Let’s talk about company culture. How do you cultivate a great company culture when your team is dispersed – perhaps across a country (like Team Fleep), perhaps across the globe.
But first, here’s a big picture question for you:
Why do people choose to work for your company?
Is it because they love what you’re building together and they want to help it succeed?
Because they have respect and warmth for their team mates and genuinely enjoy working alongside them?
Or, deep down, is it simply because you pay them better than other companies in your field?
Because they’re hoping the experience will help them crack into the field or role that they actually care about?
Companies that have a strong sense of shared culture know why their employees choose to work for them. They know that they hired the people specifically because they share goals, values and personality traits.
Creating a company culture that everyone on the team buys into makes your team far more unified and productive. It makes it easier to trust people to get on with the job in hand. It reduces staff turnover and helps you to grow.
But for companies whose teams are geographically dispersed or work remotely, the big question is: how do we stay on the same page when we’re not even in the same room?
A decade ago, this would have been a hard one to answer.
International corporations used to spend hundreds of thousands to fly their staff from country to country for meetings, workshops, conferences and team-building sessions designed to crack this very nut.
But these large-scale events and meetings are hugely expensive – and there’s little evidence that they have much of an impact on how teams in different locations collaborate with one another.
Disconnect, hostility and buck-passing between separate teams in different countries is something that you need to tackle in your day-to-day work practices, not in big gestures once a year.
But the exciting thing is that, with the technology we now have at our disposal, you can bridge the gaps – and you can do it with even the most modest of budgets.
Leading a team that shares the same vision is all about regular contact in the present. It means keeping up the conversation, and making sure that everyone is involved, engaged and on track.
It means adopting project management methods that give your team the space to create – to be autonomous, self-motivated and productive.
In many ways, working remotely makes this easier, not harder.
By taking your business communication online, using app-based systems like Fleep, you send out the message that you trust team members to produce great work… and that they’re ultimately responsible for getting stuff done.
You foster a culture of accountability. Of transparency. Of hard work.
But at the same time, by developing a system that keeps everyone in the loop and is accessible from any device, you’re also saying: Hey, I’ve got your back.
You’re telling employees that they’re not stuck out there on their own. You’re telling them, let us know what’s going on and we’ll tackle it together.
You’re creating the kind of working environment that people aren’t only drawn to working in, but one that they’ll want to stay working in for years to come.
So next time someone asks you why people come and work for you, you’ll know just what to tell them.
