How to Maintain Team Culture with a Remote Team
As remote work evolves into the new global norm — at least for those not required to return to the office — many managers must adapt to working in geographically dispersed teams. Remote work is not new; pre-pandemic remote employees made up anywhere from 5.3 percent to nearly two-thirds of the U.S. workforce. This number has risen since the advent of a reliable and robust home broadband connection earlier this decade.
Still, this doesn’t mean having a distributed team is convenient. Co-located teams build their culture more naturally than remote teams by assuming that collaboration, meetings, brainstorming, and even team culture build more organically in shared space.
After spending nearly ten years on co-located and distributed teams, it’s become apparent that location doesn’t drastically impact team culture. In reality, this isn’t the case. Support for an influential team culture consists of essential elements that can exist locally and remotely.
I’ve identified these as the key four pillars of team culture: Teamwork, Transparency, Trust, and Time.
Teamwork seems like the most visible element, given the nature of work. However, many teams confuse working together with teamwork. For true teamwork, there must be a shared goal to strive toward together. Once clear, teammates can collaborate organically with the same starting baseline.
The same methodology is used by many of the most successful coaches in sports — such as Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, who advocates goal-setting in his coaching style. “If you’re going to have a team of role players,” says Kerr, “Then you better have a team of players who truly understand their roles.”
In a remote environment, teamwork takes new shapes. On the Dow Jones AdTech team, we’ve adopted Slack as our primary communication medium. Throughout the day, we reach out to teammates through direct messages, hop on Slack video calls to quickly review requirements, and have even set up Planning Poker through a shared team channel. Our team used these methods before becoming remote, and Slack has enabled us to continue efficiently doing our work.
Transparency is a popular buzzword for those looking to manage highly effective teams. However, like all buzzwords, it can feel empty without action behind it. Direct teams manage down, up, and across — but truly transparent teams also clearly understand that every team member has each other’s best interests at heart. Behavior like this is precious for tech teams, allowing teammates to provide constructive feedback respectfully.
During remote work, it may feel like there is less transparency on a project’s process since progress isn’t seen in person. Our team has overcome this by maintaining monthly roadmap review meetings with our stakeholders, colloquially known as “Lookback/Lookforward.” Our team holds these monthly to inform our stakeholders of past and future work. Previously these were conducted in person, but now using Google Hangouts, we’ve adopted a new format that allows stakeholders to review updates ahead of time and spend the meeting time asking questions. This method gives them more clarity on what’s happening, no matter their location.
Trust may be the essential pillar of team culture. Similar to transparency, it produces a sense of shared responsibility and accountability. Trust also allows the team to work in non-traditional ways and take risks.
Our team’s trust in each other has faced the ultimate test after going remote, but we’ve been more dedicated to this value than ever. Every Friday afternoon, our team holds a meeting called “BTW.” Each meeting, we share a Google Slides presentation on anything from movie recs and family updates to home improvement horror stories. We began these before working remotely, but it has since become one of the many touchpoints that allow our team to see each other as more than just names on an email thread.
Time is the glue that holds all cultures together. There’s an instinct to want teams to begin working together efficiently immediately from the start. Still, the three previous pillars cannot solidify overnight. It takes time (and even some failure) and patience to come together as a team. Allowing individuals to find their comfort zones at their own pace gives them the space to learn what works best for them.
Since going remote, our team has held a daily optional check-in call to spend some time catching up with the other team members. We’ve found it an excellent way for teammates to get face time with each other, even if our day-to-day work doesn’t typically overlap. There’s no agenda or structure; sometimes, the wayward child or pet can burst on-screen. Either way, it provides a dedicated time slot for the team to ask the other, “How are you doing?”
Nowhere has a work-from-home reckoning been analyzed more obsessively than in the realm of technology. As Product Managers, we can Zoom in to meetings from home as we connect with designers and engineers worldwide.
Still, having to grimace for the camera through all two hours of said Zoom meeting has made room for a lot of soul-searching. One of the debates emerging from the crying CEOs who wish to control their employees returning to work full-time comes from the desire to develop a team culture.
Many of my colleagues worked from home even before the pandemic hit, and like any good Product Manager, we adapted as we saw fit. We didn’t abandon our culture. It was redefined to meet the needs of an evolving world, as those who cannot keep up and support talented team members will be left in the dust.
In the words of Marvel’s Thor, team culture “isn’t a place, it’s a people.”
