Positive company culture is one of the most important elements of any business. If your company culture is poor, you can expect decreased employee retention rate, bad satisfaction rate, reduced motivation, poor performance, and so many other negative side effects.
The good news is that it is possible to create a positive remote team even if the majority of your employees are working from home. Here’s how to create a positive company culture with a remote team.
#1 Understand the situation
First and foremost, you must understand your situation – and the situation your employees are in. Though remote working is considered to be wildly different from regular work, they actually have a lot in common. The major difference is the location of your workers, but the general activities are pretty much the same. Still, there are some things you should understand about working with a remote team:
- Remote working value: Remote work is just as valuable as regular work. The output of your remote team is the same as that of your in-house team, so you need to reward them equally. Don’t treat your remote employees like they are inferior to your regular employees because it’s simply not true;
- Special circumstances: Sometimes, your remote workers might have special circumstances. Their child could be ill and they might ask for a day off, but your reaction should be the same as to a regular employee. Just because your remote employee works from home doesn’t mean they can manage to look after their child and do their job-related tasks at the same time.
- Understanding employees: Speaking of your employees, you need to understand them and sympathize with them when you need to. Communicate with them properly and learn who they are, just like you would converse with your in-house employees.
- Exploring weak spots: You should also find out what the weak spots of your remote team are. Perhaps someone is bad at communication and you need to teach them how to properly communicate with you and your team.
#2 Establish your company values
The next thing you should do is establish your company values. You probably already know what these are, but if you don’t, you should definitely get to work and establish them as soon as possible. After all, your company values lie at the foundation of your company culture, so it will be impossible to create a positive company culture if you don’t communicate your company values to your remote team first.
As Patrick Letterman from the essay writing service reviews site Best Writers Online puts it: “Your company values are not just a set of marketable ideas that you advertise to your customers. They are actually the beliefs that you and your team should follow. Do you promote tolerance and acceptance? Professionalism and good customer service?
Sustainability and eco-friendliness?”
These company values need to be maintained both within and without your company. When it comes to presentation, you must show your customers that your actions correspond to your words. When working with your team, you must instill these views in them as well. Does your business bring joy and happiness to its clients? Make sure your employees feel the happy and positive energy while working in your company!
#3 Set up proper communication
Proper communication is the only way you can really start getting to know your employees and establishing strong and lasting relationships with them. Good communication is also necessary to avoid misunderstandings that can lead to terrible mistakes and even financial losses. This is also the only way to communicate your values to your team and start creating a positive company culture in your business.
Keep in mind that proper communication is not one-sided. You aren’t the only one who should be talking – you should be open to your employees’ opinions. What do they have to say about a matter you have been discussing? What would they like you to know about their job or feelings towards something? Do they want a bonus? A vacation? Sick leave? They shouldn’t be afraid to speak up about what worries them.
Moreover, you should also encourage feedback within your company. When hiring new people, collect feedback about their experience with the hiring process. When introducing a new method or technique, collect feedback after some time to see if your employees think it’s working and whether it’s worth using it. Remember that your team needs to have an outlet for their opinions and the feedback you collect needs to be analyzed and put to use.
#4 Prepare achievable goals
Setting the right goals might be one of the hardest things to do, especially when you are just starting out with a new team of fresh recruits. The best thing you can do in this case is look at your past experiences and make predictions about your employees’ capabilities. Set achievable goals and adjust them according to your team’s performance.
As Christina Luck from the paper writing service reviews site Online Writers Rating says, “You need to be able to organize your team – and organize it to do what they CAN do. Don’t try to jump over your head because you’ll simply fail. Start out by taking small steps and then build on that if you can.”
#5 Learn and Improve
Last but not least, you need to learn and improve. Learn about your employees through conversation and improve your relationships with them. Track the performance of your campaigns and improve your strategy. Do everything you can to grow your company.
Remember that the real strength of your business lies in unity. All of the steps listed in this article will help you gradually improve both your company and your company culture which will lead to higher sales, increased employee satisfaction, and steady growth of your business.
Final thoughts
All in all, creating a positive company culture is possible once you understand what your business is about, who your employees are and how to approach your day-to-day professional activities. Use the tips in this article to create your own positive company culture growth strategy.
Nancy Williams is a young and ambitious writer from Chicago. She is passionate about traveling and self-developing. She is constantly trying to find new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden limits.
