How To Build A Remote Work Culture For Your Organization
As remote work grows, it is important organizations build a remote work culture to accomodate.
A number of organizations are 100% remote. Other organizations are offering (and seeing the benefits of) a flexible workplace, where employees may have the option of working remote a couple of days during the week.
While there are many benefits to having a remote work culture, there are a number of additional challenges that must be considered in building a successful one.
*Update April 24th, 2020*
Due to the Coronavirus, we’ve seen a sharp rise in working from home. See my thoughts on the future of work here.
Source: Unsplash
With this post, we are going to look at the following in regards to building a remote work culture(click below to jump to that section):
- The Benefits of Remote Work.
- The Drawbacks of Remote Work.
- How To Build And Grow A Remote Work Culture.
- Does Remote Work Make Sense For Your Organization?
- Conclusion And Next Steps.
Looking for tips on how to work from home? Here is a post I wrote on six tips you can use to better work from home.
Again, some more thoughts on the rise of remote work with #COVIDー19 . A thread…
— Paul Lopushinsky (@paulplayficient) March 14, 2020
The Benefits of Remote Work.
What has research shown in regards to the benefits of remote work?
- Remote workers rated their happiness level at a 8.1 out of 10, while the average is 7.42.
- 91% of remote workers said they felt they were able to get more done at home than in the office.
Source: A New Happiness Study Makes a Major Case for Working From Home.
- 74% would quit their jobs to work for a different organization that allows them to work remotely more often, even if their salary stayed the same.
Source: Collaboration Unleashed: Softchoice Research Study
Reduced time spent commuting.
During my time as an employee, I was fortunate that the longest commute I had was around 25 minutes. I’ve heard the horror stories of people having far longer and stressful commutes. Working remote? You can kiss those problems goodbye, or greatly reduce them with a flexible office.
Less time commuting = Big Win. Source: Unsplash
Geographical factors (mostly) don’t need to be considered for your talent pool.
As you are not geographically dependent, you’ve just opened up the door for people from all over the world for your organization. While there are some drawbacks on this point (which we will look into), you open yourself up to so much more possible talent.
Higher levels of autonomy.
When employees can work at home, at a coffee shop, a library, or in a hammock on a beach (note: this doesn’t happen often, unlike what those lifestyle bloggers love to sell you), without others bothering them, there’s a lot more flexibility for them in how they get their work done. One of the best things an organization can do is to give employees interesting problems to tackle, while also giving them flexibility in how they decide to tackle these problems. The nature of a remote work culture will increase autonomy in your organization.
Reduced costs.
Office spaces are expensive. With a 100% remote workplace, you don’t have to consider those costs. If you’re a flexible workplace, you don’t need as large of an office as not everyone will be in the office all the time.
That said, I’ve seen a number of organizations also feel that by offering remote positions, they can pay lower salaries. If you do so, shame on you. I will come hunt you down at my earliest convenience.
Ok, if you’re just starting up your organization, that’s fine. As you grow, however? You have no excuse. Yes, you have other expenses to consider that you wouldn’t if you had an office (more on that later), but your costs are still far lower overall. You can take that extra chunk of change to get great talent, as you’re not geographically dependent.
No need to splurge on this when you’re remote friendly. Source: Unsplash
Allowing for flexible schedules.
While offering flexible schedules is something that happens in-office, the nature of remote work makes it easier to be acceptable. If you want to go 7-3, or you start working at noon, you have more options on that front. Like other positives for remote work, this can turn into a negative (more on this point in the drawback section), but with some boundary setting, you can give employees the flexibility to choose their schedule, without facing the issues that can arise as a result.
Work in your pajamas with a dog lying on your lap.
Unless you need to be in a meeting with your boss. Actually, maybe not.
Granted, as someone who works from home, and has had remote roles in the past, working on your couch or in your bed in pajamas doesn’t exactly get you in the mindset for productive work.
Yes, you can totally work like this.
The Drawbacks of Remote Work.
Of course, we must also look at the drawbacks that can arise in a remote work culture. It’s a case of two steps forward, one step back. However, there are a number of ways you can mitigate these drawbacks.
