Building cultural resilience

Lockdown and remote working has presented a challenge for startups, budding brands, and businesses that rely on strong teamwork: How do you reinforce brand values and norms when you take away the social triggers and reinforcement that comes with working together in person?

No one sees the first person in the door turning on lights and the last to leave making sure the fort is secure, or the small behaviours that demonstrate consideration for others. Communications platforms enable transparency on productivity, but how do you measure performance against core values?

Hopefully we are emerging from lockdowns for an extended period of time that allows us to regroup and reaffirm the pact of “how we do things”. It does throw out the question, that in the event of the next imposed remote working stint, how we will improve our communication methods; how we keep up morale, and how we nurture each person to represent us in the best way.

Now is the time to build brand culture as a daily practice so next time around you’ve established a base of solid ambassadors.

1. Check in with your people individually - make the time for them, because they no longer get a reassuring nod or smile from you in the office

2. If whole team meetings used to be a thing but now people don’t engage as easily, try smaller project teams of 3 - the magic number for peak performance and interdependence!

3. Send snail mail shout outs - break from all things digital now and then to add tangibility.

4. Develop a method of peer review which recognises those who embody your brand

Businesses will now have a better understanding of how remote or present the team needs to be over a sustained period to progress in a positive way, and building in flexibility should become the norm and not the exception.