Nurturing Company Culture in Remote Workspaces
In 2013 Professor Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University published a study he conducted in collaboration with China’s largest travel agency, Ctrip. In his experiment, a group of randomly selected employees were given the opportunity to work from home for nine months. Company organizers hypothesized that, while they would save money renting office space (and they did, a calculated $1250 per employee annually), the savings would be balanced out in lost productivity. Their work-from-home employees surprised them, however, when they began accomplishing 13 percent (or, two full days per week) more work on average than their in-office counterparts. They reported being able to achieve levels of deep focus that were previously unattainable because common distractions (gossip, breakroom conversations, and general noise) were absent in their home office environments.
These results were thrilling. The combined productivity boost and the eliminated rental fees would earn Ctrip approximately $2,000 extra per employee per year. However, when the nine months were up and the employees were given the option to remain at home or return to the office, 50 percent of them chose to return. Most participants cited social reasons as their primary motivation for coming back to the workplace.
It is difficult to maintain a sense of togetherness and company culture in remote workspaces. A sense of isolation and loneliness can lead to disengagement that can be detrimental to a company’s bottomline. A pre-pandemic survey found that lonely individuals reported a significantly higher number of work days missed than ones who were not lonely (7.0 days vs. 1.3 days annually), costing the US business sector over $154B in lost productivity. Post-pandemic, as employees continue to push for remote and hybrid work arrangements, the concerns many business owners have regarding isolation and dissociation from company culture have only increased.
Two-thirds of global executives feel that culture accounts for more than 30 percent of their organization’s market value. They aren’t wrong, companies with strong cultures have lower turnover and higher engagement than those that do not. The better a company is to work for, the happier the employees are, the more valuable the business inherently is. Because of this, many company owners have been pushing a return to the office and the reinstatement of the five day work week. After all, it’s easier to maintain a sense of togetherness when your employees are all gathered in one place.
But what if this is not an option for you? What if you, like so many others, took advantage of the innovations in communication that resulted from the Pandemic and started a business with employees from different states, time-zones, provinces, or even countries? Perhaps you don’t yet have the funds to invest in a brick-and-mortar establishment, or you have no intention of making the move to a physical workplace at all. How do you encourage company culture and combat isolation when you can’t physically meet in a single place?
It’s challenging, but not impossible. Below are eleven practices that can be implemented to strengthen company culture in remote workplaces.
Embody Company Mission and Values
When operating a remote business, the number of interactions you, the employer, have with your employees are fewer and, therefore, reflect more heavily on your character and your company. The goals espoused on your website and in your handbook should be the ones you demonstrate in every interaction. If you cannot emulate your business’s core tenets in meetings, calls, or emails, then your employees will become disillusioned and disengage from their work and, eventually, your company.
Practice Active Listening
In a similar vein as the previous point: the time you spend with your employees is limited, which means it is vital for you to listen carefully when you interact. Not only does this lead to better problem solving and information distribution, but when your employees feel that you are invested in them personally, they are more willing to return that investment in kind. Being able to meaningfully refer back to personal details (birthdays, family members, pets, life events, etc) is a simple but powerful way to encourage company loyalty.
Keep Lines of Communication Open
The best way to do this is to have weekly team meetings to keep everyone accountable and on track. Consider investing in a project management software. Applications such as Asana, Microsoft Teams, or Trello (just to name a few) allow you to farm out tasks, assess the status of projects, and keep in contact with members of your team.Schedule regular 1:1’s with your employees to discuss project updates, address individual issues, deliver coaching sessions, and plot out career paths.Make sure you can be reached via phone or direct message during working hours. And lastly, encourage peer-to-peer interaction in your company. The more you can humanize your workforce the more collaborative your work environment will be.
Promote Work-Life Balance
You will not always be able to dictate exactly when your employees work. For some, it might be best for their schedules to get a full eight hours in before noon, perhaps the reverse is true (though these are extreme examples).What you can do is encourage your employees to prioritize working on week days and discourage them from clocking in to play catch-up on the weekends. Set and enforce clear deadlines (both large and small) during the work week and schedule meetings within traditional hours.
