Over recent years companies and organisations have been shifting toward hybrid and remote work. Even though many workers claim to enjoy working remotely, maintaining a strong culture startup when everyone is scattered throughout the world presents significant difficulty for the business.
Company culture is vital as it influences how your employees and customers perceive you and greatly determines your business’s success. Here are some startup culture examples and strategies to start and build a startup culture while working remotely.
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What is a remote culture startup?
Think of remote work culture as an extension of your overall company culture, including everything from your startup culture values and standards, how employees communicate, their behavioural patterns and habits, and more.
You might use similar tools and workflows as other businesses, but each company has its own culture.
Certainly, sustaining a strong startup work culture is much more difficult when everyone is dispersed worldwide. Still, it’s worth it because businesses implementing this philosophy usually see lower staff churn and higher revenues.
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8 Tips for creating a successful remote culture for startups
In some ways, it’s simpler if you’re a fully remote company because there won’t be any discrepancy between remote and in-office staff. Here are some approaches for successfully developing a remote culture.
1. Communicate the mission and goals precisely
If everyone on the team knows the company’s mission, developing a high-performing remote culture will be much simpler. Decide concisely and clearly to explain that mission, communicate it with your staff, and continue reinforcing it. It reminds individuals of the importance of what they’re achieving together.
2. Prioritise meaningful work
In a remote team, it’s simple for a person to feel they need to respond to calls immediately to show that they are actively remaining engaged. However, it’s necessary to agree that everyone has space to carve out time for purposeful tasks that require uninterrupted attention.
It’s crucial to define boundaries among remote teams. You can decide together how to do it: time blocks on the schedule or a full weekday with no conferences and meetings.
3. Have a robust set of remote work policies
It’s more challenging for a distributed team to understand the nuances of your culture, so it’s crucial to document the vision and how you will implement it. Design several “work rules” that represent remote culture, and make it simple to understand for new members as well as old hands.
When your remote work policy is documented, it becomes much more concrete, and everybody will know what they should do and how they should behave. To cover all the bases, seek input from the entire team when you draw it up.
The policy must include rules on appropriate language and content in communications, standards around flexibility, etiquette for video conferencing, etc.
4. Address potential mental health issues among your employees
You need to take more steps to support the good mental health of your remote employees and pay attention to work-life balance issues. Remote workers may face loneliness, longing for their old workplace, a lack of daily coworker engagement, and worries about their future employment and financial stability.
Employers can combat these mental health problems by reinforcing their culture of caring, consideration, empathy, and gratitude. They should encourage their staff to use employee assistance programs (EAPs), check in often on how they are doing, and continue taking mental health days for rest when they need time to regroup.
5. Encourage casual discussions
Fun conversations in meetings will benefit both you and your team. You’ll all experience a stronger sense of unity and support. Inquire whether they have had any significant life changes. Did someone move into a new living space? What is the most recent TV show or movie that they consistently watch? What amusing behaviours have their dogs or young children displayed?
Making time for more casual conversations might bring distant employees much closer. Beyond working, you’re truly getting to know each other.
6. Communicate clearly and quickly
This is crucial wherever you work, but it’s essential in a work-from-home setting. You won’t be able to answer the queries of whoever walks into your office. Employees who are partially or entirely working from home must be fully informed of what’s going on.
Motivate those who work with you to reach out if they’re uncertain about anything. Write out what each employee must accomplish in as much detail as possible if you are not instructing them over a call.
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7. Gather feedback regularly and make modifications
If you are not experienced in operating a virtual team, chances are you won’t get everything right the first time. Every remote worker should be asked to pay close attention to the process and report on what worked and didn’t. This will enable you to enhance the hiring procedure for your future hires.
You don’t need to stop gaining criticism after employees are fully hired. Establish regular feedback expectations. Ask for it frequently, evaluate your performance, pay attention to your staff, and make modifications. You’ll benefit from this constructive feedback culture, and your team will feel more comfortable speaking out and being heard.
8. Create mentorship programs
Providing support for employees to develop and learn from their peers is one of the most crucial elements of creating trust and a sense of community in a remote team. Include practises that will allow individuals and the group to develop: talk about each person’s goal during a performance review and establish a metric to track progress, or schedule time each week for frequent lunch and learns.
Final thoughts
Startups have a clear advantage over larger businesses regarding remote work. You can skip the transition period and hire people already prepared to work remotely in startup vs corporate culture.
But keep in mind how crucial it is to establish and grow your company’s culture. You’ll be able to retain staff, increase revenue, and create a feeling of connection and satisfaction throughout the organisation.
Also, the toxic startup culture can harm the firm’s overall development. Constructing the best startup culture while working from home necessitates more effort than in the office.
