Culture by Design: Keeping Culture Alive With a Remote Workforce

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Culture doesn’t just happen. It must be developed, nurtured and maintained in an intentional way – especially when majority of your workforce is remote, behind a screen, in their home or home office, or possibly sitting in an airport while traveling to a meet a client.

Remote work has become increasingly popular in the United States with the rise of technology and new ways of staying connected and sharing information that are as efficient (and sometimes more so) than traditional offices and boardrooms. Companies are able to share information seamlessly, transmit data with the click of a button, share screens, chat over instant message, and connect with one another from nearly anywhere in the world.

Fast Company reported in February 2018 on Upwork’s Future Workforce Report, “Many of the 1,000 hiring managers surveyed said that they expect up to 38% of their full-time staff will be working remotely in the next decade.” Fast Company went on to say: “Currently, 63% of employers have remote workers, yet a majority lack remote work policies.” A written policy may not be necessary, but it is important to establish norms and be intentional about your remote workers’ experiences within your culture and connections to one another.

Not all remote work is the same – there are positives and challenges to the lifestyle. Remote work arrangements, when they first hit the work scene, were instantly alluring because of their novelty, the lure of greater work-life balance and a flexible work environment that seemed so desirable principally because of the words, “work from home.” For many of us, this conjured up images of working in pajama pants with a big cup of coffee, participating in a conference call from the location of your choice – a home office, the airport, or your car – and there was a certain sense of freedom, ease, even glamour, associated with having a “flexible” or “remote” work arrangement.

Connection & Culture

We now know that employing a remote workforce takes effort and commitment to a positive work environment and culture at all levels of the organization. Mosaic is proud of what we have learned about creating a thriving remote workforce – but there are always challenges to making sure that your workforce feels connected, engaged, and included. Maintaining a remote workforce with a kickass culture is a challenge, for sure. One of the primary challenges employees who work remotely cite is the feeling of isolation and being less of a “part of the team”.

At Mosaic, we strive to be the exception and maintain a strongly connected and centered team, regardless of where we all do our respective jobs. For us, this boils down to two things: our culture, and good communication. Here is a look at some of our practices that contribute to our connectivity:

Huddles

We touch base with each other regularly to talk about what we’re up to, what we’re stuck on, and what we need help with. Many of our remote team members tell us that it’s not simply the information shared, but the experience of being “in the room” virtually, and connected with the rest of our team, that makes them feel more a part of their team, and the company, when so many work in locations across the country and are in our Nashville office only a few times a year.

Video Chat

This is how we make our huddles happen, and many other points of connection throughout the day. We’ve found that our team prefers Zoom video chat over instant messaging. The personal aspect of seeing one another – no matter where you are – creates that human connection. We encourage everyone to “show their faces” for internal meetings; this reduces the intimidation factor and makes everyone more comfortable using this medium.

We encourage our team to have conversations that would have happened over the watercooler if we all shared an office building. It’s important to us to have these conversations as if we are physically in an office with our team – to connect when there is good news or difficult news. By doing this, we are able to better maintain that intimate, entrepreneurial, small-team family feeling, no matter how big we grow. I think it’s vital to know your team and know what they are dealing with and establish a relationship where you can coach and mentor, and this is one of the many things that I think sets Mosaic apart. Cheri, a Washington-based consultant, says, “Even though I work remotely, it is important for me to stay connected to co-workers to ensure I feel like I’m part of a team. One way I stay connected is scheduling short meetings to say hi and catch up on life. We share best practices and sometime have a glass of wine. While I am not in a physical office building, you can still have the same outcome by making simply efforts to stay connected.”

Work is life and life is work. Sometimes you are walking through a parking lot or sitting in a car when you join a call or you haven’t showered yet. There is grace within the team and within our walls. We trust that we all look professional as we go onsite or connect with clients, but our culture stresses being comfortable just being who we are with each other on a daily basis, and I hope everyone on the team feels this.

Having a conversation with a colleague over Zoom where you can see their facial expressions and body language helps us communicate clearly and understand each other better. Tricia, a remote Senior PAS team member in Tennessee eloquently described the value of Zoom when she said, “At Mosaic we choose to ‘assume positive intent’ of one another – with instant messaging you can sometimes misread inflection or intent. Zoom helps you maintain the assumption of positive intent because you are able to pair a colleague’s nonverbal cues with their words.”

Creative Workspace

Much like the “chat rooms” in the old days of the web, #Slack has become our place to gather (and from our climbing message stats, it seems like it’s taken off!). As most of you already know, we implemented Slack as a place to collaborate on projects with groups, to send group messages, or to launch video meetings. It’s the place we all meet up, and while the primary focus is work, we make room for fun, too. Encouraging a workplace where people bring themselves into the environment and share personal details, special moments, talents, and accomplishments, or just a good joke or two, reinforces the personal connection and makes our team feel like family.

