We don’t talk (enough) about company culture in the age of remote work

We don’t talk (enough) about company culture in the age of remote work 

⇛ Chances conversations on the hallway

⇛ Informal moments throughout the day

⇛ Lunch with your peers and colleagues

⇛ The “meeting” after the meeting 

Those are the moments that create culture.

And those culture-creating moments have been sparse for the past few years. 

We talk a lot about remote work and its impact on productivity, on mindset, on creativity. But we are not talking enough about the impact of remote work ON CULTURE. 

And try as we might, we can’t create culture by:

• Sending beautifully created emails about core values

• Conducting virtual, waste-of-time, team building exercises

• Creating powerpoints describing what our culture should look like

(Have you tried it too?)

When we work remotely, we need to be really proactive about creating those informal culture-building moments. 

Because if we don’t, they won’t happen. We’ll be going from zoom room to zoom room, grateful when the day is over. 

So how do we intentionally build culture when we work remotely?

Here’s how one of my clients did it. 

She said to her team:

I'm going to be on Zoom on Wednesdays, from 2-4pm, doing work. Whoever wants to join me is welcome. You could be silent and just get your work done. You could ask some questions, we could talk about how the day is going.

What she was trying to do was simulate that everyone was in the office together, because that’s where informal conversations happen naturally. 

Others have tried happy hours. Company trivia night. Or virtual lunches - all to encourage those spontaneous, no-agenda conversations. And this builds cohesion and team culture.

What are you doing to build culture remotely?