Building remote teams across cultures
By: Eva Balúchová
Tags: Remote Working, Scaleup, Startup, Organizational Culture, Team

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Whether the Covid-19 pandemic persists or not, some of its remnants will be with us for much longer. One of the most crucial in our daily lives will be remote working. Working from home is very much here to stay with over 80% of remote workers saying they feel less stress and millennials saying they enjoy the flexibility of working remotely .

The benefits of remote work don’t end there.Productivity and efficiently are also believed to increase with remote work. This means remote teams can help your recruiting efforts and help build a more efficient, productive and healthy workforce.

With the digital age transforming how we work, it also transforms how we build teams. Not only does the hiring process have to go completely online, but culture now needs to be built remotely and across cultures. Many decentralised teams are built across time zones, countries, and skillsets, making culture more important than ever in promoting a feeling of team ‘togetherness’.

If you’re curious to learn more about building and measuring the correct team configuration across cultures, take a look at the CALDO model and the Taco Sauce test. These are both frameworks that attempt to explain the optimal team configuration, dealing with isolated members and how to measure the impact of levers on remote work culture success.

With this in mind, this post will explore some simple ways founders & managers of culture can think about building a virtual team that shares values.

Focus on communication

In any relationship, whether virtual or in-person, communication is key. It’s certainly not easy across time zones and cultures, but you can use processes & tools to establish communication channels that work for your growing team.

One on one meetings -> Make sure to schedule time with each member of your team, to understand what they’re working on and how that relates to their personal goals for growth. Even as the company grows and founders can’t do this with everyone, ensure that team leads are speaking to their teams individually at least bi-weekly.

Building a handbook -> At Gitlab, they have developed a publicly viewable handbook, including everything you’d need to know about the company. This has been a crucial way of building transparency and efficiency, by having a central knowledge source. Tools like Notion can be great ways to start out your team’s online handbook. Each team’s quarterly goals, or “objectives and key results” (OKRs), are also clearly documented in our handbook for visibility across the company. Those goals can be used for monthly check ins, so there’s as much transparency as possible around what each team is accomplishing.

Process -> Processes are the frameworks necessary to sustain good communication. Leaders need to clearly define regular communication protocols and set expectations for when a remote worker must be accessible, and on which medium (Slack, text, phone, etc). For as great as technology is, it won’t help unless people use it reliably.

2. Build a feeling of togetherness

Humans are social animals and need some form of connection especially when working from home. Building a remote culture means that it’s important to take every opportunity to create and foster real connections.

“Creating authentic, interpersonal connections is a big challenge in a distributed environment,” says Niki Lustig, Director of Learning and Development at GitHub. “It’s too easy to hop on a call and launch right into the agenda and discussion. Consider creating team rituals that help each person get to know each other.”

So how do you mitigate against this when building remote team culture? Leaders should start by creating a regular pattern of team meetings and learning how everyone is doing. This can be an opportunity to talk about company goals but also for people to share more about themselves, perhaps sharing a personal story from the weekend. Creating interest-based channels on Slack, using real images as Avatars, and having virtual games nights can all be fun ways to help people feel more connected during remote times.

3. Help people meet in person

This may only be applicable after the Covid-19 pandemic eases, but remote teams can still meet in real life, and they could! Many remote-first companies allocate budget and resources to help team members meet for dinner, volunteer, and enjoy outdoor activities. Quarterly meetups for the whole team are a great way to bring people together for brainstorming, townhall sessions and getting to know each other better.

4. Software is your friend

Technology can not only help a remote team communicate but can also help hire more of the right people. Smart leaders are leaning on software to save time, build better teams and manage them more effectively.

One advantage for hiring talent to a remote team is you do not need to filter candidates by location, or a willingness to move. You can simply hire the best candidate. That still doesn’t mean that hiring isn’t competitive — and companies need all the help they can get. Turing helps companies hire elite pre-vetted engineering talent for remote teams. They also use artificial intelligence talent monitoring and management. Using software to accelerate a talent search will help you save time and money.

In terms of management, identify software that can help you do more than manage a project. You need a solution that better manages your team and helps you be a better leader. Simply put, you need to address the human side of remote team leadership. Check out our post on a culture builders’ toolset to find out more about how to manage employee engagement and culture in a remote team.

5. Invest in your team

A bad leader is someone that assigns you tasks. A great leader (and a great company) invests the time and energy to continually train and develop their team. This is no different with a remote team

Learning and upskilling is the key to personal and professional growth, so prioritize spending on learning and development. Understand your employees desires and how they align with business goals in your one-on-ones, then action these with a plan to help them develop. In many cases, you can fund this budget simply with the cost savings that come with remote teams. Also, take this advice and provide employees with the flexibility to pursue the learning that they’re most interested in, and the method that is most effective.

6. Measure success

When leading a distributed team, focus on the metrics that matter. Instead of worrying about the time someone works, focus on objectives, outcomes and behavior. The most important factors are that a remote worker completes their objectives in a timely manner, and does so professionally. Focus on what is being accomplished more than you focus on how long it took them to complete it.

7. Never forget the culture

Creating and maintaining remote culture is essential for the success of any company, especially during Covid-19 times. Like most things, distance can make it even harder to build a company culture but it certainly isn’t impossible.

While tools exist, the key to achieving great culture for a remote team is to bake culture into everything you do. Instill the company culture in team meetings, one-on-ones, off-sites and any other company functions. Ensure that remote team members are aware of the company’s core values, and lead by example. Lastly, stay aware of your company’s mission and values during the hiring process. It’s easier to build and maintain a culture when everyone hired understands and is aligned with that culture