3 Tactics To Build Culture In The Era Of #WFH

Being intentional and organized are the next steps to thriving in a new era

Culture is inevitable—it happens no matter what. But great culture? That takes work. As more companies aim to accommodate work from home (WFH) and hybrid work, it is crucial for leaders on all levels to understand how to build positive, inclusive, and intentional culture virtually.

My decades of work with leaders and training as a licensed clinical therapist have positioned me to be able to see and work with behavioral trends across sectors. I keep my finger on the pulse of changes in workplace climate—and since the pandemic, I’ve seen substantial shifts in how leaders must respond to grow a healthy, productive, and positive organization.

Here are three tactics you can use to build remote culture:

Calls for clarity are at all-time high. With remote work, leaders have to spend more time being clear about team and organization priorities. When employees are in person, it’s easier to pick up on the hustle around a certain project or shift in priorities based on a meeting. But virtually, it’s harder to detect those dynamics. We need to intentionally build processes to communicate the whole team’s focus, be it a quick check-in on Slack with top priorities, a stand-up call (where you still stand up), or a project management app where leaders can give feedback.

The reason to emphasize clarity is twofold. First, individuals need to know that they’re working on the right projects—and that insurance takes more intentional effort virtually. Second, employees need a rough understanding of their teammates’ tasks so they can understand how their work fits into the whole. (Without the accidental encounters in the hall and at the coffee pot, team members don’t always know what one another are working on.) Try drawing a map for your team to demonstrate how they or their projects fit in. Or take a few minutes at a meeting to verbalize what each individual team member does for the group, emphasizing their unique skill. It’s a leader’s responsibility to encourage conversation, connection, and to lay out processes for clarity.

Adapt some of the tactics above—and then keep in mind that sometimes employees ask for clarity when what they really want is something else. I was working with a client last month who had not had issues with clear priorities for years. Yet all of a sudden, the employees kept asking for “more clarity.” What was going on?

After diving in, I learned that employees were really asking, “How do I fit in?” In a remote workplace, we no longer incidentally chat with someone in the hallway—and we typically only call or message when we have a specific need. This means, it’s easier for employees to feel like their relationship with their employer is purely transactional, which can lead to concern about fitting in. As humans, we have an inherent need to be part of a group; groups are how we survived for all these generations. If we start to feel our interactions becoming too transactional, we may begin to feel we need to constantly prove our worth. As a result, people focus on day-to-day tasks and a mindset of “getting by” and don’t take the time to see the big picture. When we miss the forest for the trees, we can feel unclear on why our work matters. Thus, the calls for clarity.

To combat the issue, take the tactics I mentioned in #1 (regular check-ins, connecting work to the bigger picture), and emphasize dialogue. Instead of just pulling up a power point slide of the organizational structure to show how everyone fits, ask employees to answer the question “How does my work connect to the work of a colleague?” Be specific, and ask this question about multiple colleagues. Ask, too, if they have any ideas for their projects or company improvements, and then facilitate a dialogue around this question. Lastly, make sure you make time and space for conversations that are not just transactional. This may be something social, and/or it may be an internal training in which one team member shares their expertise. The point is that these efforts can start right away. A little change can make a big difference.

Start with something small that you can do now (like organizing a mid-day skills-share session), and grow from there. If workers are remote, chances are the company is saving money in areas like overhead. Use some of those funds to bring people back together for short stints in person. For creativity to thrive, we need to be part of a positive environment. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to kickstart creativity and brainstorming. Otherwise, it will decline in a virtual world. Bringing people to a gathering increases motivation, allows employees to better know their team members, heightens our empathy for one another, and positions us to try on the perspectives of others.

When it comes to an adapting workplace, leaders have to be on their toes, ready to respond. That’s when it can help to have the newest research in behavioral science on your side. To clarify roles, create inclusion, and get more creative, we need to be intentional and organized. It’s the next step to thriving in a new era.