Maintaining company culture while working remotely

56% of employees value positive company culture over salary, and with added the stress and uncertainty we’re all dealing with at the moment it is vital that you continue to work on internal culture even while teams are working from home. Your employees need extra support to feel valued and supported during this difficult time. So how do you create and maintain a positive company culture remotely?

Each business is different and has its own values. The first step to securing your culture is to confirm your core values, they might have changed over the last few months and it’s important that your staff clearly understand them. Whether you host a Zoom meeting, send a company wide email or have managers call their teams individually – get the word out!

Generate a conversation about culture and encourage suggestions from your employees, their ideas will be better suited and likely more creative than the ones you found on Google. To get the conversation going you could host a virtual meeting with all employees that includes an ‘ask me anything’ section with the Slido app. Questions can be asked anonymously so you can learn what your employees true concerns are and changes they’d like to see.

Create a virtual suggestion box (via email) to learn what remote activities your employees would actually be interested in. Here are some suggestions to begin with:

• Virtual yoga/workout classes
• Zoom quiz
• Remote lunches (Everyone gets a Deliveroo voucher and takes a break while chatting on a video call!)

As well as fun activities and team bonding exercises employees need to be supported, now more than ever.  Whether it’s continuing to aid their personal development with online courses or book deliveries, access to online mental health services or a card to thank them for all of their hard work.

Personal development

Encourage employees to learn a new skill or refine and old one with online courses:

• FutureLearn
• Skillshare
• Udemy

Develop a virtual mentor programme to support junior members of the team growth, this also boosts communication gives employees an outlet to discuss matters they might not feel comfortable speaking to a manager about.

Healthcare

Offer employees physical and mental support by signing up to a virtual healthcare platform. Perkbox offer your team valuable discounts to many stores as well as access to Doctor Care Anywhere, a service that allows you to speak with a GP on the phone. Betterhelp offer an online counselling service to support mental health.

Rewards

Build a culture of continued growth by rewarding employees for their work, even while they’re working remotely. Send a card, flowers or a gift to say well done! Don’t let the lack of face to face contact stop you from showing appreciation and support to employees, adapt and overcome these barriers that we are all facing.

What have you done to support your team and build on your company culture while working remotely? Is there anything you would do differently if you could start again?