Company culture is more than just workflows and team interdependencies. It’s an essential component in your ability to attract, retain, and develop employees while driving your company forward. Keeping that talented workforce engaged wherever they’re working can lead to a 33% increase in revenue. 

You can still have a strong company culture while working remotely. It stands to reason that remote working makes company culture even more important. 

Learn How to Engage Remote Employees in 3 Ways

If your staff is showing signs of becoming disconnected, it’s important to quickly learn how to create culture in remote teams and connect with remote employees. The sooner you get your employees to feel like a team again, the faster you’ll see improvements in employee engagement. Disrupted teamwork results in disrupted business plans, and let’s face it, our business plans are disrupted enough right now!

1. Use Video Technology to Connect One-on-One with Employees.

COVID-19 wasn’t a variable in the work environment that anyone anticipated, and many businesses found themselves faced with the challenges of thriving with a remote workforce almost overnight. Gone are the watercooler conversations, spontaneous in-person interactions, and weekly staff meetings in conference rooms. All hands meetings and culture-building gatherings are, for now, things of the past. Whoever thought we would be suffering from a thing called Zoom fatigue? While Zoom is certainly a useful technology, it can’t do all the heavy lifting required to keep your employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger whole. 

We have a tendency to see platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams solely as vehicles for meeting as a team while losing sight of the fact that they can also be powerful tools for individual engagement as well. It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes maintaining your corporate requires engaging with your employees on a more personal level to keep the team together. Occasionally, you need to leave those Zoom sessions full of talking boxes behind. Use one of the myriad video technologies to have one-on-one discussions with your staff to see how they are doing, whether they feel connected to their colleagues, and what suggestions they have for improving company culture. There is no “I” in team, but employees need a little “me” time in a dispersed workforce. 

2. Use Employee Feedback to Keep Your Company Values Alive & Well

Strong core beliefs are the bedrock of company culture. During periods of upheaval, they can get lost in the noise. Create opportunities to ask yourself, and your employees how to keep your values alive while being geographically dispersed. Ponder whether they still serve your company well in the new normal, and how they can be adjusted, if necessary, to take your company where it needs to go. 

These aren’t just decisions for the executive team. Your employees should be involved because your values are only real if they align with your team. 

3. Encourage Employee Input to Craft Culture & Values

Culture isn’t an employee handbook or a motivational poster. It’s a living, breathing organism, and it thrives on employee contributions, even if those contributions come from multiple, remote locations. 

Use your employees’ input to bring your company values to life. Challenge them come up with ideas for tangibly practicing your culture from wherever they are working. Give them the reins when creating regular rituals that define how they will continue to work together from afar. Give opportunities to enhance teambuilding, set meetings, and decide how to work together while living the company’s values at the office or from their home workspaces. 

Positive Company Culture Drives the Success of Remote Work

You can have a thriving company culture while working remotely. Quite frankly, you must. It’s vital to reinvigorate and sustain your values and culture during this period because your employees are more likely to become disengaged when they’re physically isolated from their team. 

Remember that company culture is a living thing, not a static policy. It reflects your employees as much as your brand. Get your employees in on the essential task, and fun, of creating, maintaining and enhancing your company culture. 

Are you ready to grow your team along with your culture? 

Get in touch to learn more about Elite Personnel’s direct-hire program.