Looking at research and studies:
- Remote employees admitted they felt they didn’t have as strong of relationships with co-workers, rating them at 6.69 out of 10, compared to a 7.75 average.
Source: A New Happiness Study Makes a Major Case for Working From Home.
- 79 percent of employees today (down only five percent) still feel they accomplish their best work at the office.
- Those who feel their best work is at home remains at about one in ten employees.
For many, this is still the preferred place to get work done.
The Time Zone Factor.
While large organizations already deal with this issue, if you’re a small team working across a number of time zones, it can be tricky to find the time to sit down with someone (virtually) to hash out a problem. It may be best to find employees who are close to your time zone.
Granted, if you have flexible schedules, you can find ways to mitigate this problem. On the note of flexible schedules, however…
Over-flexible schedules
If you’re too loosey goosey with your flexible scheduling, you end up with situations where people struggle to find time to meet because of their schedules being different.
To mitigate this issue, I know a number of remote friendly organizations who make use of core hours – there is a (typically) 4-5 hour period where people are expected to be available, and the remaining hours they have can be flexible in their schedule.
The Loneliness Factor
I’ve written in the past about loneliness in the workplace. Despite the fact a number of organizations have workers in open offices side by side, loneliness is still a factor (and has only risen).
Despite the fact that many dread the surface level office chats at the water cooler, there is still something about that human contact that can get lost with a remote work culture.
Yes, you can work here if you’re remote friendly. But do you want to?
How To Build And Grow A Remote Work Culture.
So you want to move forward towards building a remote work culture. Whether you’re a new organization, or an international one, here are things that you can do in making strides towards building a remote work culture.
The issues of slowly dribbling out remote work.
Here’s a common story I’ve seen where organizations end up backing away from remote work.
An employee makes a request for working remote, and it’s accepted. Someone else does the same, and they’re able to as well. A few more try, and they get denied. Perhaps the organization feels the role they’re in isn’t remote friendly, or they don’t want everyone working remote. Before you know it, there’s jealousy and resentment, and those who got the remote options are called back into the office. Nobody wins.
Not pictured: The people in the office who are mad jelly that they can’t do this.
If you’re going to allow for remote work, you can’t half-ass it. You have to give the freedom to everyone.
In the book Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried (*note that this is an affiliate link*), he makes the case for this. You have to go all-in, or not at all, to get the best impact.
What if you’re a large organization? Try a pilot roll out, and see the results. If it makes sense to move forward, then give staff the option. Don’t half-ass it and just offer it to a select few individuals.
How a remote culture can help you focus on what matters.
Too many organizations get caught up with all the fancy perks in the office thinking that is what makes the culture.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. Get that notion that having a ping-pong table in your office counts as culture.
We’ve written before on the topic that you can check out here:
- Forced Fun Is No Fun – So Why Do Organizations Keep It Up?
- How To Transform YOUR Organization Through Play At Work
They’re nice to haves, but they’re not what makes your culture.
If you don’t have a solid foundation of what your culture is, how you get things done, your remote work culture is going to flounder.
With having a remote team, you’re going to have to really hammer down what matters to your organization, and can’t fall back on having a nice office. I’d recommend coming up with a strong culture manifesto at your organization as a result (if you’re looking for somewhere to start, we’ve written on culture manifestos here).
Trust in a remote work culture.
There’s this funny belief that keeps micromanagers up at night. It’s the belief that if people work from home, they’re going to be slacking off. They’re going to take (gasp!) LONGER lunch breaks! They might be watching Netflix! They might take their dog for a walk on company time!
This is what every micromanagers things employees will do if they work remote. Source: Unsplash
Guess what? People already spend plenty of time slacking off in the office. It’s not like it will be something new. Look at all the studies that show how remote workers tend to be more productive.
One interesting note to is that remote workers can be more productive and harder working due to guilt. Yes, this is, unfortunately, a real thing. I wish I could remember which book I read it in, but one of the reasons that remote workers can be so much more productive, is that there is a feeling of guilt that their employer might view them as slackers.
