Many companies have grown their remote workforces over the past few years, but with COVID-19 amongst us, we’re seeing nearly all non-essential businesses make the switch to keep up with social distancing protocols. While this may be business as usual for you, many are still learning how to adjust.
We’ve pulled together 5 Tips to Help You Stay on Track while working from home and we also wanted to share our ideas for keeping company culture alive with a remote team. You might naturally work well from home, but you may still find yourself missing the small talk and casual office conversations you have over your morning coffee. Here are six tips to keep the conversations flowing, and your company culture alive!
6 Tips For Keeping Company Culture Alive with a Remote Team
1. Have A Morning Check In
Schedule a recurring virtual meeting every morning to check in with your team. We use RingCentral for our video chats. This is a good opportunity to share how busy you are at work and ask for help where needed, but you can also take some time to talk about your weekends or what you’re grateful for during this pandemic. Stay connected and in touch with how everyone is feeling. No one is expecting you to be at your best all the time – these are unprecedented times.
2. Participate in Team Happy Hour
Set some time aside to meet (virtually!) with your colleagues for a weekly happy hour. Take things one step further and have a weekly “bartender” who can teach you how to make a new cocktail.
3. Get Creative with your Video Call Backgrounds
Have some fun and experiment with different video backgrounds! Dressing up to match your background will have everyone on the call laughing. We’re in the process of writing a new blog post 5 Tips for Mastering the Video Call – Check back soon for more fun ideas.
4. Lunch and Learns
Get to know your colleagues better by learning about what they’re passionate about! Schedule a weekly or bi-weekly lunch and learn and have a few people give 10 minute presentations on whatever they’re interested in.
5. Share New Recipes
With more time at home on your hands, you may find yourself experimenting more in the kitchen. Share new recipes that you’ve found in a Slack channel, or better yet – create your own lunchtime “cooking show” and lead your team through the recipe on a video call.
6. Start a Book/TV/Movie/Podcast Club
Whatever it is you’re into – share it with your team! You might find you have more in common with your colleagues that you thought. If a few of you are interested in the same thing, you can start a book/tv/movie/podcast club to talk about it.
If you have other ideas for us, let us know and we’ll share them here!
