Workplace culture is something that is inherent to a business. Independent of their size or what sector they belong to, all companies have their own workplace culture, whether or not they are conscious of it. This culture must consider, now more than ever, the remote work of its employees in order to achieve its goals. For this reason, this article intends to focus on this point.

The workplace culture plays an important role when it comes to creating a sense of corporate belonging -also known as workplace engagement-. According to a survey on LinkedIn, having a sense of corporate belonging improves worker productivity and the company’s output.

In spite of the numerous benefits of working remotely, it can also lead to a major dissociation of the company’s values. A 2021 study by Microsoft revealed that working from a distance caused their official business groups and their informal communities to be less interconnected and consequently more isolated. In short, the proportion of collaborative time that the workers dedicated to connections between groups decreased by 25% from the pre-pandemic level.

This new modality of work highlights the need to deliberately construct a workplace culture that is safe, clear, and real. Some of the initiatives that can be carried out to promote workplace culture could be:

• Share the company principles with all new employees.
• Create online groups for resources and personal interests. For example, Slack channels about sports, reading, travel, etc.
• Games, activities, and coffee chats between randomly paired coworkers.
• Periodically hold meetings or retreats in physical facilities.
• Make sure teams meet and that people know each other personally, establishing routines of online communication, making sure to set boundaries.
• Encourage teamwork over individual work.