How do you build strong connections in a remote work culture?
There are a number of extra hurdles you need to jump through in regards to remote work. Building strong connections is one of the key aspects that can lead to a great remote work culture, or a poor one. Here are some suggestions that you can do for your organization.
- Ensure that people are having video calls as opposed to just strictly emails or Slack messages. While video chat isn’t as good as face to face (a noticeable % of body language is missed over video chat), it’s still better than just words, gifs, and emojis. I threw up a little in my mouth writing the end of that last sentence.
- Having a buddy system is super important. Buffer, a remote organization, has a culture budddy, and a team buddy for new hires (we’ve covered this in our post on employee onboarding suggestions).
- Ensure that people don’t get caught up in their own little silos. There’s plenty of great tools you can use to randomly match up people (like donut for Slack).
- Have in-person meetups. You might do a handful of these a year. It can be as simple as gathering someone in a city, or you can go all out and have a nice team retreat in some remote forest, a resort, whatever makes sense for your team.
Does Remote Work Make Sense For Your Organization?
This is a question that your organization needs to ask itself.
For a number of reasons, your organization may find that introducing a remote work culture isn’t going to work, and that’s fine.
I googled problems with remote work to find stories of those who were against it, and here’s one I found that was quite interesting. Let’s take a look at some excerpts.
hiring remote full time workers – not for me
If you and I only really know each other via skype chats and emails, you are a conduit to me. Most of our interactions are about what you need from me or what I need from you.
You are someone who helps get something I need done. You are a cost for which I am trying to maximize my return. You are less humanized, I am not saying its impossible, but its harder to humanize someone you’ve never met.
When you have a group of people together in one room, working toward similar goals there is a mutual concern those people should have for one another’s well being. That mutual concern comes from being close to people.
I love when someone hears me working with a co-worker on something and they roll on over and say, hey that sounded cool, I just want to listen in – then 1 or 2 more do, next thing you know 4 people are around learning about something that only one person would have heard, or its even better when someone overhears one of my bad ideas, and starts to give me food for thought, either killing the idea or refining it to make it better.
There is a lot in this article that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can understand where they are coming from in regards to the problems of a remote work culture, and why they made the decision to stay away from it. Give it a read.
Examining organizations that did a rollback on remote work culture.
In 2013, there was a controversial decision made at Yahoo, where recently appointed CEO Marissa Mayer (who was recently poached from Google) decided to roll back on remote work, and expect people in the office. Her reasoning?
“…to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.”
(I will also note that this also comes from the same individual who said you could work 120 hour weeks if you were strategic about when you use the washroom).
IBM shutters remote work: Should you too?
There is only one recipe I know for success, particularly when we are in as much of a battle with Microsoft and the West Coast companies as we are, and that is by bringing great people with the right skills, give them the right tools, give them a mission, make sure they can analyze their results, put them in really creative inspiring locations and set them free…[there] is something about a team being more powerful, more impactful, more creative, and frankly hopefully having more fun when they are shoulder to shoulder. Bringing people together creates its own X Factor.
I’ve seen people argue that because many successful organizations don’t allow for remote work, they shouldn’t as well. Having large organizations like IBM rolling back on it doesn’t help as well.
This is a stupid argument, and if you are against remote work for this reason, I’m going to come mock you.
This is, sadly, again of the FAANG effect in action. Just because it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t mean it will work for you.
On that note, just because there are a number of small organizations who are successful with remote work (like 37signals or Zapier), it doesn’t also mean it’s going to work for your organization.
Again, there is no one size fits all approach. You might find that moving towards a 100% remote office makes sense for your organization. You find that a flexible workplace with options for remote work a few times a week makes more sense. You might also find that remote work just doesn’t make sense for your organization.
Conclusion And Next Steps.
With this post, we’ve taken a look at the following in regards to remote work culture (click to jump back to that section):
- The Benefits of Remote Work.
- The Drawbacks of Remote Work.
- How To Build And Grow A Remote Work Culture.
