Building a great team culture is vital to the success of any endeavor. This is true whether you are assembling a team who might work together for years, or are simply joining up to complete a single project. Any team can run into difficulties coming together, but remote teams face unique challenges.
This can be attributed to many things. The lack of face to face contact can contribute to miscommunications. Remote teams are also more likely to deal with regional, cultural, and other differences that can complicate relations. It’s also difficult to develop friendly connections between team members who cannot share time with one another. Remote teams can’t meet up for launch or catch a ball game together.
In spite of the challenges, successful remote teams are assembled all the time, and their leaders are able to create a cohesive culture that allows everybody to work well together. The following are some tips that you can use to make this happen in your own organization.
Culture is Largely About Work Style: Hire Wisely
The cost of hiring an employee is expensive. Failing to retain them can be even more expensive. In fact, it could cost you 30K or more to lose an employee making 60K per year. One key reason that employees either quit or must be terminated is an inability to work with the team they are on.
Yes, there are outliers. There are folks who do to various personality issues simply cannot work any team. However, in many cases the employee who didn’t work out simply did not have a work style that meshed with their team. This is why it’s important to take steps to flesh this out before making a final hiring decision.
Share Information About Work Culture in Recruiting And Interviewing
When creating job listings, don’t just describe duties, hours, benefits, and wages. Let people know the work environment they should expect. Does your remote team need to be energetic, self motivated, outgoing, and possess a wicked sense of humor? How has the team developed so far? It might be a good idea to introduce candidates to existing team members so they can get a feel for things. If they know they aren’t going to be a fit, they will likely voluntarily remove themselves from consideration.
Ask Candidates About Their Interests And Prefered Work Style
Should you take a candidate off the table because they don’t enjoy baseball the way your other team members do? Of course not, but it’s much easier to help the team leaders in your company do their jobs if new hires have some common ground with their new coworkers.
Get Feedback From Team Leaders And Team Members
Sometimes a project just needs to get done. You may not always have the luxury of bringing on a remote team member who is a perfect fit. On the other hand, if you are looking to create a great remote team, who is better qualified to let you know whether or not someone is going to fit in than their future co workers. Hence, consider initially hiring for short-term contracts and afterwards transferring the new members on the payroll. ContractWorks is a good tool to help you manage and store all the digital contracts securely.
Try to Set Up in Person Get Togethers
If expenses allow for it, consider bringing team members together. This might be a few times during the year, or at the beginning or end of a project. You can bring people face to face, set up some team building activities, or simply plan an enjoyable event where remote team members can get to know one another, tour your corporate facility, and even meet collocated staff members.
Of course, if you cannot get all team members together in a central location, there are other options. You might be able to arrange regional get togethers. This won’t only contribute to bonds being formed, simply seeing team members getting together and enjoying one another’s company can be motivating for an entire team.
Here’s something else to consider. If you have groups of remote employees living in the same area, you might consider looking into coworking spaces. These are leased workspaces, contracted usually on a month to month or other short term basis. The cost of renting these spaces is quite low. Remote teams who are able to access these can work in the same space as other team members in their area. Coworking spaces often include access to shared areas such as conference rooms, lounges, and local events.
Focus on Deliverables to Build Trust
Managers and team leaders rely on you for guidance in developing a sense of trust between team members. Successful teams consist of members who are confident in each other. The best way to establish trust is simple and uncomplicated.
Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it. If you cannot, let people know and take ownership of any fallout.
Encourage managers to create an atmosphere of accountability. Also, encourage them to push the idea of communication. Once they can achieve a balance between, bring your deliverables and do our part, and we take up slack and step up when we need too; they will be golden.
Make Technology Your Ping Pong Table
It might be something that is mocked now, but the truth is putting ping pong tables in the break room actually makes sense. Encouraging employees to enjoy some recreation time and friendly competition is great for team building and morale.
You may not be able to create ping pong or foosball tournaments between remote team members. However, that doesn’t mean that they cannot connect with one another through recreational activities. Online gaming, fantasy football, even social media platforms designed for business like Slack, can create opportunities for relationship building and culture development.
It’s a challenge to create a sense of team and common purpose among people who might work miles or continents away from one another. Hopefully these tips will provide you with both insights and ideas on what it takes to develop an amazing team culture no matter where each employee lives.