Recognize Employee Contributions
58 percent of employees cite leadership’s recognition and appreciation of their work as a major influence in their decision to stay with a company.The efforts of your subordinates should be celebrated. Establish monthly or quarterly awards for standout employees. It doesn’t have to be a physical gift (though a voucher or bonus never hurts). Sometimes, simply shouting-out someone’s hard work and publicly praising them for overcoming challenges can go a long way in encouraging them to invest further in your business.Be sure to promote peer-to-peer recognition as well. Create avenues for employees to directly call out contributions as they happen, furthering engagement. You can even incorporate peer-to-peer recognition when designing your quarterly or monthly awards. Make it a collaborative effort!
Embrace Feedback
No matter how thorough you are or how many years you have been in business, there will always be something that you’ve overlooked or neglected. Establishing anonymous feedback channels is one of the best ways to get unfiltered insights from your employees. Many companies implement weekly, monthly, or quarterly pulse surveys to address current issues. These surveys should cover actionable topics and their questions should be structured in a way that results in SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic, Time-Bound) responses. Employees are less likely to engage in a survey if they don’t believe anything will come of it, so be willing to demonstrate followthrough if it is called for.Another way to gain feedback is through a virtual suggestion box. Employees can encounter problems you might not be aware of and propose solutions that might never occur to you. A suggestion box gives them the chance to recommend improvements to issues as they occur.
Centralize Information
One third of workers spend approximately four to eight hours per week searching for the information they need to complete company tasks. To combat this, consider creating an internal wiki or database that has pertinent company information organized into an easily accessible format. You can use the Google Suite to do this, Microsoft Teams, or invest in a specialized application. Some apps even have encryption software you can use if your company works with confidential information. Alternatively, you could also use a centralized intranet to protect your data.
Prioritize Learning
Continuous employee education is imperative for a growing business. Learning Management Software (LMS) programs are an excellent way to organize and distribute training programs to remote employees. Some LMS’s have preexisting courses on general topics (OSHA, HIPPA, harassment training, etc), which means that, instead of building every training program from scratch, you will only have to focus on making specialized modules for your company.
Book Clubs
Book clubs can be used to help further quarterly goals, improve work culture or techniques, and even promote wellbeing outside the workplace. They should be structured in such a way as to not eat into too much of your employee’s time. The typical company book club involves reading an attainable number of pages or chapters every week and then having regular meetings to discuss insights.Maintaining a book club can be challenging and it might require some trial and error. If you’re considering it, drum up some interest, pick out a relevant, bite-sized book, and take it one month at a time. Don’t be afraid to put it on hold during busier times of the year and pick it back up when work winds down. Consult your employees to determine what topics they are interested in exploring. Experiment and see how it goes!
Virtual Coffee Breaks
Virtual coffee breaks are exactly what they sound like. They are fifteen to thirty minute blocks of time to allow employees to virtually socialize over coffee or tea. They can be as structured or as casual as you want and can incorporate ice-breakers, games, or be centered around specific topics of conversation.
Meet in Person When Possible
While it might not always be possible to meet face-to-face, you should take advantage of it whenever you can. Scheduling monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, or annual in-person meetings with your employees can boost morale and engagement.A holiday party or company anniversary is the perfect excuse to get your employees all together in one place. But these events don’t have to be strictly celebratory. Your meeting could be the culmination of a company-wide project, a demonstration of a new product, or even a chance to study a training module that supports in-person collaboration and team building. Whatever it might be, make sure it is worthwhile and justifies the time and resources your employees used to be there. You don’t want everyone to walk away from your event saying “this could have been an email.”
All in all, maintaining a robust company culture for a remote workforce can be challenging. But with practice and the right tools you can develop a cohesive team of employees who are just as productive (if not more so) than their in-office counterparts.
