Building your team culture while working remotely
The global pandemic has certainly turned team management on its head. This caused team leaders across the business world to adopt new techniques and adapt to the new situations brought upon by COVID-19. One of these new situations is the work from home model. As we already know, working from home is starting to become the new normal for most employees. It has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. For one, building a team culture or company culture while your team is working remotely is very challenging. The team might still be working, communicating, and interacting with each other through the internet but compared to actually doing those face to face, there is a big difference. There is just that certain kind of disconnect that you don’t get when actually doing those things in person. This in itself is a challenge if you are building your team culture.
Building and maintaining your team culture might have been last on your list when the pandemic hit. It is understandable as we have not encountered anything like it. Fast forward to today where we are becoming more comfortable with the new way of doing things, how are things going with your team? Are you maintaining or still building your team culture while working remotely? The answer to that question should be yes. We know how important culture is to any company. With that said, how do you build and maintain it while working remotely?
Switch it up
Modern technology is a beautiful thing. Use it. Since you can no longer do actual floor walks, how about doing it in the virtual space? Set up both formal and informal channels where you and your team can stay in touch with each other. This will allow you to check in with your team without having to schedule anything and also where your team can get in touch with you without having to set up a schedule. Flexibility is the key. Allowing this type of flexibility will encourage regular flow of ideas even when everyone is working remotely.
Build a remote culture
How do you introduce a new team member? Let them come into a meeting and introduce themselves? That’s fine and all but you need to change things up and be more thoughtful especially during these times. Try sending out an email to everyone introducing the new team member. How about announcing it on your team page or team chat. Give out information like where they are located and maybe a few fun facts about them. The idea here is to encourage a culture of welcome even when everybody is working from their homes. Again, modern technology is beautiful. Use it!
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