Virtual Events

When our team does gather “in real life” – for quarterly or annual planning meetings or other company events – we’re able to pick up seamlessly because we “see” each other so often over Zoom and share information on #Slack.

Companies today must think outside the box. We learned as we outgrew the feasibility of flying everyone in several times a year for meetings and the annual holiday party, that we needed to take a creative approach to these events. We added virtual events, in addition to quarterly meetings and monthly All Hands Calls: our Secret Santa party, monthly BetterBookClub meetings, and more. It is this kind of celebration that connects individuals throughout the organization for a positive reason that has nothing to do with work that is extremely valuable. It provides the opportunity to connect and get to know one another. We are building grace equity in the relationship.

This year, I heard about a virtual happy hour that our Client Engagement team held. They all grabbed their beverage of choice in their home offices and joined a video conference call. Their “happy hour” turned into two-and-a-half hours of stories and belly laughs. I had a little FOMO when I heard about this bonding time for their team, but more than that, I was happy to see this team being proactive about connecting with one another as people who share experiences beyond office hours and routine work. They were embracing the culture and making it even better by prioritizing time to connect with their fellow teammates.

Our Wingman Program

We’ve all had the experience of joining a new company and thinking, “How am I going to learn all that I need to learn, and get up to speed?” You don’t want to ask what might be perceived as a stupid question, but you also want to connect and feel at home. Many of you have benefitted from our Wingman program at Mosaic or served as a Wingman yourself.

Some of you may not know that this program came into being organically, in sharing my own experience with a rock star consultant who had joined us and was struggling to adjust. Brian, a Texas-based consultant, was transitioning from a corporate environment to working with Mosaic from home. He had just left a position which involved a daily commute and a big office with fluorescent lights and people constantly milling about. Since I had been consulting for over 10 years already, I had disconnected from how difficult this transition could be. It takes time to adjust to life as a remote employee. Unlike a typical office environment, you can’t just pop your head into someone’s office to ask a question or ask a coworker something simple like where to find the benefits documentation you were given during orientation. These conversations would organically occur after morning huddle or in the break room during lunch. To the remote worker, asking simple questions that are necessary during the onboarding period feels like you are interrupting your boss or peer. Brian brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Mosaic, and his experience shined a light on a gap we needed to fill in our onboarding process. Our team stepped in and made time to support him. He eloquently described his transition to consulting life: “The way that the team scaffolded me allowed me to move forward and not worry about my inadequacies. They carried me until I could walk – and now I’m running!”

His experience exemplifies what we desire for each of our team members to find success as remote employees at Mosaic. We wanted all new team members to feel this way, so we created the Wingman Program which pairs each new member of our team with a peer who is dedicated to helping the new team mate acclimate. The wingman is a resource for all the questions that seem silly, helping the individual adjust, and being there for them as they settle in to help them feel connected.

Remote work as a consultant also requires a certain amount of self-management that is less common in some traditional workplaces. We expect consultants to self-manage many aspects of their day. They learn to juggle multiple clients, varying priorities and deadlines, and their workload on top of the personalities involved as well. The process of acclimating to this style of work takes time, and it can be different for everyone. The Wingman is a great resource for new consultants as they can learn first-hand how a peer juggles their day-to-day.

Celebrations and Acknowledgements

There’s something special about public acknowledgement of something that is important to you. It makes it real. That is why we record and remember our team’s personal milestones: birthdays, children’s birthdays, work and personal anniversaries. Our team understands that they are important. Run a marathon? Had a baby? Your child graduated from high school? We want to know it and celebrate it with you.

This is also why, during our monthly All Hands Call, we share the top company news and end with the open invite for team members to give one another a shout out and share their “Attitude of Gratitude.” This gives us an opportunity to thank one another, celebrate one another, and gas each other up. It is the most important part of that call. Publicly acknowledging what we are doing well in an open forum can never be overdone. It serves an additional purpose in allowing people who don’t frequently work with one another hear about what is going well in different areas of the organization.

You either have a culture by default or by design. And, to me, “by design” means more than just a few early team members setting standards for remote work nearly ten years ago. In order to sustain connection across a fast-growing organization, it takes a team that is fully engaged and bought into the rewards that come from the effort it takes to connect with one another. I am proud that Mosaic continues to stand out as a place of work that is committed to being a remote team of exceptionally connected individuals. I encourage you to continue to be creative and introduce new ways of intentional connection company-wide.

I firmly believe that remote workforces are not only here to stay, but a growing norm among leading companies. To attract the best talent and offer challenging and rewarding work, we must flex as to the location our team works from and give them ownership over the way they perform their jobs to meet company goals. But providing a “home base” for our team is critical: a culture they feel connected to, a work family, and an environment that makes it feel as if your co-workers are just an office away – no matter where they’re working from — and that is what makes our Mosaic team special.

