From the surface, “company culture” may come across as the latest hype term.
But if you stop to truly look at what company culture means, you’ll realize it’s a critical pillar of any successful organization.
Company culture isn’t the cheese and crackers you put out at in-person meetings. Or the employee holiday bags you send out every December.
It’s not even the bonuses your team can look forward to at the end of every quarter.
Your company culture starts with your vision and values.
To foster a positive work culture, all hands have to be on deck. Your company ethos has to be the beating heart of everything you do.
And that becomes even more pivotal when you run a hybrid team.
If you’re ready to foster a positive hybrid work culture and build an engaged, valued team, you’ve come to the right spot. In today’s article, we’re sharing seven ways you can promote a positive hybrid work culture.
Ready to discover what they are?
Let’s begin.
Fostering a positive hybrid work culture starts with a clear grasp on your vision, values, and a solid business plan.
When you’re clear on what you stand for and where you’re headed, it has a ripple effect on your business. Your ethos trickles down. Your leaders embody your values. And your employees feel supported and seen.
So, get clear on your company business principles.
Ask yourself:
Then, draw up a mission and vision and values statement, add it to every company document you can get your hands on, and preach the word near and far.
In other words, train your leaders and team members on the importance of upholding company values. Learning to communicate and reinforce these values is essential in understanding how to become a great leader. Lead by example, with integrity and clarity, to inspire and motivate your team.
While team meetings are a great way to gather feedback and ideas, if you’re not careful, they can end up eating up too much company time.
There’s a more efficient way to communicate when it comes to offering training advice, personalized feedback, or relaying company updates, especially when considering hardware procurement planning for hybrid teams. This ensures employees have the necessary resources to perform efficiently in both remote and office environments.
And that’s where Loom videos come in.
With Loom videos, you can record yourself live on camera while also sharing your screen. So whether you need to send editing feedback to a copywriter or whether you need to announce a new policy change, you can save time and energy with Loom videos.
With a shift to remote and hybrid environments, it’s become even more crucial to maintain human connections in the workplace. One way to support this is by using employee recognition software, which can help acknowledge individual and team achievements, fostering a sense of belonging and motivation in a hybrid work culture.
To promote team camaraderie and inspire employee engagement, consider hosting monthly learning opportunities and corporate events.
For in-person events, incorporating indoor digital signage can be an excellent way to display welcome messages, event schedules, or live updates, helping create a more interactive and connected experience for everyone.
Take Samsara, a pioneer in the Connected Operations Cloud and telematics, for example. Even with a team of employees in different parts of the world, Samsara still manages to pull off virtual events to celebrate special occasions and bring the team together.
You can even take your team on casual in-person events. For example, if your company and employees are located in, let’s say California, you can book RV rentals in California and take your team on a road trip and enjoy the time together.
Similarly, if you’re organizing events in Salt Lake City, finding apartments for rent in Salt Lake City can ensure comfortable accommodations for team members visiting from out of town. These opportunities allow for bonding in a relaxed environment, strengthening team dynamics.
Whatever event types you choose, make sure you can host them both in-person and virtually so nobody gets left out. For more structured activities, online training resources can help you discover platforms that support interactive learning sessions, workshops, or team-building exercises, whether virtual or in-person.
From brainstorm sessions to coffee chats to cooking classes to holiday celebrations, there’s no limit to how you can come together. Asking work-appropriate questions to get to know your team members is a great way to build rapport.
You can’t promote a positive hybrid work culture if you don’t prioritize fostering diversity, equality, and inclusion, (DE&I).
From hiring a diverse team to offering fair wages to integrating inclusive initiatives into everything you do, promoting DE&I must be a core value in your ethos system.
The most important drivers of your DE&I success? Your frontline managers, middle management, and top-level executives. When leaders make DE&I a top priority, it sends a message to the entire organization.
In other words, DE&I isn’t just an HR responsibility — it’s an organizational responsibility.
So, celebrate pride month and black history month. Focus on celebrating holidays that don’t have a religious emphasis. And don’t forget to make sure every employee feels valued and included — always. You can also track progress and ensure accountability by using analytics on employee actions to measure how well the implementation of your DEI initiatives goes.
Speaking of making sure every employee feels valued and included, a simple way to implement that practice is to place a strong focus on feedback and idea exchange.
Consider using a flexible workspace tool to give employees an easy way to share ideas and collaborate, especially in hybrid or remote environments. This kind of tool can create a designated space for open conversations and brainstorming, fostering a stronger sense of connection among teams.
