As we move increasingly towards a digital world, companies must assess how to cultivate a strong digital culture while working remotely. A successful, healthy digital culture is an important tool that allows companies to thrive, even during this time of social distancing and remote location. With the right guidance and creativity, companies can create a digitally focused culture that encourages collaboration, creativity, and productivity. In this article, we will explore the best ways to cultivate a digital culture for a remote workplace.

1. Harnessing the Digital Shift: How to Cultivate Culture Remotely

The digital shift has changed how teams work and how businesses interact with their customers. Though it has created numerous benefits, it has also created a whole new set of challenges. In particular, how to cultivate and sustain a culture of connection and collaboration when working remotely. Here are few tips on how to embrace the digital shift while creating and sustaining culture.

• Foster healthy virtual connections: Take the time to stay in touch with your team and customers. Host regular team meetings, schedule one-on-one check-ins with team members, and contact customers to strengthen relationships. Providing a voice for customer feedback also helps to create a collaborative environment.
• Communicate through your corporate values: Maintain and share your company’s core values, both internally and externally. This may include items such as the importance of treating others with respect, continuous learning and improvement, staying customer-focused, or providing an environment that encourages progress towards growth.
• Train and equip your team: Invest in the right tools and technologies to help empower your workforce. Not only will this help to reduce communication glitches, but it will also make sure team members are well-equipped to deliver the best experience to customers.

Creating and sustaining a culture during the digital shift is essential to keeping your team and customers engaged and connected. Utilizing the tips mentioned above will help to ensure your team has the right tools and resources to keep your internal culture intact and consistent.

2. Establishing Connections at a Distance

Making connections from a distance can seem daunting at first. After all, how do you adequately transmit who you are and what you have to offer to someone you’ve never even seen in person? While daunting, it is possible to establish meaningful and lasting connections that blossom into connections that, conversely, allow all participants to grow and develop.

The first step is to introduce yourself. Making yourself memorable is the best way for connections to form so break away from the cookie-cutter messaging you learned in the corporate setting, put your heart into it, and make your personality shine. Keep it professional at all times and don’t forget to chase any personal connection you make with a professional follow-up.

Another key strategy is to engage in as many conversations as possible and be sincere about it. Put yourself out there and be eager to start conversations. You could strike up a conversation with virtual mentors or collaborators to start yourself off, or you might even find yourself connecting with someone in the same field. Regardless, it’s never a bad idea to reach out and make a connection – it might give you access to resources you didn’t even know existed.

3. Going Digital: Adapting to a Changing Workplace

The digital era has brought with it a new way of working, and adapting to these changes can be difficult. Here are a few strategies that can help you stay ahead of the game:

• Learn online: Take advantage of online courses, videos, and resources to keep up with new technologies and changes in the workplace.
• Get Comfortable with Technology: Familiarise yourself with the basics of digital technology and use them to your advantage.
• Stay Informed: Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and industry news so that you don’t miss out on important developments.

Adapting to the current digital workplace climate can also take some creative thinking. Try thinking outside the box when it comes to productivity and communication. Open yourself up to new ways of working, such as remote meetings, video conferencing, virtual workspaces, and other digital tools. Utilising new technologies can help you stay ahead of the competition and make the transition to a digital workplace much easier.

4. Cultivating Team Comradery Remotely

The remote work style has its unique challenges, and one of them is not being able to cultivate team comradery in the same manner as an office setting. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though! Here are some hints to help your team stay united while they are apart:

• Foster open communication. Schedule regular chats, catch-up meetings, or group calls to review progress, ask questions and set new goals, and share ideas.
• Share team updates. Use both team email and chat to share announcements, ideas, photos, or success stories.
• Gather online. Create a dedicated space to socialize by using a video conferencing platform like Zoom, WebEx or Skype.

Such measures help build a team atmosphere and keep remote workers connected, despite being miles apart. Show your workmates that you care about them by celebrating birthdays, work anniversaries or their successes. This helps build a sense of community, even though everyone is scattered

As technological advances move us further and further into a digitally reliant world, the ability to cultivate and maintain a healthy digital culture is a responsibility we should not take lightly. Networking, engaging and genuinely caring for one another can go a long way towards developing a thriving digital culture, even while working remotely. With a bit of effort and dedication, we can make the ‘virtual office’ of the future a productive and engaging place to work!