Everyone knows all about the importance of remote work and its role in the modern workplace. From one sector to another, understanding a remote work culture and its relevance to the overall ability of your remote team is going to be essential to a dedicated group of professionals who are engaged, motivated to work hard, and focused on the same company-related goals.

How is that all done? By taking an in-depth look at creating a positive remote working culture and integrating it into your company’s approach.

Why remote work culture is important

Firstly, let’s take a look at just why remote work culture is important. Whether you’re amongst the technology companies, or the more traditional business sector, implementing proper remote culture is essential to your company’s success in more ways than you might think. When you prioritize remote work culture, you’ll enjoy benefits such as:

• It helps you get more work done in less time
• It helps improve employee morale
• It enhances job satisfaction
• It reduces turnover

These are just some of the big picture benefits waiting for each company that decides to intentionally build a cohesive remote working culture strategy.

7 tips to build a positive remote working culture

There are quite a few ways for you to build a dependable culture for your remote team workers.  Here are 7 priorities to get you started!

Prioritize employee onboarding the right way

When hiring candidates, spend more time on the ones that make it through the several rounds of interviews.  Instead of simply hiring the “cheapest” option of the employee that “looks good enough” for a role, go deeper.

When you hire employees that are actually a match for what you’re looking for, instead of “good enough”, you’re immediately creating a close-knit team of members that will blend together much easier.

Set up the necessary tech stack

Technology is going to be critical for both technology companies as well as those in more traditional settings. The right tech stack helps people keep in touch with each other and communicate effectively as a team on projects.  There should be a stack of apps and programs for each need. Luckily, with the wide usage of cloud technology, almost anything can be accessed online. Even with some of the more traditional sectors, such as structural engineering software.

Some tech highlights include:

• Zoom: As most people know by now, this is used for professional meetings and includes multi-access support, screen sharing, and more. Great for those who need to meet in varying teams.
• Monday.com: This is wonderful for scheduling and updating progress live. Great for teams working on complex projects where everyone has to work with each other to get things done on time.
• Slack/Teams: From IM communication similar to “water cooler” chats to sharing files and asking questions, both of these platforms are popular for making sure that everyone can get in touch with everyone as needed. Perfect for those who hate phone calls, too!

Align company mission and goals

Everyone on your remote team should properly understand the company mission and the goals that the company holds. Instead of it just being “corporate speak”, focus on making both the mission and the goals clear and important to those who are implementing them.

On that same note, you’ll want to also ensure that the company mission aligns with the goals and that both are relevant to today’s employees.

Encourage team communication and collaboration

Through the tech stack mentioned above, as well as through classic emails throughout the day. Encourage communication amongst remote teammates.  Also, prioritize collaboration between team members.

The goal of a team is to have each person working on one segment of a job task so that you all can come together and put it together and see how each person’s role made it happen.  A blend of communication and collaboration will help prioritize this.

Make time for face-to-face interactions

In most situations, face-to-face interactions can be done in a physical sense.  Depending on your remote work environment, it might be possible to get together in person once a week or once a month.  If not, Zoom offers a seamless transition from in-person to online meetings.  It offers the same face-to-face communication that is so important for keeping in touch with each other.

Even if it’s just a 30-minute meeting to get everyone up to speed and air any concerns, it’s great for morale!

Support employees’ professional development

Every time an employee takes the initiative to enhance their skills and training, you should wholeheartedly support and encourage that.  Offer professional development courses through your company, if possible.  If not, help the employee find their own professional development courses and support them taking the course through adapting work hours to allow for it, etc.

When remote employees see that you care about their professional development, they’ll see themselves as valuable additions, and this helps them to invest in the company through their time and, of course, that new expertise.

Be open to critiques and feedback

On a regular basis, send our feedback forms to all remote workers. Make the responses anonymous so that everyone can offer critiques and feedback without fear of repercussion.  When you get those comments and feedback, make sure you listen to what your employees are saying. Make the changes as best as you can so that employees see that their feedback is welcomed and heard.

It should go without saying, but it’s important not to complain about critiques that you get.  Employees want to help better the company, after all, not complain about it!

Set it up, iterate, and improve

Once you’ve got these seven tips in place to help create a supportive and professional remote work culture, it’s enough to just let it stick to that. From one day to the other, you constantly have to reassess and then improve to help keep transforming it into a productive, safe, and effective work environment.

Without question, remote work environments are certainly going to be the way of the future for the foreseeable future. It’s best to do whatever you can to make those environments professional, productive, and worthwhile for all employees. These tips will help you get started!