Update: We’re hosting a live webinar on Remote Onboarding. VanHack CEO Ilya Brotzky will share best practices and answer your questions on April 14, 2 PM Eastern Time. Click here to register!
Building the right kind of company culture is something every company has to think about. And if you’re running a remote-only organization, it’s doubly important since the chances of a strong culture developing organically are significantly lower.
So how do you do it? There’s a wealth of information available for non-remote team (company picnics! ping-pong table! volunteer days!) but remote-only teams don’t have a lot of that to fall back upon.
So let’s go over our top three tips on building a strong culture for a remote tech team.
1. Your company’s mission is critical
VanHack’s stated mission is to “create a world where talented tech professionals can move wherever they are needed to help companies innovate and grow”.
You might think that this is just some feel-good statement on our About page, but that’s very far from the truth. In fact, this simple statement defines how we feel about our work – and by extension, the culture we develop.
Everyone at VanHack knows that we are helping change people’s lives. Every time a VanHacker gets hired, it’s not just a new job for them – often, it’s a chance for a whole new life in a new country. We get pictures, thank you notes, phone calls.. and we all share in their happiness.
No matter how difficult it gets at work sometimes (and let’s face it, everyone has difficult days at work) just knowing that the work we day has a real impact on people’s lives is inspiring.
Our company-wide Slack channel auto-notifies us every time someone gets hired.
And this usually kicks off a nice discussion about the person hired, the company, the process and so on.
It’s very important to have a clear mission, to communicate that mission to your team, and celebrate (in a simple way) every time you’re able to achieve some part of that mission.
2. Try and encourage a flat org/team
In a regular office, it’s quite easy for people from different teams and different organizational levels to bump into each other and have quick conversations.
The cafeteria, the parking lot, or even just the hallway can turn into an impromptu meeting spot where you can get to know your co-workers.
Remote teams can’t do this, so how do we try and replicate it?
At VanHack, we start by having a very flat org chart – everyone is encouraged and allowed to communicate with each other regardless of the company hierarchy. The newest employee can ping the CEO at any time, and will get a response and the chance for a friendly conversation.
We also have informal Slack channels where we hangout and share non-work related things, and most everyone in the company participates here.
Finally, our weekly all-hands call has just one rule – all cameras must be on, and we all have the ability to speak on the call. These calls often become genial discussions when someone reveals a hitherto unknown skill – like playing a musical instrument, or snowboarding. It really does feel like hanging out with a bunch of nice people.
Of course, what works for a small startup may not work for a much larger organization in precisely the same way – but the fundamental principle of allowing people to talk and get to know each other does scale. You can encourage this in your team channels instead of a company wide channel.
You can also look into using various tools that set up random meetings. Donut is used by many companies, and there’s a bunch of other tools.
3. Default to Trust
This is probably the most important aspect of a remote team. Human beings need to trust people they work with, and if you don’t trust your team, you aren’t going to be happy or productive.
Company leadership needs to live this message first for it to percolate throughout the organization. If leaders can sincerely show that they trust their people, and that they believe that most people genuinely do want to work hard and do a good job, everyone will start to believe it – because it will be the shared truth for the company.
Along with defaulting to trust, being transparent about what’s happening at your company/team goes a long way towards getting people to trust you back! Some managers feel like it’s not a good idea to share bad news – but it’s better to share the good and the bad and make people feel included, rather than only sharing good news.
At VanHack, all employees have access to practically every document, shared repository, software tool, wiki, marketing platform, etc. We trust that you will access the things that are relevant to your role, but if you wish to look at something else, that’s fine as well. And there are many times when people from very different teams help each other by noticing something they can help with. Information is not restricted, and everyone is empowered.
So there you have our top three tips. Naturally, there’s no real end to this subject, but we’ve found that these three things are where everything starts.
Culture is not built in one day, but if you put the right structure in place, odds are that you’ll build a strong culture around that structure!