In hybrid work environments, ensuring that valuable ideas and feedback don’t get lost in long email threads or scattered messages is crucial. A structured system for capturing and acting on employee input can lead to better decision-making, stronger engagement, and continuous improvement across teams. Implementing task management software can help centralize feedback, track action points from brainstorming sessions, and ensure that ideas don’t fall through the cracks. By keeping everything organized in one place, teams can turn valuable insights into actionable steps, fostering a culture where employee contributions truly drive progress.
So, when you host meetings, hand the floor over to a frontline employee. Ask your back office team what struggles they’re currently dealing with. Encourage feedback, ideas, and brainstorming sessions.
Recognize, validate, and respond to every idea you hear. And most importantly, don’t forget to implement your employees’ feedback and ideas — talk about a true reflection of valuing your team members, right?
Increasing employee engagement goes hand in hand with actively listening and responding to feedback. When employees feel their voices are heard, and their input is genuinely valued, they’re more likely to be invested in their work. When employees are engaged, they bring more energy and creativity to the table, which in turn drives the success of the organization as a whole.
Creating this type of environment starts with more than just collecting input; it’s about acting on it consistently, recognizing contributions, and giving employees a real sense of purpose in what they do. When teams see that their ideas have an impact, trust deepens, motivation grows, and the workplace becomes more resilient to change. These are some of the essential dynamics at the heart of employee engagement, especially in today’s hybrid environments.
If your team members frequently work from different locations, especially in countries like Japan, staying connected is crucial for maintaining communication and collaboration. Using an eSIM for Japan is a great way to ensure reliable data access, making it easier to stay in touch without the hassle of switching SIM cards.
Additionally, you can use employee monitoring software to identify whether this feedback has brought the desired results in employee engagement levels. Knowing this will allow you to create a more collaborative and productive work environment.
Prevent employee isolation and communication mishaps by staying connected with a team collaboration app, like Slack.
From sending a quick DM to starting a team thread, there are multiple ways you can use Slack to stay in the loop.
And speaking of staying in the loop, never underestimate the power of keeping in touch.
Even a quick message like “here’s a link to the latest project” or “thanks for the help” are effective, easy ways to promote healthy connections and communication.
While Slack is an excellent tool for team communication, it’s just one part of a larger ecosystem of technology for coworking space that can help facilitate effective communication and collaboration. By considering the full range of tools and platforms available, you can create a more comprehensive and integrated approach to team communication that meets the needs of all team members.
Adopting SaaS management platform can help streamline the selection, integration, and management of these tools, ensuring seamless collaboration across various departments.
Tech-savvy, younger team members may prefer a more conversational communication style, adding humor and lightheartedness with GIFs, memes, and emojis in Slack messages. On that note, you can create custom emojis for Slack with a photo editing tool to have a wide variety of emojis to react to messages.
You should encourage your staff to express themselves in a way that feels comfortable and authentic.
Fostering open communication channels is key to maintaining a strong hybrid work culture. By embracing diverse communication styles and tools, you’re not just facilitating information exchange – you’re building an effective communication strategy that keeps your team connected, engaged, and aligned with your company’s goals. To further strengthen your hybrid work setup, consider using tools like ExpressVPN’s Chrome app. This can ensure that remote access to shared resources remains secure, giving your team peace of mind while collaborating from anywhere.
And finally, help your team members feel seen and valued by starting a rewards and recognition program.
Whether it’s offering certificates for completed training, a leadership development program or whether it’s offering perks for a job well done, there are several ways you can get creative in recognizing team members.
Creating a supportive and engaging workplace goes beyond day-to-day tasks. One way to reinforce a positive atmosphere is by incorporating corporate rewards that highlight achievements and foster team spirit. Recognizing milestones, both big and small, can significantly contribute to a motivated and dedicated workforce.
By the way, if you need a rewards and recognition platform, we’re here for you! See our link below for more details.
And that’s it for today!
We hope this article has inspired you to implement practices to promote a positive hybrid work culture.
Here’s a quick recap of the tips we shared today:
1. Get clear on your company vision and values
2. Get on the same page with Loom videos
3. Build a connection with virtual events
4. Prioritize diversity, equality, and inclusion
5. Prioritize feedback and idea exchange
6. Stay in communication with Slack
7. Start a rewards and recognition program