Being a remote worker—whether from a home office or Hong Kong—is the new normal. Since 2005, there’s been an 80% increase in the number of "telecommunicating" employees in the US. There’s no doubt we’ve become smarter about how we work and where we work from. But working remotely still feels… well, remote.
Modern organizations are armed with cloud-collaboration tools that should make working from anywhere a breeze. Combine these tools with a global talent pool from which to hire, and you're set to dominate the competition, right?
So, why do we still struggle to connect teams, keep them happy and bring them into the company family? These four effective tactics will help you create a work environment that’s both global and connected.
Find Yourself. Choose a Corporate Identity that Works
Identifying your company’s unique culture is a first step toward creating a global communication strategy that works. Don’t be overwhelmed by process. Instead, start with this fun exercise: choose a persona that embodies your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps your company is like Star Wars' Darth Maul: cutthroat, highly skilled, a source of fear and symbol of hatred throughout the galaxy. Or you might be an office of Bart Simpsons: high energy, motivated by your own ideas, but extremely impulsive.
Not only is this exercise fun, it’s a simple way to assess your company’s character, and gives you some insight and guidance into how your company communicates—internally and externally. If you’re a company of Barts, you’ll want to make sure your remote team doesn’t miss out on annual “Eat My Shorts” day. That’s right, at least send them a cake.
Don’t Save Corporate Culture for the Home Team
There’s often a chasm between how a company perceives its corporate culture and how colleagues communicate with one another. This gap widens with the addition of remote workers. Jokes at the watercooler, impromptu conversations about everyday work life and innovative ideas spread in the hallway but go uncommunicated to remote teams. When you aren't able to drop in and ask questions, misinterpretation abounds, innovation decreases, and it creates a culture of frustration in the workplace.
Your product might be thrilling, but sometimes, working remote and away from the wellspring of HQ inspiration is not. It can be difficult for remote workers to find their place and feel a sense of belonging within their companies, and even in the products they make. And research proves time and time again that replacing an employee is up to twice as expensive as actually employing one.
Instant messages and emails are efficient and accessible, but they lack the emotion that face-to-face conversations allow. How much better is it to hear a person laugh than to read "haha" in Google chat?
Crossing the Divide
Culture is created, defined and shared by people. We are motivated and kept passionate about our work by strong emotional bonds. A few year back, this MIT study reported that remote workers are less happy and motivated when they feel isolated from co-workers. You can organize beer Fridays every day of the week, but if remote workers can’t participate in ad hoc socializing with their teammates you’re digging a geographical ditch that will be very hard to cross.
So, how do you close the geographical gap?
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Encourage the use of video rather than text. For decades, researchers have been saying (PDF) that video communication gets us closer to in-person interactions.
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Managers should check in with remote staff on a more frequent and informal basis. Spontaneous check-ins build stronger relationships.
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Applaud and publicly acknowledge remote workers’ contributions.
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Use lightweight, real-time communications tools that enable informal and frequent conversations such as instant messaging, group chat rooms and always-on video portals.
Tactics and tools for healthy global collaboration and communication are out there. Now, you just need to put them to work in ways that will make it easier to keep remote employees happy, healthy and engaged.
