Julia Vastrik: How to strengthen company culture in the WFH era

We’re in the age of remote and hybrid working, and our physical distance from one another is having a huge impact on company culture. Previously, grabbing lunch or a drink after work was easy. But now, even small talk needs to be consciously brought into our scheduled Slack calls to avoid things becoming too transactional. This new way of working can lead to serious challenges like feeling disconnected from colleagues and the company mission, lacking motivation, and experiencing loneliness. So what’s the way forward?In this episode, we speak with Julia Vastrik, an agile coach and team facilitator, about how we can strengthen company culture in a remote/hybrid workplace.Julia offers loads of great advice, which we’ve summarized for easy reference:Building Trust and RelationshipsWe’re a much more effective team when we like the people we work with. Get to know people through small talkUse ice breakers, team ritualsVirtual lunches, coffeesEncourage silliness for personalities to shineLearning together e.g. book clubs, communities around certain topics like AIFor big meetings, use breakout roomsOrganize face-to-face activities - both for work and funCommunicationA lot of information is lost in written communication. Use a good balance of synchronous and asynchronous communicationHave explicit agreements on communication and how to run meetingsWith written communication, the giver needs to be overly friendly (emojis, kind greetings), the receiver overly accepting that they may perceive the tone wrongUse audio and video to prevent misinterpretationProductivity and CollaborationSet clear goals for teams and individualsCreate working agreements e.g. working hours, punctuality, documentation, ways of working, etcCo-create - brainstorm solutions and make decisions together to boost a feeling of belongingContinuous ImprovementLittle changes sum up to bigger improvements over time. Retrospectives, post-mortems & team discussionsExperimentWe’re never in an ideal state - there’s always room for improvementPsychological SafetyFeeling safe to be not perfect, to make mistakes, to be a human.Mistakes happen and they are a learning opportunityHave leaders model this behaviorOther Resources:The book Julia recommends to read is called The Culture Map, by Erin Meyer.The virtual ‘body doubling’ clubs Harv mentioned are flow.club and flown.com.Follow Julia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-vastrik/Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter.This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.