Commentary: Maintaining corporate culture in an era of remote work

As I speak to senior executives in financial firms, I hear a lot of concerns about the difficulties of maintaining corporate culture in an era of remote work. Employees used to absorb the organization's culture by coming to the office and observing the behavior of its leaders — how they dress, how they talk and how they treat their subordinates. But subtle nuances of body language and voice intonation can easily be lost on remote workers facing a day of back-to-back video calls.

The cultural paradigm of remote work is still being defined. However, if you follow the four steps below for remote work, plus periodic requirements for in-person meetings, you can create a vibrant culture well designed for your organization.

While company culture is hard to define, it is clearly different from organization to organization. Some companies put a high priority on spending time with family. Other companies encourage employees to be entrepreneurial and take calculated risks. Still, other companies are dedicated to building long-term relations with their customers, even at the expense of lower quarterly profits. As companies recognize that remote work is here to stay, either full or part time, managers need to proactively take actions to preserve and reinforce the key elements of their corporate culture.

These are the four steps to defining corporate culture in the new remote work environment:

1. Establish remote work norms

• Set limits for times when the team is on call.
• Determine when meetings may and may not be held.
• Decide when responses must be given.

Without these norms, some remote workers will suffer from burnout as they feel they have to be on call 24/7. In a company that emphasizes work-life balance, for example, these norms could include not checking email and phone messages on weekends. In a company that emphasizes customer relations, by contrast, team members might be expected to check for customer messages during weekends — but not internal messages.

2. Establish forward-looking weekly meetings for the team

• Hold weekly videoconferences to orchestrate the efforts of team members.
• Focus on the future instead of just reporting on the past.
• Save reporting for emails — circulated before the meeting.

In a company where collaboration is highly valued, the manager should make sure that the priorities of all team members are closely coordinated. In a company where innovation is highly prized, managers should always solicit ideas for new products and give high praise to employees who offer new ways to solve problems.

3. Establish team meetings to reinforce company culture

• Organize other types of videoconferences — without a specific business purpose — in order to reinforce important elements of a company’s culture.
• Designate different groups or individuals to lead exercises.
• Support these exercises just like efforts related to work.

In a company where teamwork is highly valued, managers might organize video sessions designed to build a spirit of collaboration. For instance, these sessions might involve games like charades or group sing-along sessions where everyone picks a song. In a company where physical fitness is a significant value, managers might organize teamwide contests to see who can walk the most miles each week.

4. Hold regular one-on-one sessions with direct reports

• Let the report talk more than you do, so you gain the opportunity to learn.
• Ask how the team member is handling the impact of the pandemic and whether the company can do anything to help.
• Follow through on requests for help.
• Try to laugh and find joy in the conversation.

These sessions will go a long way to reinforcing a cultural norm that the company cares about its employees in these difficult times. Some companies have gone further by raising wages, creating flexible hours for employees with children and paying for high-speed internet connections at home.

Although team members may generally work from home, they should be required to gather in the office from time to time in order to preserve company culture. For example, all members of a team could come to the office on the same day for one or two days each week, or for the same week each month. Through these in-person experiences, the team can build camaraderie, develop interpersonal relations and collectively make key decisions.

Similarly, it's much easier to get new employees to adopt the company's culture if they initially spend some time at the office. When new employees are brought on board, they really need an education about the company's norms and mores. So, they should be required to spend a few days in the office each week for their first month or two — even if they will later be working mainly from home. In those days at the office, new employees can meet their colleagues, observe how the veterans behave and have a chance to ask questions.

In the new world of remote work, some companies will have multiple offices distributed around the region, country or world. In those situations, it is difficult to maintain a company's culture away from headquarters. So, the top executives of the company should visit the satellite offices on a regular basis and meet with as many employees as possible. Companies should also organize annual events for employees from all offices, either virtual or in person, to generate support for a shared vision, discuss key issues and recognize high achievers.

In both remote and in-person settings, managers must communicate often and honestly about the company's situation to their teams. According to Glassdoor, the average culture ratings during the initial six months of the pandemic were the highest over the last five years. The reason: transparent communications by senior company executives. If managers are transparent communicators and follow the four steps outlined in this article, they will build trust among their team members — the foundation of any positive company culture.

Robert C. Pozen is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management. He and Alexandra Samuel are co-authors of the forthcoming book, "Remote, Inc.: How to Thrive at Work ... Wherever You Are." He is based in Boston. This content represents the views of the author. It was submitted and edited under P&I guidelines but is not a product of P&I's editorial team.