Building a Strong Company Culture in a Remote Workforce

As the Founder & CEO of a remote-first company with team members distributed around the globe, I've learned that building and sustaining a positive, engaged culture requires intentionality and creativity. 

Like many companies, the pandemic spurred our transition to a remote-first model, and unlike other companies, we decided to stay remote due to what we perceived were outsized benefits with the model. 

However, remote work doesn’t come without its drawbacks. The biggest challenge of running a remote organization is building relationships with employees and between teammates. In office environments, these relationship touchpoints happen quite organically. In our world, we have come up with a set number of practices that help substitute. 

Keeping Our Team Connected

To bring our remote team together, we employ a few key strategies:

• Weekly Team Meetings: Each department has a standing weekly meeting with time dedicated to personal life updates and casual conversations. This helps teammates connect on a human level.
• Virtual Social Events: Twice a week, teammates are welcome to join optional morning “coffee chats” that provide a low-key virtual hangout to kick off the day. One-on-one coffee chats are also encouraged, specifically for new team members. We also host optional monthly "social hours'' with games, icebreakers and opportunities to simply chat and get to know each other. 
• In-Person Summits: Once a year, we bring the whole company together for an all-hands summit, including some of our overseas teammates. This vital in-person face time further builds relationships and gives us an opportunity to recommit to our shared mission.
• Communication Guidelines: Early in our remote transition, we authored guidelines on effectively leveraging messaging apps, video conferencing, and other channels to optimize collaboration and virtual presence.

Prioritizing a People-First Culture

When a new member joins the WithMe team, they undergo a comprehensive, two-week onboarding process. During this time, I meet with them to welcome them to the team and share our history, mission, vision and values. We set the tone from the beginning that we care about our people.

Advantages of a Strong, Remote Workforce

The advantages of our remote culture extend far beyond just engaging current employees – it's a powerful talent attraction tool. Countless job seekers now prioritize remote work options, giving us a massive recruiting edge to hire the very best from an international talent pool.

Rather than limiting our hiring to a single metro area, we've recruited exceptional team members in more than 20 U.S. states and five countries. The talent density we can access by embracing a remote culture is second to none. Nearly two-thirds of our workforce has joined since the company went remote, united by our vibrant culture.

While remote cultures require more purposeful effort, with the right mindset and strategies, companies can build phenomenal teams and enjoy strategic business advantages. I've never been more enthused about the future of our remarkable remote-first culture at WithMe.