5 ways to keep (remote) work culture strong

We’ve been working 100% remotely for over two years now. Sometimes, it can be easier in a remote culture to get a productive 4–6 hour block of work done during the day. But one of the downsides can be the difficulty of developing and maintaining close relationships with teammates. Conversations are virtual, often brief, and lean toward work-related topics. And social outings and casual conversations at lunch or the coffee pot are no longer routine.

When you’re remote, you really have to work at it. From our experience, here are six ideas to help keep work culture strong when not working in an office together:

1 - Weekly Online Meetings

We have two scheduled Zoom meetings a week with every team member on the call. This provides us two guaranteed times a week to be together as a team, see faces, hear voices, talk about the company, share personal highlights, communicate status updates, and celebrate wins.

Getting together on these calls also allows for opportunities to roadmap new business and open up transparency around what’s on the horizon.

2 - Make Time for Small Talk

In person, it's only natural to connect and share a laugh before the meeting and before you rush out to the next one. It's a quick way to build rapport with each other, something you can take for granted and miss when working remotely.

But, when you hop on a Zoom call, it's too easy to jump right into the business at hand and jump off. Instead, make an effort to buffer a few minutes before or after a zoom meeting for any small talk to keep that rapport going. 

3 - Schedule In-Person Meetups

Seeing each other outside the computer screen window is great to do when possible. Try to stay connected as a team by scheduling monthly happy hours for everyone to get together and share some food, drinks and laughs. 

And in-between the larger get-togethers, encourage smaller groups to organize their own team meet-ups to grab a coffee and touch base.

4 - Take a trip

In July ’21, we took our first company trip since going fully remote in March ’20. We flew to Denver for a few days as a team and spent time brainstorming, sharing ideas, listening to each other’s perspectives, and establishing a focus for the year.

Some of us hiked, others ziplined. It was a blast to explore the city together and see everyone out of our usual, remote comfort zones. So, whether it’s an out-of-town trip or even a stay-cation-style retreat, experiences like these can help people reconnect and strengthen bonds.

5 - Celebrate Wins

Whether it's a success story about your work or a story about crafting some amazing Space Jam donuts for your son's birthday party, we try to celebrate the wins. 

When working remotely, acknowledging and sharing big and small victories, or even personal wins, is easy to overlook. That’s why it becomes that much more important to give everyone the space, on Zoom or in-person, to speak safely and confidently about what’s on their minds and to call out all of the good things happening around them.