Culture is defined as the social order within an organization. It is a set of shared values that decides the behavior, attitude and people of the organization. It also decides what’s accepted, rejected and encouraged. Hence the culture within an organization isn’t about the individual performance, but about how the team as a whole works. Building a good remote culture is a challenge within the remote working environment. As such individuals rarely interact with one another in person.

So as unifying your team members and getting them to abide by common values is a hard task to do. Due to the fact that these employees come from different backgrounds. They also have been influenced by different other organizational cultures. Hence, organizations fail in getting the team to adhere to the organizational cultural values.

Why creating a good remote culture is essential?

Culture is what makes your organization unique. Hence, creating a good remote culture is very important and good communication matters. As it helps the team do much more than just implement the assigned tasks. When the employees are fully engaged that make them dedicated to the purpose of the organization. It also make them excited to see the future of the organization. In addition to that, when employees communicate with one another efficiently, they manage to do their work in a better happily manner. Also your organizational culture influences how your customers and employees perceive you. That will greatly affect the success or failure of the organization. 

5 ways to create a good remote culture

1. Establish team communication and work relationships:

Bringing the office cultural vibes into the virtual work space is achievable. That would happen through the tools used by remote working like zoom and slack. Keep your team aware that they are supported when you are transitioning to the remote work environment. In addition to that, most remote communication should be shifted to video calls which create empathy more than the emails and voice calls. Have a regular virtual-team building habits that would provide an increase in the interactions between team members. Also creating a high-performing remote culture requires that the team members be aware of the company’s vision.

2. Stress on the contribution of each employee:

One of the problems of remote work is the inability of the employees to interact with their managers or people in authority. This limited interaction causes the employees to underestimate their roles and lower their self-esteem. If employees aren’t recognized by their managers then they will be confused on whether they are doing a good job or not. Hence in order to build and strengthen a good remote culture then as a manager, you need to interact with each member regularly and remind them of how important their work is. In addition to that remind them that their work heavily impacts the organization and its success. When employees are recognized, they build a sense of responsibility towards the team and the organization. The more an employee feels the direct effect of their work on the success of the company, the more motivated they become and the better job they do.

3. Collaboration between the team members will build a good remote culture:

Employees build a strong bond with their team mates when they communicate regularly on a platform that is accessible to all of them. This bond helps them work collectively towards a collective goal for the organization. When team members work on the same problem they feel like they are on the same boat. On one hand working remotely leads to the loss of collaboration and on the other hand no one wants to spend their whole day on zoom. Hence directly asking your employees how they are feeling and providing them with the space to collaborate with one another would just be perfect.

4. Establish trust and psychological safety:

Establishing remote culture should be based on mutual trust, respect psychological safety. When there is psychological safety, team members don’t feel embarrassed or rejected when they share their minds. To build a strong remote culture then it’s essential to communicate with your employees the important decisions taken by the company. This gives them the feeling that you trust them and that they part of the entire organization. As trust is a two-way road in which employees won’t trust you unless you trust them. Also give the employees their space to manage their work and time as they desire, focus more on the output done by the employee instead of the hours spent doing the work. 

Creating a good remote culture for your employees is a difficult task to accomplish. So here are the four ways in which you can build a strong remote culture.