How to build Company Culture with Remote Teams (2020)

[amoralesg001]

This article looks at some challenges faced in remote teams, such as company culture, and how to improve culture in remote teams.

Two of the articles tips to help improve company culture stood out to me. One of the tips were to try 'Donut' Meetings', which randomly pairs people together within the organization to talk for 30 minutes. This allows members within the organization to get to know one another, without the need to talk about work-related things. It's important for remote work to intentionally find ways to replace those "break room" talks that occur so naturally when working in a physical location.

The second tip was something I have not heard of before, and I thought was very clever. Companies need to intentionally recognize individual employees. One way to do this, is for people in the organization to collect positive comments about an employee through a slack channel, and the employee is unaware of this slack channel. By the end of the month, the company will add that specific employee into the slack channel, and they will be able to see all the positive comments people have posted about them. I found this a really creative way to recognizing workers in a remote setting, which in turn, can help job satisfaction.

[amoralesg001]

I found a more recent articles that I will post down below that are related towards improving virtual environments

One of the articles, is 'Four Strategies for Effective Leading in Today's Work-From-Anywhere World'. One of the tips they give to leaders, is to give a survey to employee's on how often they would like to meet. It states, "Be mindful of global time-zones and ensure you are alternating meeting times. Once your cadence has been established, consider starting each meeting with a moment of gratitude or moment of mindfulness to help your team reduce stress and build resilience. Continue your meeting with a focus on gratitude with mini celebrations and moments of recognition for team members.”

[amoralesg001]

This article, called Six Tactics to Improve Collaboration for Remote Teams, gives good advice on remote collaboration. One piece of advice that the article gives, is to create discussion channels for a more collaborative environment. This involves both task and un-task related channels, such as watercolor channels for social aspects. Also, by finding smart and unique was to keep track of team progress, without the act of micro-managing. It states, "By using the right software and solid work structures, you can track your team’s progress and keep a handle on how things are going without micromanaging and constantly nagging for updates. We use naming systems, documentation, tagging, and workflow, among other things, to keep a handle on who’s working on what, who had it last, who’s getting it next, and when it’s done”