Over the past couple of years, companies have been faced with the question: how do we build company culture with a remote team?

We know a thing or two about remote company culture building! Our team has been a virtual community since Incorporate Massage (now Nivati) began 11 years ago.

‍We know it can be hard to stay connected when working from home, but we also know the importance of feeling part of something larger in times like these. We’re doing our best to reduce employee stress by making sure our team stays engaged, has a community connection, and feels supported.

Learn more about how we build our company culture with a remote team.    

How we're working hard to reduce employee stress

1. Team-building challenges

Just because you’re not in the office together doesn’t mean you can’t reduce employee stress together! Get creative and arrange virtual games to keep your staff engaged.

One of our company values is “work hard, play hard” so we make sure that value is alive in our remote company culture with fun challenges.

We’re spread across the U.S. as a remote team, so we started a challenge to virtually walk across America, passing through each employee's hometowns. Staff members are in teams and track their steps during the week to report their count. To add to the competitive game, it’s also a race to see which team goes the furthest. We’ve almost made it from California to Florida!

Looking for other ideas? See if your team can complete 30 days of yoga, or who can log the most hours meditating!

2. Virtual town hall

Another one of our company values is “talk it out”—and that value doesn’t change during challenging times!

Each Monday, we host a town hall meeting where our entire admin team gets together virtually. The executive team shares updates about the company. Anyone can ask questions, and we all get to see each other's faces! It’s a great time to connect and chat.

Plus, we make sure our whole team feels fully informed about the company. Knowledge is power, so we keep everyone informed to reduce employee stress.

We also try to get our local Utah team together frequently to hang out and get to know each other better. We're big fans of the outdoors, so we've mountain climbed, hiked, and more!

3. Over-communication

On top of hosting a town hall for admin staff, we’re making sure to communicate with our team of massage therapists transparently. We have thousands of excellent massage therapists, therapists, and practitioners employed across North America.

In a virtual workplace, we know it can be easy to feel disconnected, which doesn't help reduce employee stress. So we’ve made it a priority to keep every single team member in the loop and “make people happy!”

‍ We use tools like Volley and Slack to send short videos to each other instead of emails or direct messages, making communication more personal. And when we do talk via direct message, we use lots of emojis and GIFs to help show our appreciation for each other and communicate clearly.  

4. Finding ways to help

“Be the solution” is another of the pillars of our remote company culture! We’re making sure our team is able to continue providing all the benefits of massage by offering virtual guided massage, yoga, and guided meditation to our people.

We are pretty big on prioritizing mental wellbeing. With 41.5% of people suffering from anxiety or depression, we are huge believers in the benefits a mental health program can bring for remote teams.

We’re also doing our part to help fight the virus by offering our calendar platform to COVID-19 testing facilities! Our technology is helping Utah testing centers by managing their schedules and helping keep busy medical teams organized.

We hope these tips help your remote team stay connected!  For more tips on improving company culture, check out these articles:

 
• 8 Changes That Will Make a Big Difference for Company Culture
 
• 5 Persistent Company Culture Ideas You’ve Got All Wrong

Disclaimer

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