The Coronavirus pandemic upended life for billions of people around the world. Businesses of all sizes had to quickly transition to a remote work model to ensure business continuity. With the pandemic showing no signs of slowing anytime soon, remote work is likely to stay a reality for many more months, if not years to come. Employers and employees have overcome technical hurdles in working remotely. Numerous studies have also shown that productivity has gone up as a result of remote work.
However, businesses have had to grapple with how to maintain their corporate culture in a remote environment. After all, employees are much more engaged in companies that have a strong organizational culture. Here are X tips to help you integrate remote work into corporate culture.
1) Hold brief video meetings with both executive and management staff
Such meetings break the drudgery of endless email updates and PowerPoint presentations which appear the same after a while. Ideally, you can shoot for weekly video meetings as they will help your remote employees stay connected with the ethos of your company. They should be brief and should not cross 30 minutes at the maximum. Such meetings will help new team members put a face to the names of their colleagues and bond with each other in a better way.
2) Have monthly or quarterly video meetings with the leaders of your company
Such video meetings should typically be longer meetings whose agenda will be to go into detail regarding company goals and strategies. Allow employees the opportunity to ask questions so that they feel more connected with the leaders. With remote work expected to stay for almost half of Australian businesses even after the pandemic is over, regular virtual interaction with company leaders will help employees stay connected to the company culture.
3) Form online discussion groups
Even though most if not all of your company staff are working remotely, you can still meet virtually. Form online discussion groups to encourage like-minded people to connect with each other. Such groups are valuable for sharing ideas and in getting peer support. Build such discussion groups around topics that are of interest to your employees. You can hold a short survey to identify topics of interest.
4) Provide a stable and secure IT infrastructure for your remote employees
Working remotely poses challenges to both your employees and your IT support team. They’ve been used to working in offices that have a robust IT infrastructure. Without proper IT security measures, working from home may lead to security risks and loss of data privacy. Triofox allows you to enhance your remote workforce productivity by mobilizing your file server. Your remote employees get the advantages of secure remote access, data protection, mobile file sharing, and cloud migration. As a business, any concerns regarding control, compliance, privacy, and security are addressed by using Triofox’s solution.
5) Prepare and circulate a remote work policy to all your employees
If you have remote workers, you need to prepare a formal remote work policy. It should cover topics such as security measures for remote workers, technology and infrastructure requirements, cost savings, productivity expectations, and employee engagement. Work expectations from remote employees should be clearly documented. New hires should be explained each aspect of your remote work policy, and your HR team should have a process in place to ensure that the policy is adhered to.
In Summary
Company culture is invaluable in holding organizations together, especially in trying times like the ones we are going through. Just because your employees are working remotely doesn’t mean they have to work in independent silos losing touch with the rest of the company. Dedicating time and resources towards integrating remote work into your corporate culture will help keep your employees engaged and in line with your company goals.
