Building Remote Culture
Ideas on creating human connection from anywhere
“Do you have a minute? I have a quick question.”
I had 20 minutes and I needed an answer from Jerry, one of my tech leads, before my next meeting. What happened instead was an undeniable reminder that the world had changed and I needed to change how I ran my team going forward.
“How are you doing?”
“How is your wife?”
“How is your son? How old is he now?” — “Ah. It must be especially tough at that age.”
“Oh we’re doing well too, staying safe, trying to make sense of this new world and all the information.”
“What shows are you watching?” — “We’ve been binging….”
“Playing any new games?”
I never got to even ask the question I thought I needed an answer to. Instead, I realized what we both actually needed more than a step forward on the hamster wheel was human connection.
This exchange happened about a month into the pandemic.
Like most companies, WarnerMedia sent everyone home in March 2020 with instructions to take what you needed to be successful working remotely until further notice. This is still true for those of us in software development roles. We were already geographically dispersed to a large degree — Atlanta, New York, Seattle, LA and had contractors and vendors even further away — so the adjustment to simply getting the work done in a new setting was rather seamless.
Aside from the notable exceptions of real world cancelations of two of our biggest brands — NBA and March Madness — our roadmap and things that needed to get done remained unchanged. I’m proud to say that the team delivered and most folks have found that they preferred the fully-remote or mostly-remote environment.
But all was not well.
This early exchange with Jerry was an indicator. We craved interaction that was beyond emails, Slack and video calls. We missed the incidental discussions, the random chance meetings walking from place to place on campus, the post-meeting catch up walking along side teammates back to our desk, the seeing a colleague in line at lunch or the Starbucks on campus.
We missed the human part of the job.
Consistently the answer to the question “What do you miss most about WarnerMedia?” when asking a former employee — is “The People”. I’m sure this is the case with most companies too, but WarnerMedia is known for its collegiate feel and great culture. It makes sense: you spend half of your time awake with your colleagues so I hope one of your favorite things about your place of work is the people too.
And the problem gets worse.
In late 2020, we went through some restructuring that ended with some members leaving the team to work on other strategic initiatives but also more coming into the team from other areas. We had a new CEO, a new CTO, and a new directive to hire. So we began hiring in 2021 and hiring a lot. Over the last 12 months, we have almost an entirely new team.
If the human connection was hard for a team of folks that had been together for 10+ years in some cases, how could a new team build the culture we wanted in a fully remote world? We crave all of the things we loved about this team and company pre-pandemic — the trust, the friends, the togetherness, the shared sense of purpose and accountability.
One more bit of context on the problem statement.
We have fully embraced remote work. With our restructuring and pandemic moves and changes, our team became even more dispersed than it was before. Add to that hiring from all over the country and now our daily scrums feature folks from every domestic US timezone and 8 states.
Just getting a beer together will require A LOT of travel.
The question is what do we do about it?
How do we build team culture in a fully remote world?
I would love to start a dialogue. I can tell you what we’re doing and what’s working for us. I want to hear from you — what have you tried and how are you solving these problems. I know that some teams / companies solved these problems pre-pandemic so please share. There are some good articles out there about working remote generally (looking at you Linus) but I want to hear about culture.
I’m in the mode of fully embracing remote. Our team will never “simply come back to the office” because we can’t. We are too distributed. We need to create new interactions, new ways of working and relating.
The Water Cooler
Analog: running into team members at the water cooler / breakroom.
A few things I’ve found work best here:
- Keep it Small. You’re trying to build connection not reach the masses. Less is more and people are more willing to participate and share. (One of the best pandemic connections I’ve had was when a developer that I had not previously met and I went to a meeting a little late only to find we were the only two people there because it was canceled. We ended up just staying around and talking for an hour.)
- Frequent. I’m sure this will vary but I suggest more frequent vs less. My team has a morning session every MWF. I think weekly or bi-weekly actually seems harder and more forced because it’s less natural.
- Keep it Light. This probably goes without saying but you likely have enough touch points for actual work agendas. We talk movies, video games, sports, new tech, hobbies, pets, whatever comes up. That said a quick work question is also natural — “Hey can we chat later?”, “Who is covering that XYZ meeting?” seem appropriate to me.
- Optional. Make it so people can show up when they want and chat but this is not required. If you have something everyone needs to hear — schedule a separate team meeting just like you would have in-person.
Morning Coffee
Analog: Sitting at your desk having a coffee before work really starts.
This is technically a meeting on the calendar for a few people to join but no real agenda. I plan this every day at 8:30am and generally miss about once a week due to errands or other life interruptions.
I’ve played with the invitee list but right now it’s just the me and the people managers under me. This seems to be a good replacement for the pre-pandemic habit of “settling in” before the first meetings started.
Meet for a Meal
While I believe that all serious work should be done remote — planning sessions, team meetings, actual software development — I also suggest being together informally for coffee, lunch or a beer whenever you can.
Whenever I’m in the town of one of the team members, I’ll contact them to see if we can meet for a meal. A couple of times this was the first time I had a met someone that we had hired during pandemic.
I’ve also driven a couple hours on a Saturday just to have breakfast with a long time colleague that was visiting family nearby. I’ve driven a few hours to hand deliver a laptop to a new employee more than once.
Because we don’t get to see folks in person every day any more, I’m taking every chance I can to meet and just ask how life is going.
What has worked for you?
What do you think we should try?
How are your teams doing mentally and culturally with the adjustment to full remote?
