What would your employees say if you asked them to describe their current workplace culture? Would the feedback be positive or negative? Or would they say there is no defined company culture? With more dispersed workforces, it is more important than ever that company culture is an organization’s top priority.
If your company doesn’t offer work-from-home options, now is the time to build a healthy culture for your future remote employees. Employees now expect flexible and remote working options as much as paid time off and health insurance. Therefore, it’s worth offering to help your organization maintain a competitive advantage and retain employees.
While this option is a great perk to offer, it also can leave employees feeling disconnected from their team. With 8 in 10 people working hybrid or remotely, it’s not surprising that loneliness is one of the top struggles remote workers face. It’s time to create a culture for your remote workforce focused on personalized communication, employee advocacy challenges, collaborative technology, and days in the office.
Personalized Communication
Since you don’t physically see your remote team, you’ll need to have a plan in place for communication so they can connect with you and other coworkers. Be sure to offer multiple communication options that cater to the individual.
You’ll want to speak with individuals to determine the best way to connect since not all remote workers communicate the same. Not sure where to start? Consider using free assessments such as a PI Behavioral Index to determine what motivates your employees. This way, you can better manage them so they can succeed in their remote role.
Tool: Learn How Your Employees Communicate for Free
Take the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment here.
The PI Behavioral Index will inform you of the different ways your employees prefer to communicate. If a remote worker has a high communication work style, consider incorporating multiple check-ins with video chats to meet their need for constant communication. If you have a team member with a high formality work style, suggest a chat-based method for quick responses to clarify questions and projects.
The PI Behavioral Index will inform you of the different ways your employees prefer to communicate.
Employee Advocacy Program
When your team members are used to friendly conversations by the water cooler, it can be challenging to maintain organizational culture outside of the office. Something that works well for many organizations is an employee advocacy plan.
In order to build a strong culture, you need motivated and engaged employees. We’ve found that friendly competitions are one of the best ways to motivate and engage employees with your brand. After all, your employees are your best brand ambassadors.
Offering gift cards, reward points, or free meals to active brand ambassadors are some tried and true employee advocacy strategies that get remote employees involved with your company. Not sure of what kind of advocacy plans to create? Here are some employee advocacy challenges we have tried with our on-site and off-site team members.
- Team members send photos of themselves in their favorite work or holiday-related attire.
- Employees email video clips of themselves working from home explaining how they are helping customers no matter the time or place.
- Employees Slack a quote and a photo or video of themselves explaining why they love working for your company.
This approach gives your remote employees voices within your organization and rewards your team members that are involved. It’s a win-win because it offers your marketing team free content for social media.
Collaborative Technology
While working a remote job has its perks, like uninterrupted work time and not having to get dressed up, it also has disadvantages. Unfortunately, discussions and ideas that usually happen in the office are more challenging outside the work environment.
Although your remote workers aren’t technically in the office, technology is available to make them feel more in touch with their coworkers. If you aren’t sure where to start, here is a list of collaborative technology we recommend using for your distributed team.
Project Management
Google Suite is the ideal solution for companies with a remote workforce. With options like Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets, workers can collaborate on and save projects in real time. Google Suite is a great way to manage a remote team.
Monday.com is also a great way to manage tasks as a team. You can keep up with project tasks, due dates, and link files from Google Drive to task lists. With notifications, Monday.com helps your team stay organized and holds individuals accountable for each person’s roles and responsibilities.
Communication Management
Slack is a chat platform that allows your employees to message each other individually or in groups. Remote workers can be notified immediately through chat if a project deadline changes. Slack is an excellent resource for frequent team communication.
Employee self service is also a tool your business can utilize to help employees stay up-to-date on company-wide initiatives. Self-service solutions allow employers to send out mass communication text messages and emails to employees.
Meeting Management
Zoom is a video conferencing platform that is an excellent supplement for face-to-face communication. Zoom can lead to more productive team meetings because all remote employees can interact with their co-workers in real time through phone calls or webcam sessions. Team culture and company morale can increase because all team members are a part of the session. Zoom brings corporate culture to the home by enabling workers to be involved in project development.
As you integrate this technology into your remote workforce, it’s important to remember to accommodate employees in different time zones. Planning to have a Zoom meeting at 8:00 a.m.Central Time would be a 6:00 a.m. meeting for someone living in a Pacific Time Zone. Most technology companies like Zoom incorporate time zone maps into their software so you can accommodate individuals all over the United States.
Days in the Office
Many businesses have returned to the office while providing flexibility to work from home. Employees discovered a better work-life balance by working from home and don’t want that to disappear. A Gallup poll estimated that employees who split time between working at home and working in the office are more likely to be more involved and fulfilled when compared to their 100 percent remote coworkers.
Build a culture for remote workers by implementing future in-the-office days into your strategy. In the future, invite remote workers to the office for meetings, presentations, and holiday parties. Bringing in remote workers a few times a year allows companies to gather all (remote and in-house) employees, review quarterly strategies, and excite employees about new initiatives. You can set your company up for success by planning to engage with remote employees in-person ahead of time.
A Healthy Culture Equals Happy Employees
Companies must focus on their workforce culture no matter where their employees work. Remote workers need to feel connected, appreciated, and unified. With the implementation of collaborative technology, personalized communication, and in-the-office workdays, your offsite employees will perform better in their roles and enjoy their work, even if they aren’t in the office.
