My remote team isn't collaborating effectively. Projects are stalling. My team feels lonely and isolated. We can't retain top talent. We're not reaching our goals.

We hear these concerns from remote team leaders all the time. Building culture remotely is hard. There are so many ideas, endless tools, and yet leaders feel like they're just adding more clutter to the pile and not actually solving anything.

The good news? These problems are solvable. Just not with Slack gifs and Zoom virtual background games.

In this article, we’ll cover the 7 must-haves we’ve uncovered from working with hundreds of teams on how to build a strong remote team culture.

1. A shared ‘place’

One of the biggest reasons remote teams struggle with isolation, engagement, and productivity is actually really simple. It’s just really hard to solve with traditional tools like Zoom and Slack.

Remote teams need a ‘place’ in their tech stack. A single location everyone goes to feel like they’re together. Where collaboration is simple, fast, and human.

We got it ‘for free’ with the in-person office pre-pandemic. We used to sit beside each other, wave ‘hello’ when someone walked by, join in on a brainstorming session, grab someone after a meeting to clarify a question, or catch up with a teammate in the break room.

We don’t get that ‘for free’ remotely. So you have to add it to your tech stack. This is what virtual workplaces are designed to solve. They literally give your remote team the place you’ve been missing.

But regardless of the tools you decide to use, let’s break down what remote teams need to feel like they have a place.

• A space that reflects the culture. Think back to the in-person office. The layout, desk personalizations, decorations, themed rooms, logos, goals, memories. All came together to showcase a company’s culture when you walked in the door. The office makes employees feel like they’re a part of a team. And remote teams need this too.
• Knowing what meetings are happening around the company. One, so they feel like a part of the team. Remote work is pretty dark when you have no idea what's going on around the company. And two, so they can join in on the ones they need to. This makes collaboration so much smoother. And cuts out that dreaded 'meeting about the meeting I missed because I had no idea the meeting was happening'.
• Easy access to information. Make knowledge easy to find and ‘open’ by default. Open documents, open chat channels, open meetings. Then, make things private only when they need to be. Everyone will feel like they’re a part of one team, and a collaborative remote work environment will naturally form.
• Reliable, simple collaboration. Get your remote team together for collaboration regularly. You’ll get this automatically if you’re using a virtual workplace like SoWork. It will be as simple as walking up to someone. The most successful teams we see are the ones that work from the same place for a block of time every day.

2. Human connection

If your remote team culture is being built on a pandemic setup of Zoom tiles and Slack ping-pong chats, everyone will feel like something big is missing. And that ‘something’ missing will result in a sterile, lonely culture with trouble achieving goals.

So what’s that ‘something’? Human connection. Your remote team culture needs:

• Natural Interactions. Can employees eat lunch together? Crush work beside each other? Play games between deep work sessions? Make this really easy and natural. If you’re using a virtual workplace, set up themed zones around the office so employees can easily bump into each other as they go about their days.
• Bonding time. Great teams are made up of people who trust each other. And trust comes from spending time together. Employees need those water cooler moments. And yeah, you guessed it. If you’re using a virtual workplace, real team bonding is too easy. With employees literally working beside each other, opportunities for bonding occur naturally.
• Room for self-expression. People want to work with other people. And people have hobbies, animals, and skills to share. Give your remote workers the space to highlight who they are, so your team feels like everyone is engaged and relatable. One of the powerful things about a virtual office is employees can express themselves using asynchronous communication (think: pictures, outfits, pets that follow them around the office). This prevents the problem of every meeting losing focus because it’s the only time remote employees can express themselves.
• Celebration: Recognize birthdays and team milestones. Small gestures, like decorating someone’s virtual desk for their birthday or banging the digital gong to celebrate a goal achieved go a long way in bringing a remote team together.

3. Values you actually use

Company values define how your team acts, treats each other, and makes decisions. They’re the DNA that’s supposed to get replicated from the founding teammates as the company grows.

Values need to be well-defined, communicated, corrected and consistently demonstrated in every aspect of your remote team’s work. Everyone needs to feel a deep sense of belonging to the values and the culture the values create. Otherwise, remote teams lose their cohesion quickly.

This can be hard to do remotely when everyone is fragmented across multiple tools and spends minimal time together as one team.

So, how do you do it?

