty. In turn, they can bet­ter jug­gle their duties and oth­er aspects of their life, like par­ent­ing. Plus, a hap­pi­er and more ful­filled team means few­er unsched­uled absences, high­er reten­tion rates and a con­sid­er­able uplift in per­for­mance. One sur­vey con­duct­ed by Gart­ner on 10,000 WHF employ­ees from the US, Europe, and Asia report­ed that 43% of respon­dents said their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty increased when able to choose where they work, and 30% felt they achieved more dur­ing the day because of spend­ing less time trav­el­ling to and from the office. 

How­ev­er, there are down­sides, as, with­out reg­u­lar inter­ac­tion from col­leagues and man­agers, peo­ple can start to for­get com­pa­ny val­ues and are some­times less inclined to push them­selves for the com­mon good. To coun­ter­act this, it’s essen­tial lead­ers fos­ter a sense of con­nec­tion and belong­ing, although this can be tricky when your staff are at a dis­tance from one anoth­er and pos­si­bly haven’t even met. Don’t wor­ry — that’s why we’ve put togeth­er this help­ful guide to explain how to build a strong cul­ture with a remote team.

Encour­age Open Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Feedback

For remote work­ing to be suc­cess­ful long-term, open and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a must. Luck­i­ly, chat soft­ware, such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, make it eas­i­er to bring your staff togeth­er. Unlike email, these desk­top apps enable indi­vid­u­als to drop in and out of con­ver­sa­tions quick­ly, ask ques­tions, offer sug­ges­tions and talk infor­mal­ly, sim­i­lar to how they would in the office.

It’s a good idea to cre­ate a ​“water­cool­er” chan­nel, too, where your staff can dis­cuss top­ics oth­er than work and get to know each oth­er on a per­son­al lev­el. Just be sure you don’t bom­bard your team with mes­sages as it can be dis­tract­ing and might make them feel they always need to be online and ready to answer, even after hours.

Cre­ate Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Collaboration

Sim­i­lar to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, encour­ag­ing peo­ple to inter­act with each oth­er is all about break­ing down bar­ri­ers. Ensure every­one, includ­ing new starters, has access to Google Dri­ve, Asana, Trel­lo or oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tive plat­forms where teams can man­age their projects togeth­er, see who’s work­ing on what and leave comments. 

Also, intro­duce week­ly face-to-face meet­ings where all depart­ments come togeth­er to hear key busi­ness updates and par­tic­i­pate in vir­tu­al activ­i­ties, such as triv­ia games or lunch-and-learns, where an expert offers insights on a par­tic­u­lar sub­ject. Use these catch-ups as an open forum where every­one present can add their thoughts — just make sure you reg­u­lar­ly ask qui­eter atten­dees for their input so they feel includ­ed and com­fort­able enough to contribute.

Show Your Staff Recog­ni­tion for Their Hard Work

Say­ing thanks to some­one sit­ting at the desk next to you is sec­ond nature. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, when work­ing at a dis­tance, lead­ers often for­get to offer these token signs of appre­ci­a­tion, leav­ing employ­ees feel­ing con­fused about whether or not they’re doing a good job. 

Clear Review’s per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware fea­tures a whole suite of tools designed to help man­age remote work­ers, includ­ing the abil­i­ty to give and request feed­back in real-time. These intu­itive forms allow you to imme­di­ate­ly sug­gest improve­ments or reward peo­ple with the recog­ni­tion they deserve after going above and beyond on a par­tic­u­lar task. 

Fea­tur­ing tools to set agile goals, send feed­back forms and have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions, Clear Review’s con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware makes mon­i­tor­ing your remote employ­ees’ engage­ment and per­for­mance straight­for­ward. To see it in action for free, fill out our book a demo form, and one of our expert team will be in touch.