13 Ways To Build Community, Regardless Of Employee Location

The essence of community is the feeling of belonging

How can employers build community, regardless of where employees are located?

To help you build a sense of community at your company, we asked people managers and business leaders this question for their best ideas. From adding social bookends to your daily meetings to highlighting and celebrating employees’ successes, there are several ways you can foster a stronger community for your employees, regardless of their location.

Here are 13 ways to build community regardless of employee location:

•    Add Social Bookends to your Daily Meetings
•    Infuse Culture from the Bottom-Up
•    Host Virtual Happy Hours
•    Show Gratitude with Handwritten Thank You Notes
•    Include Every Employee in Onboarding Events
•    Craft Meaningful Messages with Async Communication Tools
•    Ensure Easy Access to Colleagues & Company Assets
•    Give your Community a Broader Sense of Purpose
•    Be Authentic
•    Create Overlapping Core Operation Hours
•    Foster Strong Mentorship Programs
•    Maintain an Ongoing Flow of Informal Communication
•    Highlight & Celebrate Employees’ Successes

Add Social Bookends to Your Daily Meetings

For remote and hybrid teams, we can't wait for the annual or quarterly team gatherings to build community. Rather, add some time at the beginning and end of your daily meetings for socializing. By making socializing and networking a small part of your daily gatherings or meetings, your team can get to know each other better. For large teams, you'll need to find an alternative virtual meeting platform other than Zoom to facilitate smaller conversations because it's unrealistic to expect 100 people to get to know each other in static black boxes.

  Ed Stevens, Founder & CEO, Preciate

Infuse Culture from the Bottom-Up

A lot of people love to talk about how a company’s culture needs to flow down from the top. Management needs to set a strong example and embrace the organization's culture in everything they do, which will in turn create a trickle-down effect. The issue with this, however, is that it’s often seen as hollow. It’s just corporate speak sent down channels from executives the everyday employee never sees or interacts with, particularly remote workers. That’s why I actually think a bottom-up approach is better.

If the lowest level managers and team leads are the ones infusing their work with company values and culture, that will pay dividends. So rather than HR focusing on creating a top-down model of community building, I think it’s better to build from the ground up. Focus efforts on getting low- and mid-level managers involved, as well as team leads. This will give your community-building efforts a much broader reach and better chance of taking hold, especially in a remote environment.

 John Ross, CEO, Test Prep Insight

Host Virtual Happy Hours

The last couple of years has taught us a lot about how to connect with people virtually. My favorite thing to do to bring my team together is to host themed virtual happy hours. Throwing a successful virtual happy hour isn't hard as long as there's a good conversation going. However, if your team hasn't gotten the chance to know each other, and the conversation feels forced, I have some tips to take your next HH to the next level.

Some of my favorite themes have been Taco Tuesday, Tapas Night, Disco, or Hollywood. Then, I try to come up with great activities such as playing trivia, online board games, or show and tell that match the theme. There are also many online platforms that host virtual games for groups such as murder mysteries, guess the song, charades, etc. These themed happy hours have improved the intrapersonal relationships at work, making it easier for some people to feel acclimated to the workplace and having employees looking forward to something to break the monotony.

 Rich Rudzinski, Founder and CEO, Drivey

Show Gratitude with Handwritten Thank You Notes

One way employers can build community and culture is by showing gratitude with handwritten thank you notes. A handwritten note shows that you took the time to sit down and write a personal message, rather than just clicking "send" on an email or sending a text. It also shows that you really appreciate the person's contribution.

Thank you notes can be sent after any type of interaction, not just after a big win. For example, send a note to someone who stayed late to help out with a project, or who made an extra effort to contribute to the team. The key is to be specific about why you're thanking the person, and to make it clear that the note is from you, not from Human Resources.

  Rick Elmore, CEO, Handwritten Thank You Notes

Include Every Employee in Onboarding Events

Do your best to make sure in-office and remote employees have a similar onboarding experience. For instance, our team has a tradition where new hires receive a swag kit stocked with goodies such as branded t-shirts, stickers, and a handwritten welcome note with greetings from co-workers. This package is not just for staff commuting to the office.

When new remote talent onboards they’re treated to the same welcome kit: right down to the balloons we add to workstations in the workplace. Including your remote teams in any special onboarding is a gesture that goes a long way to help people feel connected to their colleagues—no matter where they are.

 Jessica Arias, Director of People & Culture, OnPay Payroll Services

Craft Meaningful Messages with Async Communication Tools

Be it professional or personal, open and honest communication is monumental to the foundation of any relationship. But with hectic schedules and looming deadlines, it's common for most teams to keep their communication short and brief. Async communication tools are the perfect answer to this challenge because they encourage team members to be more mindful, deliberate, and verbose when conveying messages.

