How to Prevent Diluting Company Culture While Working Remotely?

Working remotely as a business has its own set of challenges and benefits. Your employees might get more hybrid working from home and can easily schedule their time to make sure that their work fits into their day. However, they can also get distracted at home, and can sometimes feel isolated. There’s one other disadvantage to working remotely that most people don’t think about, and that is the chance that working remotely can dilute company culture.

That’s not something that a lot of people think about, and if you ask a dozen managers what their company culture is, you can get several different answers. Most of them are probably along the lines of “I don’t know!”

Your company culture is a part of who your business is, even if you don’t understand it yourself, and the rise of diluting company culture can be high if you don't take measures to avoid company culture dilution.

What Is Company Culture?

Before you can build healthy company culture and keep organization culture, you need to know what it is. The company culture is how your company acts, and it’s the little things that make your company different from all the rest. For example, a company might have a culture of caring for its employees and they show it through their actions.

This company offers paid vacations, a well-furnished break room for their workers, and regular breaks throughout the day to prevent overwork.

If you want to determine your remote team culture, think about what your company really does well. Are your employees always punctual and on time? Do you push your workers to innovate and remain on the cutting edge? Is your company focused on community and outreach?

That’s often your company culture, and you can back the culture up with a few examples of how you support it.

The Lack Of Company Culture

The problem with company culture is that it is inside of the office. If your culture is all about pampering your employees with the break room and paid vacations, none of that can be enforced if they aren’t in the office to experience it. If everyone is sddenly working remotely and not getting into the office, the culture starts to lose its effectiveness and dilute company culture.

This can reduce the connection that your team has with one another, and also prevent the culture of your company from motivating your team. Therefore, how do you get your company culture back while working remotely? Well, you need to adapt it to the remote world.

For example, to build a healthy company culture around employee comfort, try to encourage them to revamp their home workspaces. You might not be able to give them all the comforts of your offices, but you might persuade them to purchase an ergonomic office chair or an office standing desk and create an ergonomic workspace.

Focus On Companionship

One of the best ways to keep organization culture alive is to focus on companionship. Even if it is just watercooler talk or a simple inquiry about a day, employees like to chat with one another and form friendships to let one another know they are not alone. Remote work takes away that face-to-face aspect of it because talking through a screen just isn’t the same.

One of the best ways to have companionship and avoid company culture dilution is to make sure that you are talking to your employees, having an effective virtual communications strategy and they are talking to one another. All your interactions shouldn’t be about work, and you might try hosting a virtual happy hour. Let everyone make or bring their own drinks, and just talk about nonwork related stuff.

Clear Things Up With Clarity

Clarity is another way you can stop your diluting company culture. Your employees want to know what is going on, and without clarity, they can start to get antsy and think about the worst-case scenario. Remote work and being isolated can really start to breed mistrust and a little paranoia if people aren’t kept up to date.

You should always try to keep your employees as informed as possible, in order to reduce the stress that remote working provides for everyone involved. One of the best ways to do this and avoid diluting company culture is by using a standard conference call every morning to get people on the same page, or at the very least a morning email blast. You can use virtual meeting platforms to do that. This can help to alleviate some of those fears.

Focus On Employee Comfort

Remote working is very different from working inside of an office, and it brings a whole new set of challenges to your team. You should focus on keeping your employees comfortable as they try to find their ideal work-life balance. If your employees know what you are understanding of their needs for family time, a work life balance, and any other challenges that working from home throws their way, they can work harder, and the culture should remain intact.

Encouraging your employees to get an ergonomic workspace or buy ergonomic chair can also be helpful to avoid company culture dilution, and here’s why:

Pros and Cons of An Ergonomic Workspace

• Increases productivity and comfort at the same time
• Provides a custom workspace that employees can make their own
• Allows for experiments with different types of items (such as standing desks)

• Can be tough to get used too
• Often hard to get up without a proper plan beforehand

How To Lead the Charge Into Company Culture

During times of crisis where faith in the company culture is at an all-time low, every single worker is looking to you to lead them. They look to you as an example of how they should act to keep organization culture, and you have the ability to steer the culture where you want it to be. Don’t be afraid to use that power and lead during the crisis.

Company culture might face some risks as you move to a remote workplace, but it doesn’t have to completely dilute. Instead, you need to focus on changing the company culture for the modern world, and once you have that down you can see the benefits. With our recommended avoiding dilute company culture tips, your company culture should be just as strong remotely as it was whenever you were in the office!