When you drive, you would have noticed the road signboards. If it is your usual route, you would just look at the sign for confirmation and go on your way.

But what if it is a new path, you would look for signs to follow, to reach the destination, and to stay on the track.

Now, that is your company culture. It is the night light that illuminates the path for your organization when the darkness is surrounded. And its presence is just felt like salt when everything is going well.

Research suggests that around 42.5 of the global workforces would work remotely permanently by 2022. And, another study reveals that around 25% of organizations in a survey have planned to move a part of their workforce to entirely remote even after the COVID ends.

Remote working, despite being one of the popular workforce trends, has been increasingly implemented across the globe only during the pandemic as there was no other option left to sustain the business. However, to most businesses, this method of working seemed profitable and productive. But to some, it is otherwise.

Remote working has made life easier in the following ways.

1. The commuting time is being focused on upskilling the employees.

2. Work-life balance is maintained well by the employees of the companies that are aware of the thin line between personal and professional lives.

3. Flexibility. Since employees work from home, they must cater to the needs of their family members too. Many organizations have started understanding them and let employees work in their flexible hours.

4. The employees are more productive in an ideal remote working scenario. (When employee engagement is taken care of.)

Know Your Employees’ Culture Scores

When employees work remotely, taking frequent surveys to ensure that they are engaged and also live out the core values of the business in their day-to-day lives is absolutely mandatory. Employee disengagement costs a lot to the company.

Besides, a company culture keeps the employees together, no matter where they work from. Only when the employees are united and work together, the business shall grow. Well, what can be done to strengthen the company culture?

Calculate the Cultural Adherence Level. Employees can rate their peers’ adherence level to the company culture. Also, the managers and other stakeholders can also take part in the rating process. This data can be leveraged to plan strategies on how to reinforce the organization’s core values among the workforce.

Employee Engagement Survey. The employees who take company core values seriously would often be engaged but there are always tough times. That makes it difficult for them to focus. There would be no proper work environment and also if they incessantly confront the negatives of remote working, they would be demotivated. Therefore, the employee engagement surveys can help to identify the concerns of the employees and take proper action on the issues to enhance employee experience.

Embrace the Right Technology. You have to abandon the manual processes of requesting the employees to fill in forms, which you would go through and collect the data single-handedly after days of work. You have to switch to innovative tools to do that. Combining technology and processes improves the quality of the work environment and engages the employees.

Regular Meetings to Promote Collaboration

Collaboration and effective communication, which are inherent parts of every company culture, should not be forgotten while working remotely. The management should come up with more novel ideas to promote collaboration and have effective communication plans in place. Here are a few that could help you.

Continuous Check-ins. Managers should get in touch with their remote employees frequently like twice a week. They should try to learn more about the employees and make the environment comfortable enough for the employee to open up about his/her thoughts. This would employees bring hyper-personalization while forming strategies or adopting new business operations.

Video Calls Among Team Members. The watercooler conversations are almost impossible while working remotely during the physical distance. Having a video call with the entire team and chattering could have a great positive impact on the employees’ mental health, and this approach ensures effective collaboration and communication.

Transparency and Open Culture. All-hands meeting every month is essential for the employees to feel connected to the organization. Being transparent about every single decision and plan builds mutual trust and loyalty. Also, the superiors should take the inputs of the employees with an open mind to create an awesome company culture that loves innovation.

Rewarding the Employees Should be a Must-Have Plan

All employees want recognition for their work. That is in human DNA. The human resources department should build a robust Rewards and recognition process to instantly appreciate the extra efforts of the employees. That is also a way of communication that spreads a strong positive message to all the remote workers: “Yes! We are noticing every single detail about you. We cherish you!”

If the employees complete the goals with flying colors or do something unimaginable for the team, which has had a great positive impact on the team, the managers and superiors should take time to come forward and announce the achievement to encourage the employee and motivate others.

You can send a thank you mail to the employee’s home. How about a small gift that does not cost too much? If your budget permits, a small bonus or some gift that the employee really desires. This strategy builds a strong culture, where both employers and employees trust each other, thus, decreasing the employee turnover rate and increasing productivity.

In a Nutshell

If you are running a huge business in this century, you must think like the workforce today and build a powerful culture to keep them engaged and together. Remember Peter Drucker’s words? Culture eats strategy for breakfast, which implies if there is no planned and well-maintained company culture, there is no use in developing good strategies.

To bring in any new change, a long-lasting and tough organizational culture is indispensable.