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Working remotely doesn’t mean company culture has to suffer. Here’s how to create and maintain a positive company culture with a remote team.

Working remotely means you need a whole new approach to building and maintaining a positive company culture. Telecommuting workers can easily become isolated. Teams may start to drift apart, and business performance will, in turn, suffer.

But it’s possible to have a positive company culture, even with a remote team. Team building is key, and there are many innovative tools you can use to keep everyone connected. It’s also important to ask for feedback and update your approach as needed.

With these strategies, company culture won’t suffer just because everyone is working from home.

Communication and collaboration

Team building is just as important, if not more so, when your team is fully remote. It’s easy for workers to feel isolated when working from home, so create plenty of opportunities to connect each week.

When you do connect, reinforce company values, vision, and the mission. These are still crucial parts of daily work life, and everyone should be working toward the same goals. Reiterating what’s most important to the business will keep remote teams aligned and motivated.

Hold regular team meetings with video call solutions, like Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom. Encourage employees to turn on their cameras so they can feel like they’re really connecting with one another. Schedule time after you take care of business to invite workers to share their remote working experiences with each other. What is most challenging? What do they like about it?

To encourage greater collaboration, incorporate cloud-based solutions into workflows. Employees will feel like they’re in an “office” collaborating when they can use tools that update in real time. Comment and editing features are also important, and documents should be accessible to multiple team members at the same time.

With the right communication tools and strategies, collaboration will be just as effective as it was in the office. And when teams feel connected, company culture thrives.

Planning remote activities and hangouts

A big part of a positive company culture is offering employees something to look forward to. Since remote teams can’t gather for happy hours physically, schedule an ongoing hangout every Friday after work, where team members can share a beverage and talk.

Plan games during these chats that will support team building. You could have a different volunteer offer to create a trivia deck each week for trivia night, for example. Plan a virtual scavenger hunt.

Share photos and videos of pets or home projects. Allow for some unstructured hangout time so workers can talk about topics unrelated to work. Use the Slack platform to start daily conversations about various fun topics, like favorite music and movies. Workers can respond and chat when they need a break throughout the day.

Remote teams need social outlets that they’re not getting in an office. These activities will help workers become closer and will improve their satisfaction with their work life.

Hiring culture fits

An important way to maintain a positive company culture is to hire employees that fit. Throughout the recruitment process, pay close attention to each candidate’s fit factor, not just their qualifications. Would their personality fit with their new team? Can they support the values of the company and department?

Ask candidates what their ideal work culture would be like. Provide plenty of details about the changes you’ve made to improve company culture with remote teams. Make sure the way work is done is in alignment with the goals and desires of the candidate you choose to hire.

Mastering the hiring process helps you create a culture that is comprised of a close-knit team of individuals who are all working toward the same goals.

Ask for feedback

Sometimes you won’t have a tight grasp on the effectiveness of your company culture without asking your team. Send out regular surveys. Ask what employees like and what they want to see more of. This helps you make any necessary changes while gauging employee engagement and satisfaction.

When you or other managers meet one-on-one with team members, ask them how everything’s going in real time. What’s working? What’s frustrating? What tools do they wish they had to improve their workflow? Only by understanding worker engagement and satisfaction with the company can you maintain and make improvements to company culture.

Crewhu’s tools make it easy for remote teams to stay connected, including gathering feedback, employee recognition, and engagement solutions. Contact us to get started today and improve your remote company culture.