Strengthening Your Team’s Culture While Working From Home

Upholding a healthy, balanced, and motivated culture within your organization is extremely important, especially now. A strong team culture, if done right, fosters a sense of community that improves employee happiness and therefore, leads to efficient and effective output. 

Working remotely or working from home has become increasingly popular as of late. The question is: how do you maintain, or even strengthen, your team’s culture when your employees are physically not in the same space? 

We’re outlining seven different ways to ensure that your organizational culture is uncompromised when a physical workspace is not in the cards.

1. Rhythms

Start by creating rhythms for your entire remote team via conferencing platforms like Zoom or Google Hangouts. Some channels are even offering free video conferencing services in order to alleviate any financial stress small and large organizations alike might be experiencing. 

Creating these virtual rhythms is important because it helps keep some normalcy where it might feel isolating to those who are not used to working from home where there is no “physical” team environment. 

2. Slack

Utilize Slack to celebrate all wins! If you don’t already have a place to post wins, creating a #Celebrations channel in Slack gives space for your team to celebrate themselves and one another. Any win, no matter if it’s small or large, will boost morale and continue building a motivating remote work culture. 

3. Goal Alignment

Make sure your workforce is hyper-aligned with your organization’s goals and their role in pushing your mission forward. If people don’t feel like they have equity in the greater mission, why should they work towards it? Ensure that everybody knows what part they play in the big picture.

 This is a time for goal-setting like no other. Set your team up for success by being clear and loud about your expectations.

4. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have clear, deliberate, and transparent pathways of communication while managing a remote workforce. 

While adjusting to the transition from an in-person to an online workforce, it’s better to over-communicate and check-in on your team more than you would usually. Once rhythms are in place and people are flowing naturally, then you can cut back on the frequency of communication. 

That being said, never hold back on transparency. Especially in light of current events, it’s important to practice radical transparency—be honest with your team about the state of the organization.

5. Coordinate Virtual Activities

Get creative here whether it’s a virtual coffee break where team members are encouraged to interact like they would in an office or an online group yoga session team members can dial into before starting their morning. Try to cultivate community by way of technology. 

This can strengthen team culture in a couple of ways. It is likely a new unique experience for most, if not all, of your team and collectively trying out new things with each other will give them something to bond over. 

Another way this will strengthen culture is that it exposes the sheer fact you, as a leader, genuinely care about the general wellbeing of your team. This is important.

6. Create Urgency, but Keep It Inspiring

It’s important to acknowledge that teamwork, perseverance, and innovative strategy are collectively more important now than ever before. 

Stay alert and updated with the reality of the situation that led to a remote workforce to begin with, but ultimately keep motivation and the “light at the end of the tunnel” mentality at the forefront of your message. 

7. Trust Your Team

At the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing: trust. By showing your team you trust them whether it be their judgment, their work ethic, or something else, this trickles down and continues to cultivate a strong team dynamic of peers who trust each other in peacetime and in wartime.

A team full of people that are confident in themselves and in their colleagues will ultimately lead to enhanced workflows and, ideally, loyalty that can conquer all. 

Trust perseveres, so build a team you can rely on and know that you’re all in this together.

Cameron Ripley