Creating Company Culture in a Mostly Remote Setting

Our company’s culture directly reflects our values and our goals. We step into every situation with the mindset that relationships matter most. It can be challenging to cultivate a strong sense of community when everyone works from different locations. These are our three best tips for cultivating a strong company culture in a remote work environment:

• Make space for fun.

  • At Choice, we primarily communicate with each other via Slack messages. We have channels for different projects and company initiatives, but we also have our beloved Random Channel. This channel is a direct depiction of our company culture. We share non-work-related messages and updates that we think everyone should know. This week someone shared an article about the Frontier and Spirit Airlines merger. Memes and funny comments quickly followed. Someone said, “They’re always like “fly for 5 dollars but you have to sit upside down and can only bring one shirt” I cannot imagine what else they could possibly do.” This channel sustains our company. 

• Make space for gratitude.

  • We start every team meeting by sharing something we are thankful for that week. People share their gratitude for everything from long phone calls with old friends to another winning game for the Georgia Bulldogs. Making space for gratitude helps us all get to know each other better and make space for reflection. 

• Make space for celebration.

  • Every team meeting ends with celebrations! We highlight areas where we are winning as a team or as individuals. This is an excellent opportunity to brag about the fantastic work we witness from others behind the scenes. We’re quick to give praise for big and small accomplishments. When we’re not on team calls, you can usually find some celebratory messages in our General Channel on Slack. Last week a team member sent a long message praising a teammate for her leadership while managing a complex project and her willingness to reach back and include the person she manages every step of the way. The celebration emoji might be our might used reaction on Slack.

Our company culture shines through how we interact with each other in Slack, on Zoom, and in-person at the office. We are intentional about creating a culture where people feel supported and valued as employees and hardworking individuals.