Fostering a Supportive Culture in Remote Teams

“When there’s more than one human in an organisation, there’s a culture”, that quote is from SEEK’s Resident Psychologist, Sabina Read, and it highlights the inescapable fact that culture is everywhere. Whether your organisation has a strong team culture or a poor one, it cannot be denied that it’s present within every organisation and within every level of the business. Learning how to care for this culture and cultivate a supportive environment is something that we at Hinchen Recruitment Group believe is of paramount importance. A strong culture leads to business longevity, retaining your expert employees and increased levels of productivity. Many organisations utilise a variety of different strategies to cultivate a supportive team culture, but some of these strategies are outdated. Today’s workforce looks very different when compared to even a few years ago and this is largely due to the rise of flexible work arrangements. If the workforce has changed, the strategies need to change as well.

Here at Hinchen Recruitment Group, we have published multiple articles about the benefits of working from home (WFH) and flexible work arrangements as well as the importance of culture, but how the two work together can be difficult to manage. It’s impossible to rely on face-to-face meetings and afternoon snacks when employees aren’t working in the same office space. So, what can managers do to build a strong team culture with remote workers? Here are some of our recommendations:

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1.?Video Calls

The most obvious thing missing from your day-to-day work life when working remotely are the face-to-face interactions with your co-workers. With everyone isolated, it can create a feeling of loneliness or separation within the team. This is why our first recommendation is making sure you can see people’s faces, and this is where video calls come in.

According to Microsoft’s Business Insights and Ideas, video conferencing improves communication, helps to build relationships, streamlines collaboration and improves efficiency. At Hinchen Recruitment Group, we have multiple offices across Australia and to ensure our teams are collaborating and cultivating a supportive culture, we have two weekly all-hands conferences. Whether our staff are in different states or even different countries, these conferences are a chance for everyone to see each other’s faces. Our own Managing Director, Louisa Hinchen, even joined a few of our weekly meetings during her holiday in Europe this year! We utilise these conference calls not just for our WIP (Work in Progress) meetings, but also as a chance to talk about our weekends, our highs and lows for the week and create bonds with our co-workers. One of our Principal Consultants, Paul Peters, believes these weekly meetings are the glue that keeps our teams together and is a big contributor to our success:

“Being able to talk to every member of the Hinchen team on a weekly basis is such a privilege. We share our highs; we talk about our lows, and we work so well together. I love being able to joke with someone from Sydney and congratulate someone in Melbourne all from the comfort of our Brisbane office. These video conferences make all the difference to me, you have to see people’s faces!”

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2.?Online Development

According to Forbes, more than half of today’s workforce considers career growth and opportunity as more important than their salary. In fact, a recent study from Lorman found that 74% of employees feel they aren’t reaching their full potential due to a lack of development opportunities at work. These statistics highlight how important development and growth is for your employees and just because the team is remote, it doesn’t make it any less important.

When managing a remote team, trying to create development opportunities can be difficult but it’s not impossible. One of the easiest solutions is virtual coaching and it ties in with our first recommendation of video calling. Scheduling weekly, fortnightly or even monthly check-ins with your remote team is crucial for helping their development as it helps you understand what your employees are struggling with or areas needed for training. These check-ins can be used to not only provide support and coaching to your staff, but it also creates an opportunity for a regular virtual water cooler to simply talk to your staff. Those one-on-ones help to strengthen the bonds you have with your staff and creates a stronger team culture.

Another option for online development is coordinated lunch-and-learns. Let your staff know ahead of time to coordinate their lunches and book into their calendars a virtual team meeting. Whether it’s listening to industry professionals, watching some Ted Talks or participating in a workshop, these lunch-and-learns can help every team feel connected and furthers their development. As a manager, these meetings are an opportunity to coach your staff and increase their expertise whilst they get to feel connected and enjoy eating a meal together. Allocate some time before or after the meeting to hang out and chat and you have created a perfect environment for development and growing culture.

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3.?Request Feedback

The final recommendation for creating culture with a remote team is fostering a supportive one. As a manager, it’s so important that your remote staff know that you have an open-door policy. Even if you and your employees don’t share an office, they need to feel like your door is always open by being encouraged to reach out whenever they need to via calls, texts, emails or direct messaging. It should be the responsibility of the manager to ensure their employees feel comfortable reaching out to them, especially within a remote environment, communication is key. When you can’t just look across the office and see someone’s worried face, you need to make sure your staff will reach out to you if they need to.

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A report from the Harvard Business Review states that 40% of people feel isolated at work and the result is lower organisation commitment and engagement. Just because you’re not face-to-face with your staff, doesn’t you mean you can’t be connected to them. We at Hinchen Recruitment Group believe if you follow our recommendations, you can create a great culture with your remote teams. If you need assistance or want to speak with one of our culture experts, visit www.hinchen.com.au