Written by: Eric Handler
How to Preserve your Culture in a Virtual Environment
The new normal we’re all living in has many companies working in a virtual environment. For some, this is temporary, but for many, this is permanent. No matter which one you fall in, there are things that are missed when you move to a virtual environment. Culture is one of them. How do you preserve that culture you had in the office in your new virtual environment?
As you work to preserve your culture, start here:
- Define your culture. What does it mean? What mattered most when you were in person? Ask your team to define the culture as well – you’ll likely get some great responses from them.
- List out your values. Your values should be at the core of everything you do and it’s important to keep them in mind as you think about your culture.
- List out events you did in person that created your culture. What were the team events that you did while your office was in-person? What did those look like and how often?
- Take the in-person culture, virtual. Looking at everything above, how can you translate that to virtual? If you did happy hours as a team, how can you make those virtual happy hours? If you celebrated birthdays, what you can do to continue celebrating your team members’ special days?
- Communicate with your team. Talk to your team members about the culture and working to preserve it. Share the new plans with them (or opt to keep some of it a surprise).
The most important thing is to be intentional about everything you do. You don’t want to overcompensate just because you’re virtual. Don’t lose the culture you created for your company – it’s more than in-person ping pong tournaments. Culture is about people, and you didn’t lose that by going virtual.