- Does Remote Work Make Sense For Your Organization?
There is no right answer in regards to building a remote work culture, if you decide to allow for one. There are many best practices, but there are a number of pitfalls that you need to be aware of which I covered in this article.
Moving forward? You need to look at your organization and see if it makes sense for your organization to be remote, of whatever you decide to do.
Looking for some further reading on the subject? Here are some guides coming directly from organizations with strong remote work cultures:
- Why Culture is Everything for Remote Teams (and How to Build a Great One)
- Zapier: How to Build Culture in a Remote Team
- The Remote Work Report by Zapier
- 11 Essential Tips for Managing Remote Employees
- Why You Should Start Building Distributed Teams (or how to convince your company)
What about books?
- Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried
(*note that this is an affiliate link*)
Looking for help in building your remote work culture? We can help you out! Check out our services:
What has research shown in regards to the benefits of remote work?
- Remote workers rated their happiness level at a 8.1 out of 10, while the average is 7.42.
- 91% of remote workers said they felt they were able to get more done at home than in the office. Source: A New Happiness Study Makes a Major Case for Working From Home.
- 74% would quit their jobs to work for a different organization that allows them to work remotely more often, even if their salary stayed the same. Source: Collaboration Unleashed: Softchoice Research Study
Reduced time spent commuting.
During my time as an employee, I was fortunate that the longest commute I had was around 25 minutes. I’ve heard the horror stories of people having far longer and stressful commutes. Working remote? You can kiss those problems goodbye, or greatly reduce them with a flexible office.
Less time commuting = Big Win. Source: Unsplash
Geographical factors (mostly) don’t need to be considered for your talent pool.
As you are not geographically dependent, you’ve just opened up the door for people from all over the world for your organization. While there are some drawbacks on this point (which we will look into), you open yourself up to so much more possible talent.
Higher levels of autonomy.
When employees can work at home, at a coffee shop, a library, or in a hammock on a beach (note: this doesn’t happen often, unlike what those lifestyle bloggers love to sell you), without others bothering them, there’s a lot more flexibility for them in how they get their work done. One of the best things an organization can do is to give employees interesting problems to tackle, while also giving them flexibility in how they decide to tackle these problems. The nature of a remote work culture will increase autonomy in your organization.
Reduced costs.
Office spaces are expensive. With a 100% remote workplace, you don’t have to consider those costs. If you’re a flexible workplace, you don’t need as large of an office as not everyone will be in the office all the time.
That said, I’ve seen a number of organizations also feel that by offering remote positions, they can pay lower salaries. If you do so, shame on you. I will come hunt you down at my earliest convenience.
Ok, if you’re just starting up your organization, that’s fine. As you grow, however? You have no excuse. Yes, you have other expenses to consider that you wouldn’t if you had an office (more on that later), but your costs are still far lower overall. You can take that extra chunk of change to get great talent, as you’re not geographically dependent.
No need to splurge on this when you’re remote friendly. Source: Unsplash
Allowing for flexible schedules.
While offering flexible schedules is something that happens in-office, the nature of remote work makes it easier to be acceptable. If you want to go 7-3, or you start working at noon, you have more options on that front. Like other positives for remote work, this can turn into a negative (more on this point in the drawback section), but with some boundary setting, you can give employees the flexibility to choose their schedule, without facing the issues that can arise as a result.
Work in your pajamas with a dog lying on your lap.
Unless you need to be in a meeting with your boss. Actually, maybe not.
Granted, as someone who works from home, and has had remote roles in the past, working on your couch or in your bed in pajamas doesn’t exactly get you in the mindset for productive work.
Yes, you can totally work like this.
The Drawbacks of Remote Work.
Of course, we must also look at the drawbacks that can arise in a remote work culture. It’s a case of two steps forward, one step back. However, there are a number of ways you can mitigate these drawbacks.
Looking at research and studies:
- Remote employees admitted they felt they didn’t have as strong of relationships with co-workers, rating them at 6.69 out of 10, compared to a 7.75 average. Source: A New Happiness Study Makes a Major Case for Working From Home.
