With millennials now making up a huge part of the modern workforce, it’s become more important than ever to cultivate a strong company culture.
Having a defined company culture can help to boost engagement in the workforce, as well as helping to attract and retain the top talent. If a large number of your employees are remote workers, you can still create an amazing company culture to keep the remote team engaged.
Despite the difficulty of distance, it is possible to define and grow a company culture when your staff are dotted around the world. You just have to work a little harder at it.
It is crucial for the long-term success of your business to have a strong set of values and principles to give your company a unique character that your workers can believe in. You can keep reinforcing your company culture without the physical presence of your staff.
These ideas can help you develop and strengthen your company culture with a large percentage of remote workers.
Choose tools which emphasize communication and collaboration
A key part of any company culture is the sense of community – and to do that, you need to encourage your remote workers to communicate and work collaboratively. From messaging apps to project management tools and video conferencing software, there are a multitude of resources out there to help build that sense of team spirit and comradery that many offices have.
Make sure the playing field is level
If your company has a section of in-house staff as well as a team of remote workers, you must ensure that both groups enjoy the same benefits and perks. You don’t want to create a culture where your in-house employees are treated better (or worse) than your remote workers.
It breeds distrust and goes against that sense of community and togetherness. Make it part of your company’s culture to treat every member of staff in the same way, whether they work from home or clock into the office each day.
Offer flexibility to keep staff involved
Offer your remote workers the ability to come into the office whenever they like – and grant the same ability to your in-house staff, giving them the chance to work from home for a few days each month if they wish. This gives your staff the chance to get to know one another and experience life ‘on the other side’, if you will.
Measure progress in the same ways
A key part of developing company culture is choosing which metrics, goals and targets you’re going to measure as you help your staff to develop. You can’t create a situation where remote workers are measured and appraised differently to your office staff – again, it breeds a sense of ‘us and them’.
Build community and leadership among your remote staff
Give your remote workers the chance to have an impact on things in the office, rather than simply passing on lists of tasks for them to complete. Perhaps you could initiate a mentor scheme, where your remote staff can work on training new team members and helping them rise through the ranks.
This helps create a greater sense of culture throughout the company, giving everyone a sense that their actions (whether working remotely or in the office) have an impact on the business’ overall success.