• Talk about your values. If you’re using a virtual workplace, let your office do the talking. Put your values around the virtual workplace so your remote team sees them every day. Integrate values into your meetings. Try a culture theme for your next staff meeting. When showing work or celebrating a goal, ask employees to share what values most contributed to the success
• Recognize values in your team. We are what we recognize. Look for examples of your company values in action and celebrate that person. Send them a private message, give them an award, or hell, announce it to the whole office!
• Hire using your values. Make sure new hires understand and align with the company's values from the very beginning. Share your values early, and assess new hire alignment. If you’re using a virtual workplace, set up an onboarding room. Highlight your values and examples of your team demonstrating them

4. Team-building

Your remote team needs regular social interactions that feel fun and natural. These activities help bridge the physical distance, squash loneliness and isolation, and create a sense of camaraderie between your remote workers.

We've put together a list of 15 popular team building activities. Try one out with your remote team.

They range from 5-minute games you can play before a virtual meeting, to events like hackathons that create amazing solutions to challenges.

5. Recognition

When you’re just another video tile, it’s too easy to feel invisible.

Remote companies need to build systems to uncover and acknowledge the hard work being done by employees around the company. This regular recognition energizes employees, motivates them to do their best work, keeps burnout away, and keeps morale high across the broader team. All must-haves to achieve big goals together.

How do you do it remotely

• Find the examples. There’s a lot of work being done that you won’t see. So as a manager or leader, you’ll need ways to get this information regularly. Get teams to send you a breakdown of weekly accomplishments. Or check-in by visiting team meetings to get a sense of who is accomplishing what.
• Acknowledge Publicly: Use your virtual platforms to shine a spotlight on achievements. Whether it's in team meetings, newsletters, or company-wide chats, make sure to celebrate successes publicly so everyone knows about the great work happening. Pro tip: tie it back to your values for extra culture reinforcing.
• Incentivize: Offer rewards like bonuses, gift cards, or extra time off. These tangible rewards show appreciation and give team members something to look forward to for their hard work.
• Make it personal: Find out what each team member values (public shoutouts, private notes) and tailor your recognition. Celebrate team wins, too. Organize a favourite team-building activity or send personalized treats to everyone’s house. Everyone will feel appreciated and proud of what they accomplished together.

6. Great onboarding

In a remote work environment, it's easy to feel isolated and disconnected, especially for new hires. Remote employees who have great training are more productive, confident, and valuable to their teams. That’s why it's crucial to adapt your onboarding process to ensure new hires feel welcome and integrated into a remote team.

• Plan the first week. The first day of a new job is always a little stressful. When it’s remote, it can be daunting. Where is everyone? Do you go to Slack? Join a meeting? Where are your projects? Yikes. Eliminate this mess by organizing the new employee’s first week. They'll always know where to go. Make sure to plan the whole day! Especially day 1.
• Welcome new hires. Send them a welcome package .(ideally with some company swag). Introduce them to the team. Decorate their virtual desk so everyone stops by to say hi. That first week is crucial for helping new hires feel like an important part of their new virtual team.
• Assign a buddy: Assign new hires a buddy to guide them through their onboarding. Set up a daily morning meeting with the buddy so they can check-in each day. Put their virtual desk beside their buddy so it's easy to get spontaneous face-to-face time.
• Share your culture: Your team has history, values, inside jokes, unspoken rituals, and all sorts of other quirks that new hires have to learn and navigate. Often in high stakes situations, like meetings. So stressful! Make this easier (and fun) by creating an onboarding room for the new hire to navigate on their own. Fill it with stories about your values, company history, major challenges and milestones, lingo, or learnings from the founders.

7. The desire to learn and improve

Your culture is a living, breathing entity. It evolves over time and building a great team culture remotely means assessing, adapting and improving. Nail that with:

• Feedback loops: Create communication channels to gather feedback from your team. Most importantly, meet people where they are. What do they need to give you honest feedback? A survey? Real-time feedback sessions? A suggestion box? A one-on-one chat? Make it happen so you can get a variety of perspectives on your company culture.
• Performance metrics: Use data to assess team performance and identify areas for improvement. Having an app with integrated analytics allows your team to see this at all times.
• Industry Best Practices: Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and remote best work practices. Other companies face similar challenges, so learning from their experiences can help you avoid common pitfalls and improve your own remote work setup. If you're using a SoWork virtual office, we bake best practices right into the product itself.
• Employee Input: Keep employee engagement high by encouraging them to talk about how to make things better. When you include them in the process, they often come up with great ideas and feel more invested in the company's success.

Want more on building team culture remotely? Our CEO, Vishal Punwani, did a TED talk on this very topic. Check it out!