- 79 percent of employees today (down only five percent) still feel they accomplish their best work at the office.
- Those who feel their best work is at home remains at about one in ten employees.
For many, this is still the preferred place to get work done.
The Time Zone Factor.
While large organizations already deal with this issue, if you’re a small team working across a number of time zones, it can be tricky to find the time to sit down with someone (virtually) to hash out a problem. It may be best to find employees who are close to your time zone.
Granted, if you have flexible schedules, you can find ways to mitigate this problem. On the note of flexible schedules, however…
Over-flexible schedules
If you’re too loosey goosey with your flexible scheduling, you end up with situations where people struggle to find time to meet because of their schedules being different.
To mitigate this issue, I know a number of remote friendly organizations who make use of core hours – there is a (typically) 4-5 hour period where people are expected to be available, and the remaining hours they have can be flexible in their schedule.
The Loneliness Factor
I’ve written in the past about loneliness in the workplace. Despite the fact a number of organizations have workers in open offices side by side, loneliness is still a factor (and has only risen).
Despite the fact that many dread the surface level office chats at the water cooler, there is still something about that human contact that can get lost with a remote work culture.
Yes, you can work here if you’re remote friendly. But do you want to?
How To Build And Grow A Remote Work Culture.
So you want to move forward towards building a remote work culture. Whether you’re a new organization, or an international one, here are things that you can do in making strides towards building a remote work culture.
The issues of slowly dribbling out remote work.
Here’s a common story I’ve seen where organizations end up backing away from remote work.
An employee makes a request for working remote, and it’s accepted. Someone else does the same, and they’re able to as well. A few more try, and they get denied. Perhaps the organization feels the role they’re in isn’t remote friendly, or they don’t want everyone working remote. Before you know it, there’s jealousy and resentment, and those who got the remote options are called back into the office. Nobody wins.
Not pictured: The people in the office who are mad jelly that they can’t do this.
If you’re going to allow for remote work, you can’t half-ass it. You have to give the freedom to everyone.
In the book Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried (*note that this is an affiliate link*), he makes the case for this. You have to go all-in, or not at all, to get the best impact.
What if you’re a large organization? Try a pilot roll out, and see the results. If it makes sense to move forward, then give staff the option. Don’t half-ass it and just offer it to a select few individuals.
How a remote culture can help you focus on what matters.
Too many organizations get caught up with all the fancy perks in the office thinking that is what makes the culture.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. Get that notion that having a ping-pong table in your office counts as culture.
We’ve written before on the topic that you can check out here:
- Forced Fun Is No Fun – So Why Do Organizations Keep It Up?
- How To Transform YOUR Organization Through Play At Work
They’re nice to haves, but they’re not what makes your culture.
If you don’t have a solid foundation of what your culture is, how you get things done, your remote work culture is going to flounder.
With having a remote team, you’re going to have to really hammer down what matters to your organization, and can’t fall back on having a nice office. I’d recommend coming up with a strong culture manifesto at your organization as a result (if you’re looking for somewhere to start, we’ve written on culture manifestos here).
Trust in a remote work culture.
There’s this funny belief that keeps micromanagers up at night. It’s the belief that if people work from home, they’re going to be slacking off. They’re going to take (gasp!) LONGER lunch breaks! They might be watching Netflix! They might take their dog for a walk on company time!
This is what every micromanagers things employees will do if they work remote. Source: Unsplash
Guess what? People already spend plenty of time slacking off in the office. It’s not like it will be something new. Look at all the studies that show how remote workers tend to be more productive.
One interesting note to is that remote workers can be more productive and harder working due to guilt. Yes, this is, unfortunately, a real thing. I wish I could remember which book I read it in, but one of the reasons that remote workers can be so much more productive, is that there is a feeling of guilt that their employer might view them as slackers.
How do you build strong connections in a remote work culture?
There are a number of extra hurdles you need to jump through in regards to remote work. Building strong connections is one of the key aspects that can lead to a great remote work culture, or a poor one. Here are some suggestions that you can do for your organization.
