As remote work forced HR teams to quickly discover new digital tools to ensure business processes did not suffer, other workplace priorities, such as company culture, may have fallen to the wayside. But company culture is crucial, regardless of our work environment. Culture issues can appear in many different ways, from employee-employee communication to how employees feel toward the company, and these issues can greatly impact productivity and employee satisfaction.
It is never too early or too late to begin making company culture a priority in your remote workplace. It might look a little different in our new digital-only environment, but ensuring all employees feel respected, valued and supported — whether that is through in-person or virtual initiatives — can positively impact your workplace at every level. In this blog post, we will share four ways to rebuild your company culture in a remote workplace:
1. Put Your Employees First. Always.
Actions speak louder than words. There is a big difference between telling your employees you care about them and showing you care about them. Your employees know the difference. Remote work (and life) is undoubtedly creating challenges and obstacles for your team members, and as HR leaders and managers, we must be aware of this.
Ensure you are providing empathy and support wherever and whenever they need it. Gather feedback from your teams to help you determine ideas and opportunities for sharing support and assistance in a remote environment. Based on employee insights, some ideas may be virtual happy hours, flexible working hours or allotted times for no meeting, such as “No Meeting Tuesdays.” It’s important to let your teams know their feedback is valuable, and furthermore, inform them you will address their needs, concerns and thoughts as best as you can as an organization. In addition, be sure to provide teams with a safe and anonymous outlet to share their suggestions to allow for truly candid feedback.
2. Don’t Disregard the Importance of Learning and Development
Training and development are essential for continued growth and helping your team members achieve their goals. As company leaders, our teams look to us to provide them with the tools and training they need to become better employees. Investing in your employees and prioritizing their growth is a core component of company culture, and it allows your organization to become stronger and more successful.
To help, provide opportunities for online skills sharing meetings, where employees can collaborate and learn from each other. There are also several online training platforms, such as TalentLMS that allow employees to quickly log in from any location, watch recorded training videos and complete courses based on their needs. Understanding that your remote workers are likely juggling work and home responsibilities, try to keep your training sessions short and sweet so employees don’t have to schedule out hours to take a single training course.
3. Communicate and Over Communicate
For many, company culture is based on communication — with other employees and their managers. Two-way communication between team members and employers is a great first step in creating a positive and beneficial company culture.
Allow for opportunities to meet one-on-one through video communication platforms such as Zoom or Google Hangouts. You can also use these tools for virtual happy hours, team-building meetings and other activities that allow for open communication. Another way to allow for communication among team members is through messaging platforms like Slack, where employees can easily shoot messages either to a specific person, group or company-wide.
Working from home can lead employees to feeling disconnected from their teams, which can negatively impact employee morale, productivity and even their mental health. By utilizing communication tools, you’re helping ensure that employees have opportunities and outlets to communicate not only when they want to, but when they need to in this virtual environment.
4. Treat Company Culture Like a Necessity (Because it is)
Rome wasn’t built in one day, and neither is company culture. It is an on-going and evolving effort that HR teams and management must prioritize. If company leaders are only focused on revenue or number of sales instead of the employees behind those numbers, then you aren’t building a sustainable organization.
Company culture lies at the heart of businesses, and by treating it as a crucial component to success, your current and potential new employees will feel connected to their team members, their managers and most importantly, the organization. Remember those feedback surveys we mentioned earlier? Send those out regularly — either monthly, bimonthly or quarterly — to stay on top of what your employees need and continue shaping a culture that aligns accordingly.
As we navigate another year of change, we must stay dedicated to creating a safe work environment where employees feel valued, supported and accepted, regardless of what they are dealing with personally and professionally. Organizations that place a heightened focus on creating a positive company culture in this remote work landscape will come out of this challenging time with a stronger business and stronger employees. To learn more about how to maximize employee engagement, check out our blog on Ways to Increase Employee Engagement through Company Culture!
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