“You can have all the right strategies in the world; if you don’t have the right culture, you’re dead.” – Patrick Whitesell, Co-CEO of WME.

A positive and healthy work culture is the basis of every successful company. However, corporate culture has taken a hit recently as remote and hybrid working models have become the new norm. As a result, the physical limitations of remote work are making it difficult for organizations to adapt to change, build relationships and communicate company values.

However, it is not impossible to work from home and have a healthy corporate culture. Companies like Canva and Gitlab have thrived with a remote working model. If you’re not sure where and how to start building a culture with your remote team, we have a few simple steps to get you started.

What is remote company culture?

Corporate culture or work culture deals with the social aspect of any organization. The company’s beliefs and values ​​are reflected in the behavior of its employees. A company is only as good as its values ​​and work culture.

In a remote environment, companies struggle to stay connected and infuse these corporate values ​​into their employees due to the physical distance of remote work. For the same reason, remote companies need to establish a strong work culture. It helps make her employees feel connected, valued, and valued despite the physical boundaries.

With most companies offering remote or at least hybrid working models, it has become imperative for management to adapt to this new digital work culture.

Importance of remote work culture

Helps with insulation

One of the biggest remote work challenges for employees struggling with loneliness. A stable and strong culture of remote work can provide employees with a sense of unity and belonging.

Prepares for the future

Like it or not, remote work is definitely the future. Preparing your organization for the transition to a fully remote culture can help you succeed and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Helps build relationships

If your company decides to return to the office at some point in the future, a solid bond between employees will help ensure a seamless transition as they are already used to and comfortable working with one another.

Tips for improving company culture in a remote workplace

If your company is looking to start working toward a solid remote work culture, here are a few tips to get you started.

Trust is the key

The first step to creating a healthy and inclusive work culture, especially when managing remote workers, is to create an atmosphere of trust. Upper management should have a clear channel of communication with their subordinates, list their expectations and trust their employees to do a good job.

While it’s acceptable to pop in every now and then to see how they’re doing, micromanaging can often be counterproductive and leave employees feeling unmotivated for the job.

Trust works both ways; they trust you will help them if they ever need it, and you trust them to do an excellent job without you having to monitor them every step of the way.

Communicate the company’s vision

There’s no denying that while the remote working culture has many benefits, it can often be tiring and lonely. It also becomes easy to lose track of what you’re working towards when you’re not physically working in an office.

A great way to keep employees motivated is to remind them of the company’s goals, mission, and values ​​it stands for.

This often serves as a goal or purpose and gives employees something to look forward to in both the long and short term.

Be clear with workplace policies

Remote work is very flexible and offers people the opportunity to work from anywhere. However, unlike a physical office, the lines between work-life balance can be quite blurred since you live and work in the same place. This leads many people to feel like they are “living at work” rather than “working from home,” which is an exhausting mindset.

The way to fix this from a management perspective is to set workplace boundaries early on. For example,

• Set the number of hours people need to be online in a day.
• If employees work different shifts, make it clear that employees should not be disturbed outside of their working hours.
• If employees are free to choose their working hours, create a system to track their working hours in a day.

That kind of clarity makes it easier for everyone to work together seamlessly.

Get some face-to-face time with co-workers

In a remote work environment, most of your time is spent looking at a screen and it’s difficult to relate and communicate with people you’ve only interacted with online.

It’s hard to replace physical communication with people. Still, you can make the most of your remote work situation by scheduling video calls and meetings to get acquainted with your team members.

It’s also important for team managers to have frequent 1:1 meetings with their team members to build a connection based on trust and open communication. Your role as senior management is to create an environment where people feel comfortable coming to you with their problems.

Encourage communication outside of work

While the last thing people want to do at the end of the day is spend more time in front of their computer screen, team members need to develop a relationship in order to work well together. That only works if you spend more time together.

Encourage team members to spend time in teams and individually with other employees and to talk about topics outside of work. Having a support system at work can make it a lot more fun and enjoyable for everyone in the company.

Organize team building activities

Complementing our previous point, employees may initially be reluctant to contact and form relationships with one another. Therefore, management must seize this opportunity to organize team building activities to give employees a space to bond.

These activities should be fun and act as an icebreaker. This could be, for example, quiz nights, movie nights or even music nights. Sometimes you can even organize group calls where people can talk on the phone together while they work. This creates a sense of unity and belonging, which is critical in a remote work environment.

Identity problems and proposed solutions

As previously mentioned, trust is the single most important factor in building a positive work culture in a remote environment. One of the best ways to do this is to identify areas where employees are finding problems and offer solutions instead of finding fault.

For example, with many schools online right now, it may be better to schedule important meetings in the morning hours when parents have some time to themselves, especially working moms. You can also excuse parents from attending meetings if they are delayed with their children.

This kind of understanding creates a relationship of trust and mutual respect between management and employees.

Make your work easier with digital tools

The right tools can make communication between different teams more accessible and cohesive.

Unlike in a physical office, when communicating remotely there is a lot of room for miscommunication and misunderstandings. But using simple, easy-to-use, and helpful communication tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom can streamline communication.

Tools like Slack allow all work communication to happen in one place. Additionally, there are individual chat options and group channels, making coordination with different departments effortless.

Can you trust this advice?

It’s one thing to preach empty words, but quite another to trust the advice of a company that knows remote working extensively. Wishup has been a remote company since its inception. Nevertheless, it has been working successfully without offices for seven years.

This was only possible through trust, communication and strong relationships between employees and management. Our company proves that work culture is the key to any successful business.

“Culture is what motivates and retains talented employees” – Betty Thompson.

We trust these tips and tricks will give you the knowledge and confidence to build a strong work culture in your remote work environment. With remote work shaping the future of businesses, it’s never too early to prepare your business and employees for the future.

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