- Ensure that people are having video calls as opposed to just strictly emails or Slack messages. While video chat isn’t as good as face to face (a noticeable % of body language is missed over video chat), it’s still better than just words, gifs, and emojis. I threw up a little in my mouth writing the end of that last sentence.
- Having a buddy system is super important. Buffer, a remote organization, has a culture budddy, and a team buddy for new hires (we’ve covered this in our post on employee onboarding suggestions).
- Ensure that people don’t get caught up in their own little silos. There’s plenty of great tools you can use to randomly match up people (like donut for Slack).
- Have in-person meetups. You might do a handful of these a year. It can be as simple as gathering someone in a city, or you can go all out and have a nice team retreat in some remote forest, a resort, whatever makes sense for your team.
Does Remote Work Make Sense For Your Organization?
This is a question that your organization needs to ask itself.
For a number of reasons, your organization may find that introducing a remote work culture isn’t going to work, and that’s fine.
I googled problems with remote work to find stories of those who were against it, and here’s one I found that was quite interesting. Let’s take a look at some excerpts.
hiring remote full time workers – not for me
You are someone who helps get something I need done. You are a cost for which I am trying to maximize my return. You are less humanized, I am not saying its impossible, but its harder to humanize someone you’ve never met.
When you have a group of people together in one room, working toward similar goals there is a mutual concern those people should have for one another’s well being. That mutual concern comes from being close to people.
I love when someone hears me working with a co-worker on something and they roll on over and say, hey that sounded cool, I just want to listen in – then 1 or 2 more do, next thing you know 4 people are around learning about something that only one person would have heard, or its even better when someone overhears one of my bad ideas, and starts to give me food for thought, either killing the idea or refining it to make it better.
There is a lot in this article that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can understand where they are coming from in regards to the problems of a remote work culture, and why they made the decision to stay away from it. Give it a read.
Examining organizations that did a rollback on remote work culture.
In 2013, there was a controversial decision made at Yahoo, where recently appointed CEO Marissa Mayer (who was recently poached from Google) decided to roll back on remote work, and expect people in the office. Her reasoning?
“…to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.”
(I will also note that this also comes from the same individual who said you could work 120 hour weeks if you were strategic about when you use the washroom).
IBM shutters remote work: Should you too?
I’ve seen people argue that because many successful organizations don’t allow for remote work, they shouldn’t as well. Having large organizations like IBM rolling back on it doesn’t help as well.
This is a stupid argument, and if you are against remote work for this reason, I’m going to come mock you.
This is, sadly, again of the FAANG effect in action. Just because it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t mean it will work for you.
On that note, just because there are a number of small organizations who are successful with remote work (like 37signals or Zapier), it doesn’t also mean it’s going to work for your organization.
Again, there is no one size fits all approach. You might find that moving towards a 100% remote office makes sense for your organization. You find that a flexible workplace with options for remote work a few times a week makes more sense. You might also find that remote work just doesn’t make sense for your organization.
Conclusion And Next Steps.
With this post, we’ve taken a look at the following in regards to remote work culture (click to jump back to that section):
- The Benefits of Remote Work.
- The Drawbacks of Remote Work.
- How To Build And Grow A Remote Work Culture.
- Does Remote Work Make Sense For Your Organization?
There is no right answer in regards to building a remote work culture, if you decide to allow for one. There are many best practices, but there are a number of pitfalls that you need to be aware of which I covered in this article.
Moving forward? You need to look at your organization and see if it makes sense for your organization to be remote, of whatever you decide to do.
Looking for some further reading on the subject? Here are some guides coming directly from organizations with strong remote work cultures:
- Why Culture is Everything for Remote Teams (and How to Build a Great One)
- Zapier: How to Build Culture in a Remote Team
- The Remote Work Report by Zapier
- 11 Essential Tips for Managing Remote Employees
- Why You Should Start Building Distributed Teams (or how to convince your company)
What about books?
- Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried (*note that this is an affiliate link*)
Looking for help in building your remote work culture? We can help you out! Check out our services:
