Why team culture matters so much right now

We often think of team culture as something we build in-person - dynamics as we sit together during meetings, conversations around the coffee machine, greetings as we pass a colleague’s desk. When we make the switch to working remotely, we believe the culture we established in-person will continue just the same. But when the work context changes so significantly, our team culture changes too.

If we don’t work on it, dynamics can evolve in ways we don’t want - people disconnect from work and each other, accountability begins to falter. When a global pandemic like COVID-19 turns our world upside down, we know our teams will not be able to simply return to the way things were before.

Working on team culture right now is part of helping our organizations make it through this crisis and building a foundation for the future. So how do we actually improve our team dynamics and interactions when people can’t be in-person?

Since Impact by Design is a 100% remote team, we had to build our team culture remotely. This gave us a few ideas, so we brought our team together and created a list of things that have been important for us.  They fall into these three categories:

  • How we support personal connection

  • The formal and informal ways we communicate

  • How our culture is reinforced through policies and practices

In this blog, we have listed some ways we put these things into practice, along with several updates we have made to support our team through the crisis right now.

Of course, our building blocks are not meant to be prescriptive. The culture of any team will be as unique as the people that are part of it and the context in which they work. IbD’s roadmap for our own way of working together is always evolving – especially today – as we grapple with the global pandemic. So rather than looking at this as a list of things you must do, we hope it gives you some ideas about what is still possible right now.   

IbD’s Building blocks for remote team culture

Personal Connections

Individual connections are about remembering that we are all human and that it is important to create spaces for us to bring our whole selves to work – not just the part that gets the job done.

  • “Icebreakers” are for more than breaking the ice – We know each other really well, but we still use icebreakers during many of our meetings. Why? They make us laugh and help us take a few minutes for the personal connections you can miss if you just log on and log off of conference calls.  

  • There is a GIF for that – When someone is stressed or frustrated, when we’re celebrating an accomplishment, heck, whenever anything happens, you can expect someone to share the perfect GIF. It’s a quirky thing we do, and it brings us joy. We don’t advocate that every team starts using GIFs, but let things be silly sometimes.

  • Hello cat, dog, baby… - When you work in your home your personal life will inevitably creep (often, quite literally) into your meetings. That’s okay and even welcome during our staff calls.

  • Hey, how are you? Personal check-ins are reason enough to send someone a note or set-up a call. This doesn’t have to happen after work, this is part of our work together. Plus, connecting over coffee/tea/a glass of wine doesn’t hurt either.

  • We do video – If you’ve checked out some of our other remote work blogs, you’ll know we feel pretty strongly about meeting with video. It is not always possible, but you connect with your colleagues on a different level when you can see them.

  • Slack channel for #appreciations – When grateful or inspired by something a team member has done, we share it using an #appreciations channel on Slack. This can be relatively big or small, from the speedy review of a proposal to the successful culmination of a big project. The result is a purely positive thread of communications and bright spots throughout the week.


Communications

This is a big bucket of things that includes the more formal and planned ways we share information as well as the informal and ad-hoc opportunities we encourage for communication amongst team members.

  • Each communication channel has a purpose. We use multiple channels to communicate like a lot of teams (Slack, Zoom, e-mail, phone, etc) but each channel is designated for specific types of conversations and information sharing. That way we can increase the efficiency of how we communicate and not fall into common traps like endless e-mail threads (making it hard to find what you need) or leaning on personal text messages (which can blur the needed boundaries between work and personal time).

  • Sharing bi-weekly e-mails with key data and information. Not all communications require a meeting, even really important ones. Every other week an e-mail is sent out to the team with the status of each project, updates on social media, upcoming events, etc. This helps keep everyone informed, understanding the big picture as well as critical details.

  • We care about the design of our team meetings. We take the time to run our calls as though they were in-person meetings. That includes icebreakers, breakout groups, breaks, and space for collaboration and ideas sharing like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Mural. Just because it looks like a phone call doesn’t mean it has to act like one.

  • Schedule routine meetings too. Just like most teams, we also have regular meetings on the calendar that are meant for specific conversations and updates. We work to make these meetings meaningful, with a clear purpose every time. If the topic doesn’t require a conversation with everyone on the call, it is not part of the meeting.

 

Policies and Practices

Policies and practices are the scaffolding on which your team culture is built. They will easily shape and influence how people interact and how they feel about those interactions.

  • We don’t prescribe to 9-5. We ask that all IbD staff members are present for work and meetings from 10 am – 4 pm EST (unless sick, taking a vacation, etc), and the other hours during the workday are at the discretion of the individual. That way we get the benefits of having people “on” together while giving individuals welcome flexibility. Of course, during the COVID-19 crisis we’ve loosened this up even more.

  • Create solutions for challenges together. If something isn’t clear or efficient, we create solutions together and then work on them until there is the level of clarity and detail that everyone needs. This process helps us create better solutions because those who are impacted are making decisions about improvements.

  • Keep boundaries between work and personal life. Since IbD offers flexibility in when people can work during the day, sometimes e-mails and messages are sent at the crack of dawn or late at night. There are no expectations that another team member will respond if it is outside of their “business hours”. Individuals are encouraged to turn work off during personal time.



Yup, we’re still working on it

So much goes into building a team culture that it’s no wonder it is constantly evolving. IbD is focused on continuous improvement in everything we do, so it’s not a surprise that we apply that to our culture too. Even though we have been working remotely for years, the current realities have forced us to reflect on it again. Here are a few things we have done:

  • Created a Slack channel that is specifically for COVID-19 information sharing. This isn’t about business updates, this is everything from a funny comic, to community resources, to news articles, and where you can still buy hand sanitizer.

  • Updated policies around paid-time-off and extended leave.

  • Increased the frequency and nature of our full team meetings to include a bi-weekly call specifically about the impacts of COVID-19 on our work.

  • Increased personal and 1:1 check-ins.

  • Allowed a staff member with a toddler at home to have a funky daily schedule.

  • Added daily #catfacts to our general team Slack channel because…why not?

  • Had a remote birthday party for a staff member. We all need more reasons for celebration and joy these days.

A lot of teams are having increased calls and communications because of COVID-19, but you don’t have to stop there. You may be working remotely for some time. Rather than letting the remote team culture evolve on its own or imagine that everything will suddenly snap back to how it was before when this crisis is over, now is a time to be intentional about how you want to work together. Good team dynamics and interactions, more than anything, are what makes us a team and that is something we need more than ever right now.