Your company’s culture is such an integral part of operations - some would argue it’s an equal contributor to staff engagement (along with such “traditional” elements like compensation and benefits). Keeping your team engaged, responsive, and productive is even more important while in a sudden remote capacity and while in a pandemic. Not only is your team adapting to a new work environment, but also they are likely experiencing significant stressors that will compete for their focus. Typical team building activities like potluck lunches or happy hours need to be reimagined to fit the new office culture climate. Standard one-on-ones need to address additional areas of performance ability. Even watercooler chats need to be reimagined due to CDC guidelines.

The first thing to consider when you are evaluating your company’s culture while remote is to have a baseline understanding of what your culture and employee engagement was like prior to March 2020. You cannot know which areas to strengthen or adapt if you don’t know a baseline.

Some essential questions to answer would be:

• Are there clear mission, vision, value statements that direct team members to the core purpose for their contribution to the organization?
• Did your employees seem enthusiastic about work and their team members?
• Did you have established and recurring team building activities?
• Did supervisors have recurring one-on-ones with their team, and did the team feel they could speak constructively during those meetings?
• Are there clear digital systems and communication tools in place to allow our teams to function effectively?
• How often did the team hear from upper management regarding business performance and job security?

In order to see how far you need to go, you need to honestly see where you are starting from. Business owners have always had to adapt to sudden changes. Now is the time to make sure you are structuring it so that all your team can successfully navigate these changes along with you.

More than a Motto: Mission/Vision/Value Statements

A basic building block of almost any business plan is the mission/vision/value statements. Your mission statement concisely tells others what you do, for whom, and how you do it. Your vision statement concisely tells others what you aspire your impact to be. Your value statement concisely tells others what the priorities are for the company. It is very likely that you have all three of these in some form, somewhere. It is critical to culture that you not only make your team aware of these, but also that you make business decisions in line with these three statements. This authenticity to your fundamental business will actually help build a base trust among employees - or rather, not being authentic to these statements will chip away at their ability to trust what you say. If you don’t walk the walk on your own company, why would they believe that you are going to walk the walk in any other area?

Review your mission/vision/value statements and make sure they are inline with how you do business today, plan for business tomorrow, and motivate your staff with their contributions to the organization’s goals.

Rah Rah: Employee Enthusiasm

Some people are just cheery, baseline. Always engaged, always find a way to dig deeper and produce more with a smile. This area doesn’t relate to them. They are terrific, but outliers.

Some people live in a perpetual state of Monday gloom. They do their work, generally keep their head down, but don’t really inspire others and likely are okay with that. This area doesn’t relate to them. They are a valid member of the team, but outliers.

Most people always fall somewhere in the middle of any extreme. I would compare them to the fans in a stadium for a free concert - they are willing to be engaged but need to be presented something! They aren’t always vocalizing support, but just them being there shows they are open and ready. This section is about them. This is your team that just needs encouragement, some attempts at engagement, and a chance to relate to their team members!

Consider if in February 2020 you had all Monday grumps (unlikely), all cheery peppy (unlikelier), or were your employees mostly those free concert ticket holders? Also consider if you even ever cared about their enthusiasm before now. If you didn’t, while not ideal, there is always a chance for an authentic revision to tone. It is important to understand where your staff was and then begin to meet them where they are now. Frankly, we all are under incredible stress, competing priorities, and a lot of fatigue. It is hard to feel enthused about much, let alone work; however, that little spark of enthusiasm is important to identify in your team and to nurture!

Time “Together”: Recurring Team Building

Potluck, birthday cake, and happy hours have long been the standard team building. Throw in an annual night out at a ballgame or escape the room and you have a great offering of team building activities for any group. All of these cease to be options when in a fully remote capacity, but there are still lots of opportunities to get the team (digitally) together for some bonding and fun.

First, consider the frequency of events that you typically would have - and at least match it. Your team will innately not be able to have casual interactions in a remote environment. These team building events are important to the comradery of your team.

Second, evaluate how much you can spend for these revised events and remember that there is a lot of free team building! Consider free or low spend events like remote happy hours over video conferencing, team trivia over Kahoot, or even remote lunch hours. If your budget is larger, there are options companies that have pivoted to digital team building activities like digital tours, escape the rooms, or even code breaking activities. Match your team, your budget, and the level of time you can commit.

Third, remember that consistency is key. This should not be a time when you do 4 events in a month and then nothing for the rest of the year. It is better to plan and deliver one event every other month to give the team something to look forward to.

Finally, pay staff for team building time. A strong team is a benefit to your business. The staff is spending time together ultimately to facilitate better business and they need to be compensated for this. Further, try to limit these activities to normal business hours and not into the night or weekend. Nothing breaks a team building mood more than making it feel like forced fun on a weekend!

More than Coffee Talk: Supervisor Check-Ins

A one-on-one with a supervisor can be intimidating or productive. The supervisor can only give directions or ask for feedback. It can be a waste of time or can allow for transparency.

Especially while remote, these regular check-ins are a critical time to get insight into how your team is working. A supervisor should not only be asking “typical” check-in questions, but also should add areas relating to working remotely.

Additional remote questions could include:

• Do you have the needed supplies to complete your work?
• Are there any other supplies (software/hardware/equipment) that could help you?
• If applicable/appropriate: Is there any schedule accommodations you may need, that we should be aware of?

It is also important to have larger team check-ins. Many companies utilize small group stand-ups at the start of the day so that each team member is aware of the other’s priorities for the day. These should be as brief as possible as they are not a replacement for a project meeting or deeper discussion - but serve to help orient the whole team. While remote this can prove to be especially helpful as you can’t casually discuss work in the same way. Every communication tends to be purposeful and more formal.

Technology is Your Friend: Digital Systems/Communications Tools

Perhaps the biggest way to support your team is to ensure that there is a complete offering of digital tools to help them do their work. Aside from the standard email communications, there should be an internal communication tool (e.g. Slack/Teams) and any cloud based file sharing (e.g. O365 or Google). While standard for most companies, there are many that have worked on legacy licenses of office systems rather than convert to cloud based systems. In times like these, the digital cloud allows your team to work together while being remote.

Also make sure that there is a reasonable ability to process any forms. Your staff may not have access to printers/scanners at home and unless you will offset some of this cost, or it was a condition of employment, you likely should work to add software that can facilitate their transition (example: Adobe Acrobat).

Your Time to Lead: Management Communication

There are many business truisms: that it is cheaper to retain an employee than hire a new one, a happy employee generally produces more, co-workers work harder for those they respect.

Ultimately, an employer is responsible for reasonable work accommodations and fair wage. A true leader, however, looks past that minimum requirement to a standard where their staff can excel.

Make sure that you don’t just rely on your management team to communicate for you as a leader. You have a voice, use it to speak to your staff. With current events changing rapidly, workforces appreciate a stable work environment and communication about that - perhaps now more than ever.

If your staff only heard your name at an annual holiday meal, now is the time to add in quarterly virtual chats with the CEO. This can be a quick 10 minute call with the team or recorded video. These should be focused messages, from a place of security, to provide a feeling of comfort for your team. Even if the times are uncertain, working for a competent leader that speaks directly to staff provides confidence in the business’ ability to persevere through the uncertainty.

Ultimately: Communicate and Be Consistent with Culture

Supporting your staff in a meaningful way will ultimately help strengthen your business. If you are able to establish some ways to strengthen communication, improve employee enthusiasm, and ultimately keep your staff engaged - working remote can be a safe, productive, and profitable business decision!