In the workplace, culture is created organically by group activities, collaboration, and other IRL-sharing experiences. The time spent together creates a sense of purpose and connection. The development of a culture for remote teams can happen naturally but it requires more thoughtful and deliberate effort to define. Here’s how to get it correctly.
If you’re building a remote workforce it is necessary to reconsider the entire process, from recruitment onboarding, career paths, and performance evaluations, in addition to tools for collaboration and management of projects. Take a look at our comprehensive guide on remote employee onboarding
1. Create a trusting foundation and psychological safety
This is crucial for any workplace. Great company culture creates a working environment with trust and mutual respect. How do you define psychological security? Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson described it as a belief that the team won’t shame, deflect or penalize people for speaking up. It’s not trivial. The benefits of fostering psychological security are huge.
How can an organization create an environment that is safe psychologically for employees who work remotely? Here are some of the numerous powerful methods:
Behavior The whole process begins at the highest level. The leaders of your company must demonstrate enthusiasm, humility, and even a bit of fallibility. Leaders establish the expectation that it’s okay to make mistakes and must be proactive and encourage participation. As leaders, they should seek feedback from employees who work remotely, usually through all-hands meetings less formal “town halls,” or through surveys or 1:1s. Encourage your team members to share the same information.
Structural Training teams to provide constructive feedback, that does not involve blame and personalizing things Make sure feedback is integrated into how you collaborate. Schedule meetings and meetings which are specifically designed to provide honest feedback or evaluate work. Be sure to give feedback via video conference so that employees can discuss the feedback face-to-face and avoid any miscommunications. All of this can help increase the level of engagement among employees on all employees.
2. Improve time to value by onboarding
When you take someone to the table It is your job as the person in charge of hiring to ensure that they’ve got all the resources needed to succeed in their position.
Here are some actions you can follow to help this new worker and ensure quick wins for them.
Plan for 2 weeks for full-time remote workers. require longer to be onboard. Making a plan and arranging all the meetings will lessen the anxiety and stress that new employees may experience. It will also help ensure they’re getting introduced to the appropriate process, people, and tasks they’ll need immediately.
Begin with a small amount Start by creating a clear plan that will allow the employee to be aware of what the onboarding process will be like 30-60 or 90 days later. Start with smaller tasks or projects initially, and make sure to guide them by sharing them with partners from different functions and checking infrequently.
Onboarding in groups The idea is an effective way to reduce the amount of work and redundancies that occur during the process of onboarding. It can also foster a sense of connection among the new hires. Crazy Egg uses this approach by hiring employees in groups, and assign an experienced employee “squad hosts” to welcome the new hires as well as “functional stewards” who are in charge of technical support.
.3. Communicate the mission and objectives in a clear manner
It’s much simpler to build an effective remote culture when everyone in the team is aware of the vision of the business. Find the most concise and clear method of describing the goal and explain it to your team and keep reinforcing it. This will remind everyone about the significance of what they’re working on by working together.
4. Be specific regarding your workplace policy
“Flexible” or “remote” work could be different terms to different people. Are employees required to be online for a specific amount of hours per day? Are they required to travel to headquarters regularly? Include these specific requirements in your description of jobs to ensure that applicants are aware of the expectations they’re signing for.
5. Prioritize meaningful work
In a team that is remote It’s common for members to believe that they have to respond quickly to inquiries to show they’re being active. But, it’s crucial to ensure that everyone can take time to do meaningful work that demands continuous focus. It’s essential to set limits within remote teams. There is a way to work together on the best way to do this by putting times blocks in the calendar and status settings in Slack or even a full weekday without meetings.
6. Establish regular rituals
Establish regular team meetings that determine a schedule for the project. At Miro, we have many Agile teams. They frequently organize Sprint planning and backlog grooming and retrospectives on projects. We also attend bi-weekly meetings for OKR traction, 1:1s, and departmental meetings, and regularly all-hands agreements with the company.
7. How do you define how you will work together
The different employees within the company might have different opinions about what a flexible working environment is. Talk to your team to discuss requirements and expectations, as well as what’s acceptable. In addition, research has proven groups that have emotionally connected and motivated are more effective in working together. It is important to establish an established process to collaborate and communicate.
Do not forget to consider the different ways people work and learn. It’s good to take a few tests, such as an exam like the 16Personalities test and creating personal manifestos that enable team members to understand one and other. Also, set up a space for conversation at the water cooler that lets team members talk about topics that aren’t work-related and get acquainted with each other.
8. Plan a face-time session
Face-to-face interaction is crucial for building relationships. If you are able, use offices to connect teams during onboarding. Also, you can plan regular meetings in-person off-site meetings for teams or summits. This is a great idea when your company is operating with a tight budget and cannot be able to afford to host people in costly cities such as SF Plan off-sites in a less costly area. Simply have the entire team get together and set up a local co-working area for meetings. Regular video conferences using applications like Google Hangouts or Zoom is an excellent way to keep your team in sync regularly.
9. Receive feedback regularly and make any necessary adjustments
If you’re not experienced in managing a remote team you’ll likely fail to get it the right first time around. Request that each employee working remotely closely observe the process and let you know the things that worked and what did not work. This will enable you to constantly improve the process for your next hires.
It is not necessary to stop collecting criticism until employees have been fully on board. Establish the expectation of regularly scheduled feedback. Request it frequently and reflect on your work and take note of your staff and make changes as needed. This kind of culture that encourages constructive criticism will assist you and will give your employees the feeling that they can express their opinions and be heard.
10. Find innovative methods to ensure that people are interested
Engaging remote employees actively throughout the day is an excellent way to promote a positive workplace. You can host an online happy hour or breakfast meeting with colleagues from the same industry (for instance the development of products) who can discuss the challenges they face. Sometimes, you don’t need an additional meeting to discuss that you could incorporate some team-building games into your regular meetings or create Slack channels to share pictures from your pet (at Miro, we love our #miro_mascots).
11. Create mentorship programs
A very crucial factor in establishing trust and feeling of belonging within remote teams is helping individuals grow and learn from their colleagues. Include rituals to allow everyone to grow both individually and as a team Discusses the goals of each member during a performance review, create a measurement system to gauge performance, organize a seminar to give feedback, or set a time each week for regular lunches and discussions.
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