7 Examples to Help You Build a High Performance Remote Culture

Never before has company culture been as important as it is today.

In today’s hyper-connected social media environment, we are instantly informed of company culture don’ts (think Uber CEO’s rampant disregard for others and UploadVR’s sex room ) as well as the highly coveted dos (think Ruby Receptionists and Airbnb CEO’s push for a more visible customer feedback experience). 

If you are a business owner or high performing executive, it’s almost certain that you want to differentiate your company in order to draw in and keep top talent.

So, what do you need to do to create a strong company culture?

Explore the 7 company culture examples below…

7 KEYS TO BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMANCE REMOTE CULTURE

Fostering a strong company culture in any organization can be challenging, but it’s even more difficult with a remote workforce.

Here are 7 company culture examples that will help you create a high performance remote culture.

#1 Weekly rituals and a culture of continuous feedback

It’s always important to go beyond the business and have fun.

Weekly sales updates and marketing reports are very important, but have fun with your presentation of these (and other) necessary documents. Celebrate the small wins, and definitely call out all of the people who make such wins possible. A great way to do this is to send out regular emails to the team highlighting “wow” moments, which are moments that truly go above and beyond the regular call of duty. 

When it comes to the big wins, make sure to GO BIG! Recognize your employees for providing great service and for receiving positive feedback from clients. Provide your employees with the ability to nominate their colleagues for hard work, great attitudes, and consistent team collaboration. 

#2 Over-communicate

In business, it’s best to over-communicate when working with a remote team.

Before we jump into this topic, it bears mentioning that over-communicating does not equal micromanaging. Over-communicating provides clarity meant to inform and instruct while micromanaging seeks to control every part of an event, activity, conversation, task and so on. 

It’s difficult to go wrong by repeating, re-repeating and/or clarifying information. When preparing to work with a remote team, keep these four tips in mind:

• Establish Your Workflow: create and manage enhanced workflows that will move your business forward
• Create Solid Systems: document all of your processes and systems via training manuals and internal wikis
• Use Remote Collaboration Tools: harness the capabilities of remote collaboration to stay productive and effective
• Check In Daily: email your assistant and/or team members with anything from updated instructions that will further streamline your processes and tasks to clarifying expectations to canceling a task altogether and replacing it with another

When working with a remote team it is important to over-communicate and let people know when you:

• Receive a Project: take a moment to send a reply email saying you received the project, and let others know you understand their communication; this is called ‘closing-the-loop,’ which is a basic component of strong communication
• Anticipate Completing a Project: when projects aren’t able to be completed quickly (e.g. within the current day), it is a best practice to keep your teammates and managers up-to-date on the progress you are making in addition to the anticipated completion date 
• Have New Information: if you have information on the project that will substantially affect when or how it will be completed, communicate that immediately
• When a Project is Complete: when you complete the task assigned related to the project, it is important to ‘close-the-loop’ and let the person who is expecting the update know you’ve completed it

#3 The more face time the better

Emailing, instant messaging, texts, and phone calls are great tools for communicating with remote team members. But face time can’t be understated. 

Put simply, there is no replacement for in-person collaboration. Yet, video conferencing software can ensure that you maximize your face time, albeit remotely.

The advancements in video conferencing software have made it easy and practical to use video for remote communication. So whenever possible, try to use video conferencing software to connect with clients, partners, colleagues, and prospective clients. 

Here are a few resources to help you dig deeper into this particular aspect of building a high performing company culture:

5 Reasons Why Zoom Provides the Best Video Conferencing Software

Top 5 Free Video Conferencing Tools for 2017: Pros and Cons

#4 Have a clear and compelling vision for stakeholders

A clear vision that resonates with your employees as well as your clients will drive your business forward. A strong and shared vision gives purpose and guides employees to make decisions that best align with the vision of the company.

In the countries from which we provide virtual assistant services, Quickskill’s style of outsourcing is at the leading edge of the industry. That’s because we aren’t just looking for people in seats to answer customer support lines. Instead, we hire and train employees who receive continuous learning in many business processes and high tech tools.

We offer meaningful work supporting North American executives, and a clear path for advancement. Working for Quickskill builds marketable international business skills, which are necessary for developing any modern career.

#5 Creating a culture where everyone has a voice

All the experts agree that autonomy in the work place drives engagement, so why not focus on making it easy for all employees to contribute and share their ideas…?

Allowing employees to have a voice in your organization will generate deeper employee engagement and satisfaction.

Here are a few resources to help you dig deeper into this particular aspect of building a high performing company culture:

Facilitating Happiness: Building a Cross-Border Community at Work

Managing Happiness: Does Meaning Really Matter More than Money?

Managing Happiness in a Global Workplace

#6 Create space for non-work related collaboration

Collaboration is crucial to the success of your organization, so it’s important to make sure you carve out time for team building activities.

Non-work-related activities, like volunteering together can help foster better communication and collaboration amongst your team, which improves overall performance. It also contributes to building a sense of community and belonging, and generates a deep sense of purpose. 

#7 Commit to and prioritize creating a great culture! 

This aspect of building a high performing company culture is the most important one of all, since anything short of commitment and prioritization will not take your company’s culture to the next level. 

It’s not enough to know you need to work on your company culture. If you don’t have time to implement and manage the process of building an enviable company culture, delegate! This can be accomplished by forming an internal committee, nominating one or two employees to manage the process, or adding this “task” to an existing employee’s job description. 

If you’d really like to build a strong company culture that can stand the tests of time, consider hiring someone to specifically manage this aspect of your company. Or hire a virtual assistant to manage your ongoing, repeatable tasks (expense reporting, prospect outreach, calendar scheduling) so you’ll have more time to build your company culture. 

CONCLUSION

Creating and maintaining a company culture that leads by example can be a challenge, but resources and examples abound to help you achieve this lofty goal.

If you suffer from a lack of time to implement any of the above aspects of a successful company culture, you may want to hire a virtual assistant to take tasks off your plate in order to free up your time. 

Want to learn more?