Building your company culture with a remote or hybrid team

Core values: Building your company culture with a remote or hybrid team

With the vaccinations against Covid-19 well underway and offices opening up globally, there seems to be a new normal returning to the workplaces – the hybrid remote way of working. For some companies, they are offering employees the flexibility of working from home some days in a week and for others, they are offering some teams or functions within the company to work all-remotely. With the new norm, how can managers build and strengthen the company culture by leveraging the company core values?

What are core values?

Dictionary.com defines core values as the fundamental beliefs of a person or organization. These guiding principles dictate behavior and can help people understand the difference between right and wrong. Core values also help companies to determine if they are on the right path and fulfilling their goals by creating an unwavering guide.

Your company core values provide employees clarity on what is truly important for organizational success, clarity on personal conduct and what to expect from each other, and clarity on why it is important to speak up if they see those values being violated or not lived up to throughout the organization.

Make it work for everyone

Core values inform and reinforce your company’s culture, strategic direction, new hiring, and customer interactions. In a remote working environment with the employees sitting alone, the core values and culture would motivate them and provide guiding principles for them to know what are the behaviors that are encouraged when they are in doubt.

  • Does your organisation have a set of core values that are clearly articulated and well documented?
  • While not everyone is able to repeat word for word how the core values are defined, are they clear of the expectations of them and of their colleagues?
  • Are your company values reinforced in day-to-day communications and meetings?
  • Are your core values integrated in your performance evaluation and interview process?

Having a distributed team means that your culture is going to be more difficult to grasp for new team members. Thus not having well defined core values that are integrated in your operations will be a barrier for you to engage a remote team effectively.

Culture more important than salary

According to Glassdoor’s Mission & Culture Survey 2019, they found that over 77% of working adults across four countries (the United States, UK, France, Germany) would consider a company’s culture before applying for a job there. And 79% would consider a company’s mission and purpose before applying. Furthermore, over half of the 5000 respondents said that company culture is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.

Hence, if your organization has not yet defined your core values, you may want to start this process so that you can engage your remote or hybrid teams effectively.

You are welcome to contact Thomas Sylvest for guidance.

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