Because you're not bound by time constraints and urgency, these tools allow you to take the time and craft meaningful messages to your team members, all the while urging them to do the same. From words of appreciation to detailed feedback, using an asynchronous video tool adds a new layer of personalization that fosters a sense of belonging.

  Brian Casel, Founder, ZipMessage

Ensure Easy Access to Colleagues & Company Assets

Employers need to provide employees with the necessary communication tools that allow them easy access to each other, their managers and the company's resources. It should also be incredibly easy for them to speak to their colleagues and/or their manager about a work challenge they're facing. Moreover, employers should also grant their employees appropriate access permissions to company assets.

For example, if someone needs some advice about how to solve a problem with their job responsibilities, it should be sufficiently easy for them to tap into the knowledge base stored in their company's cloud system without having to go through too much red tape. Having direct access to their colleagues as well as company assets makes your employees feel privileged, and that they’re a part of a community.

  Michael Green, Owner, Quick Cash Homebuyers

Give your Community a Broader Sense of Purpose

Creating communities in a remote setting can be achieved regardless of where employees work and live. A sense of belonging is strong through shared values and hobbies. If your values are only in the tagline, they won’t matter. You have to link values to a shared mission or cause. Today, all companies should have a cause that glues people working there. Choosing that cause follows a thorough team discovery. If only the founders share their excitement about the cause, the effectiveness won't be there.

Feeling proud to work for a company that actively supports planting trees, drinking water for everyone, or helping the homeless is a very powerful motivator. Give specific titles and functions inside your mission. When employees feel connected beyond their day job, based on a common passion, hobby, or mission, you’re on the right track to having a solidified community. In larger companies, you can have subgroups with the same setup.

  Cristina Imre, Executive Coach & Mentor for Founders, Quantum Wins

Be Authentic

Whether you pass a fellow team member in the hallway or join a Zoom meeting, how do you take time to connect in a meaningful way? In person you could open with a warm and sincere greeting, use your team member’s name, and close with a fond farewell. But in the hybrid workforce, this simple interaction faces new challenges.

Consider the platform for engagement—what is the right tool for communication given the planned content and tone? You should be present and aware during virtual meetings and avoid multitasking.This means being an active listener. And if it comes up, you should be honest about your current state of mind, attention, and focus. When appropriate, vulnerability creates depth, and promotes trust and relationship building.

 Alexandra McGroarty, Co-Founder, McGroarty & Co Consulting LLC

Create Overlapping Core Operation Hours

Depending on your team's location, allowing them to choose their own schedule while setting some core hours can help your team grow stronger relationships and regularly engage with each other, even across time zones. These hours don’t need to overlap 100%, but when your entire team can spend a few overlapping hours online together, they’re available more quickly for better collaboration. Creating communications that more naturally mimic real-time conversations helps employees get to know each other better professionally, which in turn helps create a stronger community.

  Brian Dechesare, CEO, Breaking Into Wall Street

Foster Strong Mentorship Programs

Workplace mentorship has been a great resource to help teammates build closer relationships as they grow their careers, and remote teams can enjoy many of the same benefits. A remote mentorship program offers employees a platform to connect to each other beyond watercooler conversations and work-related channels. If your workplace isn’t set up for leader-to-employee virtual mentorship, create a peer-to-peer program that matches participating employees with each other based on professional interests and skills requirements.

  Fernando Lopez, Marketing Director, Circuit

Maintain an Ongoing Flow of Informal Communication

The essence of community is the feeling of belonging. It's about being connected to one another, and this is no less important in the workplace. Since the pandemic, employees have found themselves dispersed in a variety of different locations, and some may never meet their colleagues in person. However, a well-built community remains within reach.

Creating a sense of belonging is simply an exercise in reaching out regularly, even if just for the sake of having a chat. Frequent check-ins are a prerequisite to any positive work environment, as they help to maintain an open flow of communication and normalize informal forms of collaboration. It's the remote equivalent of walking over to a co-worker's desk and asking, "Need a hand?". It shows employees that they're supported by their peers and management team, and it's this level of safety and security that builds remarkable company culture. No matter the size of your team, frequent communication—no matter how formal—is a must.
 
  Max Wesman, Chief Operating Officer, GoodHire

Highlight & Celebrate Employees’ Successes

While everyone may be in different locations or even different teams, having a virtual place to share individual accomplishments with the team will build comradery. Encourage each team member to share any accomplishment in their role with the team. Did a teammate receive a great review from a client? Share with the team. Did the marketing team increase traffic to the site? Share with the team. A teammate received a promotion? Share with the team. Seeing everyone's success helps the team feel closer to each other and builds a “we are all in this together” sentiment.

  Liz Hogan, Career Expert, Find My Profession

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - of Terkel.io, a platform where business leaders can answer questions related to their expertise and get published in articles featuring their insights.