Detractors of remote work often assert their belief that it’s difficult for a group of employees—particularly a larger group—to remain engaged with a workplace culture when each person is based in a different location. But when you take the time to peek behind the scenes at actual companies that are successfully operating with a completely remote workforce, it becomes clear that strong engagement with a virtualized staff can become a reality—as long as you use an effective strategy.
Such is the case with LaCalle Group, the parent company of ContinuED, which provides continuing online education courses and has been entirely virtual since its launch nearly two decades ago in 1999. To get an idea of how ContinuED has managed to create, cultivate, and maintain a thriving culture despite the physical separation between employees, I spoke with Asher Primrose, HR director at ContinuED, about the challenges that the organization initially faced with a fully remote workforce and how they overcame them.
“Remote work environments can make it difficult to establish and maintain a thriving culture,” explained Primrose. “Team members don’t have the same opportunities to stop by a coworker’s desk and talk through an issue or even catch up on their weekend plans.” To counteract these types of situations, Primrose emphasized that a culture of strong communication and collaboration is critical to connect a workforce that is spread out.
Culture of Connection
That certainly makes sense, but how exactly does a mid-size organization like ContinuED bridge the gaps and physical distance between employees? According to Primrose, a key reason behind the company’s success as a 100% virtual company is based on putting a huge emphasis on staying connected daily. This helps to create a tight-knit culture even when people work far from each other.
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“This priority comes from the top down, and flows through all levels of the company,” said Primrose. “When we were smaller, tools like Skype, email, and Google Docs helped us keep our daily contact with each other, but eventually we grew to a size where we needed to develop a central communication hub to exchange information, connect, and find the resources and information critical to doing our jobs.”
Using Digital Tools
Increasingly, digital workplace platforms are enabling this type of tight connection within far-flung companies. In the case of ContinuED, the platform they selected is Igloo Software, which provides a single digital destination as the focus for all communications—from formal company announcements to happy birthday messages—so that no one is left out of the loop.
“The platform acts as a central hub to organize and share company communications, policies, calendars, and other resources,” said Primrose. “We’ve created team spaces that are essentially a custom sub-community for each department where they have a place to post news, calendar items, documents, links, and wikis. People can also share information with others about their roles and department objectives.” He added that this digital workplace is a “social” place where anyone in the company, at any level, can share personal or business news, photos, or articles and can interact casually with other team members.
By layering this digital workplace platform on top of their culture’s solid foundation, Primrose emphasized that everyone feels closer and more connected. “We’re able to retain that small-company feel no matter how big we get,” he said. “We have the culture and now have the proper digital workplace solution in place to keep every team member engaged, wherever in the world they may be.”
It’s a compelling case study for employers who want to harness the benefits of today’s increasingly virtual workforce, while creating an enviable company culture that facilitates connection and engagement.
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