RWL023 How to Build a Thriving Remote Work Culture w/ Help Scout CEO Nick Francis

Building a Strong Remote Work Culture

Speaker 1

0:00

Hey, it's Alex from Remote Work Life. How are you doing? I hope you're having a good day. The Remote Work Life podcast is where remote professionals from around the world come together to grow and to learn from those who know the world of remote work best. What I want to do is share with you what I've learnt from remote CEOs, founders and leaders across the world to help you to grow as well. I want to talk about the benefits of remote work so that you know what to expect as well and how to build your remote work life, and over this past few series, or this series of podcasts, I've been talking about the pillars of remote work.

Speaker 1

0:41

Today, I'm going to be talking about another important pillar of remote work, and that is culture, and there's something specific about culture I want to talk about. And the reason these pillars are important to you is because, obviously, if you are a manager within a remote team, you're going to want to know how to really create an environment, create an atmosphere that your co-workers can thrive in. You're going to want to know how to really make them as happy as possible, I guess, and culture can do that, transitioning from one role to another. I think it's really important that you understand the culture of the business and understand what to expect from a remote culture, so that you know what you're getting yourself into and you know what to look out for the sorts of questions that you should ask when you come to interview. So that's why it's important um and, as I said, culture is, uh, today's pillar and I suggest that you also look at the other pillars as well. There's seven in total in this series um and this information, the information I talk to you about, um, when it comes to these pillars, is information I've discerned from interviewing CEOs, experienced remote CEOs, founders, etc. And also interacting and connecting with other remote workers and understanding what their concerns have been, what they look for in remote business, etc. So it's all information I've gathered and put together to hopefully help you out.

Speaker 1

2:25

But, as I said, culture is what we're going to talk about today and it's important, and, in fact, research by Deloitte says that 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success, and I think that's I. Yeah, I would agree with that. And when I interviewed Nick Francis in fact, nick Francis, who is the CEO of Help Scout I interviewed a number of CEOs, as I've mentioned before a number of remote CEOs and I'm sharing this information with you. He he suggested that with remote work is very different and I've different and I've gleaned that myself from working remotely. It's very different. The culture of remote setup is very different to a bricks and mortar co-located office setup. It's very different.

Speaker 1

3:21

And he suggests that active participation in culture is either going to really enable you to flourish if you do actively participate in the culture or make you feel a sense of imposter syndrome, even a sense of unhappiness and perhaps a sense of being disconnected from you know, everybody else within the business, and it's just going to lead to unhappiness in many ways. I'll just give you a few examples of that in terms of what remote teams tend to do in order to build that culture, in order to build that sense of really strong connection. I guess you could say Well, in terms of managers, I guess managers, where it applies to managers, there needs to be a sense of real intent, and I use that word quite a lot when it comes to these podcasts because it's so important. There needs to be a sense of intent when it comes to team building activities and in a working environment, so that the team feel a real connection to one another and that the onus of that, as I said, is on the manager to really help to to bring that team together and figure out what each individual member of that team, what they're like, what they like, what they don't like, but also making them feel part of that team and I suppose there's various ways of doing that, but and it's very, it's not a one-size-fits-all by any means and it's not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to a co-located team. But I think because of the, the lack of um contacts, the lack of physical contact, the lack of eye contact, you know the lack of um, lots of other different things the onus is upon the manager to really be intentional about building that team culture.

Speaker 1

5:31

Another thing that's important as well is sharing information, and I'm going to link to an article that Nick wrote, because this whole active participation in culture, in a remote culture is, is really important and what I'll do at some point as well. I'll release the interview that I did with Nick and you can listen to that interview, but, like I said, have a look at his article, which I'll link to in the show notes as well. He also refers to sharing information so that everybody's in the loop, because what you find is, in any scenario, I guess, if you're part of a team and people within that team are not sharing information, then it can create, I guess, a feeling amongst individuals that they're missing out on something or that things are being withheld from them. Even so, that deliberate sharing of information and Nick says a lot of this information, of course, is written down so that it's accessible and so that people can read it and really absorb it in their own time. When it came to share one of my previous roles actually when it came to actually sharing information there was all sorts of information that we would share between us. You know, not just the day-to-day information like I don't know company information or information about different companies, information about the sorts of work and projects that we're working on, but my manager would also share information about how the company was performing. So keeping me in the loop about how the company was performing and that made me feel really empowered. It made me feel really comfortable in the, in the scenario that I found myself in. It made me feel as though I was part of the business and that I was certainly in the loop and connected with what my manager was trying to achieve.

