Remote working has many benefits, but one of its biggest drawbacks is the lack of social connection. People enjoyed talking to one another over lunch, collaborating at a table and generally working around others, they see as part of their team. You can still provide this company culture in your tech or gaming company, but you need to work on what tools to use and what methods will best help you engage your remote staff.
Knowing how to engage remote employees and recreate your company culture can help keep them passionate about what they do, and creative in their everyday.
Improve Communication
To even start improving your digital company culture, you need first to perfect the communication methods that you use. The right video conferencing tool can work well to recreate the meeting and team strategizing experience, only in the comfort of pajamas and at home. Don’t be too strict on employees either; if they want to use video or just voice call is up to them and gives them the comfort to get used to communicating and engaging online.
The tools you will want to start with are the video conferencing tool, a direct and instant messaging tool, and of course, an internal communications platform. The intranet, in particular, can help provide purpose, alignment, and community to your employees.
Host Digital Activities and Events
Improving communication isn’t the only way to connect employees. When it comes to how to connect remote employees, the emotional element matters. You need to have fun at work. Being serious and trying to work diligently won’t last long, especially without any of the normal distractions and breaks in place that employees were accustomed to at work.
That’s why to facilitate these water-cooler moments and generally just to give your employees something fun to enjoy throughout the day try to host digital activities and events. You can have the cutest dog contest or have an ongoing tournament for a game that your employees can enjoy on their breaks or after work to see who can get the highest score. Highest score wins a prize.
Instead of Friday night drinks, you can pay for an online experience like a tasting session or dance class and have all of your employees participate remotely. There are so many ways to take what was great about your company culture and translate it to the online world. You just need to be creative.
Keep Track of Milestones
Productivity suites can help you keep track of what your employees have done and how hard they are working. Make a note of a few milestones that each type of role or employee working with you could reasonably hit, and celebrate when they do. Celebrations can be as simple as an email acknowledging their hard work, to a complimentary takeaway lunch sent to their door.
Milestones can even be standard events, like birthdays or your employees’ job anniversary. Celebrating your employees like this shows you care and are taking note of the effort they are putting in.