3 Ways To Keep Your Company Culture Alive When Everyone Works From Home

When I founded my functional mushroom company Four Sigmatic, I knew I wanted to build it with a remote team.

There were lots of reasons why, but ultimately, I set my company up that way because that’s how I like to work. I don’t like to sit in traffic or be cooped up in a busy office with tons of interruptions. I prefer to work in the peace and quiet of my home office and run errands during off-hours when stores aren’t completely packed.

And the idea that your employees need to be in an office to get things done is an increasingly archaic myth.

In fact, it can make people less efficient. There are more distractions, gossip between coworkers, and office politics. When employees are just waiting for 5 o’clock to roll around so they can leave the office, they’re more likely to waste time instead of actually getting deep work done.

I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. According to a 2018 study, 70% of people globally work remotely at least once a week. Another study predicts that by 2020, 50% of all employees will be working remotely full-time.

Advances in technology, like video conferencing apps and cloud technology, a growing freelance labor pool, and the proliferation of coworking spaces and collaboration software have made remote work not only viable, but preferable as well. Gone are the days when you must live where you work. With urbanization driving up the price of city living, employees can achieve a much healthier work-life balance working remotely in suburban or rural environments.

In fact, many businesses are now opting to forgo physical workspaces altogether.

But while the remote work boom is mostly a good thing, it can be tough to maintain a sense of community and company culture when you don’t have a central office. By leveraging the technology you have, getting your team together when possible, and making communication a priority, you can build culture no matter where your employees may be.

Here are my three tips to cultivating your company culture, even when your team is flung far and wide:

1. Get creative with communication.

The digital era has completely changed the way we interact.

Some of our closest friends are the people we rarely see but chat with on a daily basis over text message or social media. And since communication and relationship building are no longer limited to our geographical location, technology is also changing the way the workspace operates.

When you’re a remote team, you don’t have those camaraderie-building water cooler conversations about hobbies, pop culture, and family, so you have to create space for those chats to happen. In remote and brick-and-mortar offices alike, teams are using Slack to stay in touch and communicate quickly with colleagues.

Slack is great for work-related communication, but it’s also a great tool for the type of water cooler conversation you miss out on without an office.

At my company, we use the #Random Slack channel for non-work related banter, the #Snapz channel for pictures, and the #Dailycute channel for adorable photos of pets and children. Slack has a great Giphy integration where you start a message with /giphy followed by your search term and a relevant gif is inserted. We also like to use customized mushroom emojis.

But ultimately, the most high-impact way to communicate is in person.

If you can’t meet face-to-face, video chat is your next best bet. Regular video conference calls create camaraderie in a way most people are comfortable with today. When you’re able to see the facial expressions that come with a verbal message, you’ll avoid misunderstandings and even bring out laughs.

Personalities just come through much better on video.

If you’ve got a remote team, you have to figure out how to foster fun conversation to keep people entertained.

2. Create resources that showcase the culture.

Establishing a company culture isn’t just about making your existing employees happy — although that’s super important. It’s also about establishing who you are and what you do for potential new team members.

And that can be tough when you’re remote.

At Four Sigmatic, we circulate videos about our culture and nutritional podcasts our team has appeared on to new employees before they even start working with us so they know what they’re getting into. We also create educational resources like our Mushroom Academy — our blog where employees and customers alike can learn about the magical world of functional mushrooms.

But the most important thing we do is bring in new hires to one of our two office locations for onboarding. After that, we take them to a trade show or demo. These are great ways to get my oncoming team to interact with customers and the product, even though it’s not a core part of their job.

A note about conferences: In my opinion, conferences just don’t do as much for your team as you might think. They tend to be more passive and probably aren’t the best way to engage with your industry or company. Instead, focus on events where your team will be actively interacting with customers and colleagues. I find these to be much more impactful.

To create a remote workplace culture, you have to be proactive and go the extra mile.

3. Get everyone together when you can.

Individualism is on the rise — which contributes to the remote lifestyle — but humans are social creatures and still want to be part of a team. So even if your team is remote, it’s still really important to make in-person interaction happen whenever possible.

Team summits are a great way to establish camaraderie. At Four Sigmatic, we have them three times a year. We also host off-site events to bring people together.

These in-person events can be used to work through pain points, build trust, and collaborate using tools like whiteboards and diagrams. The most valuable part and the main goal of bringing everyone together is team bonding and building trust. If you do it well, your team will walk away more confident they can work through issues that arise together.

If you’re a company leader with a remote team, like me, don’t delude yourself thinking that culture will magically happen. You have to work for it, and it’s not always easy.

But it’s worth it when you’ve got a team that’s happy and working for more than the paycheck.