Speaker 1

7:34

So sharing information can come in all sorts of shapes and forms, but but it's very important in, or especially important in, a remote culture, and I can think of lots of examples. I'm not going to go into them, but lots of examples where the opposite has been true with me in terms of a lack of sharing information amongst my team members and the sort of feeling that that can bring amongst people team members. So sharing information is really important. Another thing that is really important that you understand and that you perhaps can expect from a remote, remote culture, is that bonding is going to be very important as well. There's a recurring theme amongst a lot of the podcasts I've put out, and this is just, really just to help you, as I said, to understand how to get the the best out of not just yourself, but your team as well, or even your teammates and friends who work within remote settings. So that bonding is really important as well, because you don't get the opportunity to do to do that in the same way as you would in, again, in a co-located situation.

Speaker 1

8:55

I remember um working. I used to work in a marketing agency where we it was very much a heads down sort of scenario. We would have different pods, but it's very open, planned um, but nobody would really speak to each other that much really during the actual um, during the actual day. Or you'd find different cliques of people, but what would happen is people would gravitate towards the, the kitchen, and the kitchen would be a hub of of activity, a hub of conversation and people getting to know each other. Um, and even the water coolers. Or we did have a water cooler um, where obviously lots of people get up to to have their their, you know their regular dose of of water, and that would be again another hub of sort of activity. And this, what you'd find is the same people would sort of gravitate towards the kitchen. The same sort of people would gravitate towards the water cooler, and that would be you could, either you could take it or leave it. Really, you could either go to the water cooler. You you wouldn't necessarily need to if you had a bottle, for example, or if you went out to lunch, you wouldn't necessarily need to go to the kitchen, or, if you'd had, if you had your packed lunch, for example, or you bought your own lunch from home.

Active Participation in Remote Work Culture

Speaker 1

10:14

So, but this is where it's so different in remote environments.

Speaker 1

10:19

This is where you have to sort of really absorb yourself in the, in the actual culture, to in order to thrive, because those water cooler moments are not optional, really, if you want to really build relationships and bond with your teammates, with your co-workers, they're moments that are really important to remote teams, and you know, in order for the remote team to thrive. So that's another thing you can expect, and I'm not going to go into everything in terms of culture, but I just want you to know that and I just wanted to give you examples of how you can act, whether you're a manager or whether you're, as I said, as part of a team, and things that perhaps may be missing in your experience and in your day-to-day work as a remote worker. You really need to really have that intention there. You really have to really actively participate in the culture in order in order to really thrive. So that's it for me from now. That's um culture covered in terms of the pillars of, or one of the pillars of, remote work, which will help you, hopefully, to understand it more, understand it better and help you eventually to thrive. Look out for the other episodes in this series where I'll talk about the other pillars of remote work, of remote work and please, as well, I'd love to hear questions from you because it really helps me to build, I suppose, build this podcast around you to help you as much as possible.

Speaker 1

12:02

If you send me your questions, I'll try to cover them in different episodes and also as well episodes and also as well. Connect with me via linkedin. I have a um, a linkedin page, which which I encourage people to connect, and I'll leave my. I'll leave my um, my linkedin connection details, or my, my connection details in the show notes. You can also connect with me and other members of the remote work life community via facebook. We have a facebook group. So if you go on facebook and search for remote work, life accelerator, you will find or you should find us there and come in and say hello, connect with other people, talk to other people and again, you can. That's another place where you can ask your questions and I will do my very best to answer them in the group or cover them in a future podcast. But that's that's it for me from now and for now, and I will speak to you in another episode.