In business, company culture drives behavior, and behavior drives outcomes. A high-value, performance-based culture may help an organization rise, but a poor or inconsistent culture can push it oppositely – compounding the difficult situations in which many business executives currently find themselves.
NetworkESC is recognized for having an intriguing, world-class culture - which hasn't changed even though we've had to modify some of our standard techniques.
Here are three suggestions for preserving business culture in a remote work environment:
Identify and replicate the consistent elements of your winning culture.
What are the commendable aspects of your company that make individuals pleased to represent you and your brand? Why do members of the team appreciate working there? Recognize these elements and build on them in a distant environment.
For example, if your staff has traditionally valued a flexible schedule, make sure that choice is still available. If your company used to get together for happy hour on Fridays, hold a virtual happy hour. If customer service is an important part of your culture, keep sharing and celebrating testimonials.
Find a strategy to keep the admirable parts alive while still emphasizing and focusing on your high performance and winning metrics.
Over-communicate and set a vision.
It is now more critical than ever to convey what is going on within your firm and beyond. During this period of uncertainty, both team members and team leaders are likely to experience anxiety. Layout a vision for how the business is adjusting and what's going on in different teams — and what the positive development will look like as a consequence.
For example, a corporation may hold a daily standing huddle at 11:00 a.m. They communicate customer and team member compliments, core value tales, corporate news, KPIs, department updates, and rock (quarterly target) updates. This group check-in helps all team members to have a daily pulse on the business. Now that they are distant, they host the daily 11:00 huddle via Zoom.
Your organization does not need to have a daily huddle, but it should find a mechanism to convey business developments, whether that is through communication channels other than emails, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, all-staff web meetings, or a combination of the aforementioned. Ongoing communication will illuminate the route forward, relieve tension, reduce gossip, and assist the team is focusing on generating business results.
Don’t neglect remote human connections outside of work.
Members of the team like spending time together outside of work, even if it is digitally. They organize a variety of activities that their coworkers are welcome to attend. Let's suppose there was a "Wine-Down Wednesday" yoga class, a group meditation session, and a "lunch n' play" trivia contest this week. These activities take place around lunchtime, after work, or during a break in the day. It's a terrific method for team members to engage on a personal level outside of business and create connections while spending valuable socially separated time together.
Reach out to NetworkESC professionals to learn more about building an engaging workspace.
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