Millennials in the Workplace

We all hear a lot about the impact of Millennials, right? They’re changing the way we recruit and hire, market ourselves, and do business. This is one influential group! And we have our share at Mosaic: did you know we have 16 Millennials – people born after 1982 – on staff? That’s 30% of our team! This surprised me – I didn’t realize our numbers were so high. And that’s a good thing.

I recently participated in an EO Think Tank in Nashville on Working with Millennials, along with business owners from a wide variety of industries. A few of the companies represented included professional services, healthcare providers, restaurants, retail, event and party planning, salon services, and more.

All of these companies had Millennials represented on their teams, some as high as 100% of their workforce. And their opinions and experiences on working with this generation were as different as night and day. Business owners talked about the challenges of recruiting, training, retaining and motivating these employees. Regardless of the industry we work in or the percentage of this generation on our staff or in our target market, it’s a common challenge we’re all trying to get our heads around: how do we engage this diverse and talented group who’s motivated by different drivers than those that we built our careers on?

I came away with a lot of interesting insights I wanted to share with you. Not everything applied to me or to our team here at Mosaic, but I thought the general insights of the group had value and wanted to pass along what I heard on to you.

Here’s what I learned:

You guys rock. (This isn’t news.) As you all know, Mosaic’s younger team members are highly creative, motivated, engaged, collaborative, and have a strong work ethic. And we love that!

You like to make a difference. Employees from this generation thrive in industries like professional services, insurance, wealth management, and home health care – serving others in a tangible way.

Culture and work environment are important. This group has high expectations when entering the workforce – as if every working environment should be Google-like with free coffee and laundry service (if only, right?)

Recognition and reward pays off. Significant progress in stature or pay is important. Unlike previous generations who were willing to put in the blood, sweat and tears for an extended period of time, a more immediate return on investment, so to speak, is important.

Show me the money! While those of us in Gen X and Y might have focused on planning ahead, retirement savings, and so on, Millennials are more focused on the here and now: making money, spending money, making more money, etc. – not thinking about retirement but more immediate life needs and wants.

Kinder and gentler. Millennials have been brought up to be much more liberal when it comes to politics and economics. This generation is more cause-driven than those that came before.

What’s in it for me? Although seemingly more tolerant, there also seems to be a sense of entitlement among this group. The recession in 2008/2009 had a big impact on this generation. For the first time in history, a highly educated generation entered the workforce carrying more school debt but earning less than the prior generation. Note to self: don’t enter the workforce during a recession!

Technology savvy. Millennials are very technology-focused. Many participants said that if they send an email to a Millennial, they’ll receive a text reply. In an effort to communicate more effectively, some are turning to apps such as Marco Polo and Slack.

We’re in this together. Group accountability is important. The success of the team and everyone pulling their own weight is important to this group. One organization uses Top Grading where everyone is peer-reviewed and the results are visible to everyone. A players continue working; B players are coached and trained up, and C players are let go. A and B players are very motivated by this approach and C players usually self-select out.

Be real. Lastly, the group talked about working with Millennials as customers and the challenges in connecting with them. Most reach millennial customers through social media but all agreed that the posts had to be authentic. For example, a self-made video appears to be more reliable and meaningful in reaching a Millennial than a polished marketing video.

Be relevant. We’ve got to reach this group where they live. Everybody does business on their mobile device. The Wealth Management Company uses an app to entice Millennials to participate in investing. Getting a Millennial to make an appointment to meet an investment representative in an office is impossible. But if they can decide on how to invest via an app, then they are much more likely to do it. Do you agree?

A little light reading, your e-mail in-box and more…

Finally, other observations centered on professional development and time management. In keeping with our focus on good books to broaden your perspective and grow your career: a participant recommended the book The 5-Hour Work Day, which is loosely based off Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week. It talks about how top performers got the same amount of work done in 5 hours instead of the typical 8-hour day – and the hourly rate was inflated to compensate for the difference. In the time saved, employees got to spend their extra time doing other things. How cool would it be to be as productive in 25 hours a week as a 40-hour week – and get paid the same? And have that extra time to devote to the things that you love?

Another participant practices the 3 D’s in his company as it relates to emails: Do it, Delete it, or Delegate it. They have been practicing this for nearly two years and he has seen an increase in productivity and efficiency. I’m going to put this into practice myself!

Isn’t it amazing how a generation can change the way people think, hire, and do business?

I think this happens with nearly all generations in the workforce — but Millennials are definitely having a tangible and lasting effect, either because you’re encouraging all of us to shift our thinking or because you’re forcing all of us to focus on new ways of connecting, whether that means embracing new technology or new ways of relating to one another.

Either way, I’m thankful for our Millennial Mosaicians. You inspire us, challenge us, and force us to think differently. Your contribution to Mosaic helps us stay relevant and hip. And I love it when you teach some of us old dogs new tricks! By the way, does anyone know how to turn on Family Sharing on my iPad?

Carry on, you crazy kids!

Vicki