The Importance Of Company Culture In Remote Teams

Offering hybrid or remote working benefits to your team saves your business money, improves health and wellbeing, and helps your team find a great work-life balance. However, some people are concerned that having a fully remote team may dilute company culture or lead to isolation and loneliness among your team. 

We’re here to tell you why that won’t be the case. With a strong company culture that transcends geography, your remote team can thrive. Read on to learn about building a strong company culture in remote teams and how it can positively impact your business.

Key Takeaways

• Company culture is categorised by how your team treats each other, your ways of working, and business expectations. 
• A great company culture can decrease attrition, enhance creativity, create better customer experiences, and reduce workplace stress. 
• You’ll need to implement some virtual strategies to enhance and grow company culture in a remote team.

What is Company Culture?

Company culture is the technical term for how everyone treats each other at work. It underpins all workplace interactions and encompasses the communication style, behaviours, expectations, beliefs, and attitudes that makes your business unique. If you find yourself saying phrases like, “oh, that’s just how we do it here” or, “nobody answers their emails on a Friday”, that’s part of your culture. 

Company culture can be difficult to quantify as it's deeply ingrained in the daily practices and norms of an organisation. It takes time and nurturing to develop a great culture. However, it’s a common misconception that this time and nurturing needs to happen face to face. It’s just as easy to build a great company culture in a remote setting, it just may take a little bit more effort to keep it up.

The Benefits of a Strong Company Culture  

Consider building a great company culture as an investment into your people. Check out some of the benefits of having a strong company culture:

• Decreased attrition.
  A strong company culture is the best retention strategy you can have. How many times have you heard someone say, “I would like a new job, but I just love my teammates,” or, “This is such a great place to work… it makes it hard to leave”? People will often stay in a job for the culture alone, finding it hard to leave the supportive and engaging environment they find themselves in. This decreased attrition not only saves on recruitment and training costs but also fosters community and stability in your business.
  
  
• Enhances creativity and innovation.
  Building a supportive and engaging culture will enhance creativity and innovation by supporting the employee voice. Team members will know that their ideas will be listened to and respected. This creates a feeling of psychological safety and empowers team members to think outside of the box, snowball off each other’s ideas, and contribute their unique perspective to the problem. With so many ideas floating around, one or two are bound to be golden! 
  
  
• Improves brand reputation.
  Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools, and a strong company culture can significantly enhance your brand reputation. Your team members will tell their friends and family about what a supportive workplace they have. These people will then tell their friends, and so your company’s reputation is built.
  
  
• Decreases team member  stress.
  Having a strong company culture and great colleague relations can decrease team member and workplace stress. When your team knows they can lean on their colleagues and be supported when times are tough, it reduces feelings of isolation and overwhelm. Plus, it fosters camaraderie and teamwork which are crucial to a great workplace culture.
  
  
• Better customer experience.
  When people feel good, they do good. Building a great company culture empowers your team members to do their very best work, ensuring an exceptional customer experience. When employees feel valued, supported, and engaged in their work, they're more likely to go above and beyond to meet customer needs and expectations.

How Can You Build a Great Business Culture?

Ready to strengthen your company culture? These 3 easy-to-implement strategies are sure fire ways to boost team member  engagement and company culture. 

Virtual coffee morning

Host a virtual coffee morning where they can chat to their colleagues and start their day off on a positive note.

Set up virtual coffee, tea, or hot chocolate mornings between different teams to encourage team members to build connections across the business and foster a sense of community. 

Highlight that although this is in work time, you don’t expect people to talk about work matters. You could even encourage a theme for each coffee morning to encourage light conversations. Topics like pets, your current favourite TV show, or your favourite holiday spot are all non-inflammatory and fun topics to get the conversation started. Offering up a list of topics beforehand can help neurodiverse or introverted team members prepare quick notes to help them feel more confident.

Collaborative playlists

If you have a team of music lovers or people who feel very strongly about a specific genre of music, this is the strategy for you. Have your team take some time out of their day to create a collaborative playlist centred around a different theme. Themes like ‘Songs From My Childhood’, ‘Main Character Energy’, or ‘Friday Feeling’ are all great ways to spark camaraderie and start a conversation. Encourage your team to listen to the playlist as they work and have them all rate it in a specific Teams or Slack thread. 

Bringing together different songs and music genres that fit this theme will spark a conversation and open team members up to listening to new types of music. It’s quick, it’s free, and it’s a fun way to foster connections and creativity within your team.

Random Acts of Kindness

Encourage your team to complete one virtual Random Act of Kindness (RAOK) per week. This could be giving a team member  some snaps on a public forum, sending them an e-card, or even sending them a virtual coffee gift card if they want to.Although it may not seem very random to target employees to one RAOK per week, leaving the time of delivery up to them makes it pretty random. Plus, you could brighten someone’s whole day with a small gesture or compliment like, “Hey, you did a really great job on that last piece of work. I’m proud of you.”

Strengthen Your Company Culture with Plumm

Building a great company culture is a key aspect of building a long lasting and engaging business. It can be a little tricker to establish culture in a remote environment, but once you’ve found the sweet spot between physical distance and virtual connection, the possibilities are endless. 

With Plumm, you can strengthen your company culture by providing a centralised platform for remote team collaboration, communication, and engagement. Plus, the AI wellbeing tools are the key to helping your team live well, work well, and do well. Sign up for your free 14-day trial today!