Culture Building For Remote Teams

I was invited by LinkedIn to join a live chat hosted by Ankit V, Managing Editor at LinkedIn India and Pallavi Pareek. The theme was about how to manage work culture when the teams are remote.

Your culture has to be built around a strong mission and values that unite the team. Sid Sijbrandij, CEO of Gitlab (the world’s largest all-remote company), argues that communicating and upholding your company values is one of the most important things you can do to build a positive remote work culture.

Rethink work, roles, performance measure and trust

Offices are renting workspace in our homes and personal lives. That changes the equation for leaders. The space and infrastructure are not the only things for employers to focus on. they must think about the invisible elements that employees are living with.

Think about the environment that employees are operating in. Prioritise employees over customers. Customers pay money only if the employees produce the goods and services that the customers want. This is a time to prioritise the employees.

Offices are renting workspace in our homes        

The role of the leader now depends on EQ - not just IQ.

Invisible and Hidden Elements of Culture

When the workplace is virtual, the invisible elements become more important to focus on when we think of organisational culture. For example for a new hire, it is easy to understand the cultural norms eg Is it ok to challenge the boss? Who are the people who are helpful and approachable for me to clarify what I did not understand. The seating arrangement of the conference has someone at the head of the table. In a videoconference, everyone is reduced to a small rectangle on screen.

How to pass on lessons that are learned but not taught

Educationists call them the hidden curriculum. In the work context, people learn about these from the leaders' behaviour. They follow and discuss the messages that the leaders stress and repeat. The new hires learn about how the organisation deals with failure and how the weak are treated. The things that matter and what gets people rewarded and punished.

Three Ms That Matter

1. Mental Health: This matters HUGELY in case of a remote work culture. Build the skills of the managers to recognise emotions like grief, stress, burnout etc.
2. Many Mentors: When teams go remote, newcomers must get to work with multiple mentors. I find that to be a powerful initiative.
3. Moments Beyond Resume: LinkedIn asks its new hires to talk about what is not there on their LinkedIn Resume. That throws open an opportunity to bring the human side of the employee to the forefront

Read more

https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/how-to-build-and-maintain-a-remote-work-culture/

https://www.inc.com/jonathan-steiman/how-to-build-a-great-company-culture-with-a-remote-only-team.html

Watch the recording here by copying this link and pasting it in your browser

https://www.dhirubhai.net/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6886249144743268352/