How To Build A Strong Remote Working Culture

So, working from home is the new ‘going to work’?

Many businesses are now entering their third week of entire office remote working with the vast majority of these not physically, psychologically or strategically ready for this change. This has created a significant and ongoing period of adjustment for all employees.

It’s been great to see many companies embracing the challenge and rapidly learning about and onboarding new remote working technology while getting the core infrastructure of phones, laptops and system access set up.

With the fundamentals sorted we can then consider how we can work in this new way most effectively while appreciating we are all likely to have higher pressure and anxiety levels due to the growing impact of COVID-19.

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Creating your new plan and routine is key to help reduce the negative feelings.

To help with this adjustment its helpful to focus on:

Our personal mental wellbeing – acknowledging this will need more work as we are all feeling more stressed and anxious
Personal health & fitness
Having fun
Personal motivation – what can work today, next week, longer term?
Updated goal setting – 30, 60, 90 days
Effective remote communication – we’ll likely need to work harder to maintain string work and personal relationships remotely

The last point is really the biggest ‘new’ challenge to overcome to truly thrive as a remote team member and manager.

Video conferencing is our savior here, while it’s been around for years it seems the adoption of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other new start-ups such as Wurkr has rapidly scaled up for many businesses over the last few weeks.

Along with this using chat functions on Slack, Teams, WhatsApp etc will give you two clear ‘more personal’ forms of communication compared to calls and emails.

How do we stop the novelty and format of video calls becoming stale very quickly?

Use the opportunity to get to know your colleagues and contacts more closely, you will often be seeing into their home and chatting to them without the more formal context of the work environment. What’s in their home office and what does this teach you about their interests?
Build variation into your use of video calls, dedicating time specifically for non-work related catch up, exercising together or simply having fun
Build some structure into your team schedule, for when you will catch up and what that will cover. In a time when there is so much change and separation going on this can really help bring a team closer together.

Our employee engagement partner, Engagement Multiplier, have a simple but effective structure for their daily team meetings, asking these questions each day to keep people connected and productive.

Morning meeting

What’s one thing that you are feeling really positive/great about right now?
What are your 3 key focus areas today?
Do you have any questions, concerns, ideas or transferrable insights you’d like to share or discuss?
Any fun thoughts to share?

Afternoon meeting

What have been three things you’ve achieved/feel good about today?
Do you have a win that has been created today as a result of you working from home?
Do you have any questions, concerns, ideas or transferrable insights o share or discuss?
Any fun thoughts to share?

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You can see further thoughts and great advice from them here.

Moving forward we’ll be sharing more guidance on how you can thrive during remote working so keep an eye out for future posts.

We’re also offering FREE COACHING for new remote managers so if this would be helpful to you or any of your team members please follow the link below.