17 Questions to Help You Answer How to Build a Strong Culture with a Remote Team

With the shift to most teams working remotely, the need to know how to build a strong culture with a remote team is becoming a significant priority.

There aren’t enough after-hours events and themed Slack channels to compensate for the culture created by what’s demonstrated and tolerated during daily work. 

But how do you keep employees engaged, connected, and committed remotely, especially while heavier emotional tolls and responsibility demands impact employees all over the globe?

Let’s first remember that effort is not inherently stressful. When work is engaging and rewarding, it can be one of our favorite and most recharging ways to engage in life. Working provides needed opportunities to contribute meaningfully and feel a sense of purpose. 

What if work was something that recharged instead of drained employees during the COVID pandemic?

It is possible when you strengthen the three foundations of a thriving company culture:

1. Inspiring Safe Connection & Expression
2. Inspiring Engagement
3. Inspiring Accountability

All three are inseparably interrelated, each strengthening or limiting another.

WHY IS ACCOUNTABILITY NECESSARY TO A STRONG CULTURE?

To start, accountability creates trust and safety, both crucial to connection and engagement. When we trust that everyone is contributing fairly, both to work deliverables and in demonstrating values, we are more likely to feel like a supportive ally to our colleagues than to turn away to protect our own ability to be seen as contributing, competent, and important. 

Secondly, new changes to your culture mean new expectations for leaders and employees. If you want to see culture changes successfully and consistently demonstrated in your company, you will have to include a culture of accountability. 

Accountability guides results by providing necessary feedback to change our brains’ existing habits of thinking and behaving. Accountability offers useful interventions of these patterns and provides continuous clarity of expectations. 

HOW CAN I BUILD A STRONG CULTURE WITH A REMOTE TEAM?

Since we support companies with these most of these company culture endeavors, we thought we’d empower you with our top discovery questions to help you identify opportunities to strengthen your company culture with your remote team.

Here are 18 questions to help you answer how to build a strong culture with a remote team:

INSPIRING SAFE CONNECTION & EXPRESSION

Psychological Safety
1. How skilled are leaders and employees in using empathetic, engaging, and respectful communication?
2. How resilient are employees after difficult interactions?

Connection
3. How strong is each employee’s sense of being valued, actively supported, and positively influenced by peers?

Trust
4. How comfortably and reliably do employees engage in honest, respectful, and reliable communication?
5. How safe and comfortable is it to provide and receive honest and respectful feedback? 

Belonging
6. How effective are your values at defining what it means to belong at your company?
7. How have values been defined for group and individual expression and demonstration?
8. How inspiring and effective is your company’s accountability approach to ensure aligned demonstration of values?

Communicating Purpose
9. How defined and often is shared purpose used to create connection and orient toward results?

INSPIRING ENGAGEMENT

Effective rewards and incentives
10. Are rewards and recognition being utilized in a way that incentivizes the brain to engage in work and feel great while doing the work?

Utilizing Engaging Leadership Language
11. Are leaders using language that only invites a response or requires the brain’s full participation in providing a thoughtful and honest response?

Preventing Disengagement Triggers
12. How effective are leaders at preventing employees’ brains from getting triggered, which cuts off engagement, receptivity to feedback, and resourcefulness toward solutions?

INSPIRING ACCOUNTABILITY

Clear Expectations & Effective Feedback
13. How empowered are leaders with the tools and support to hold effective accountability conversations (not confrontations) that feel comfortable, maintain engagement, and maintain safe connection and expression?

Culture of Development
14. Is learning (an optional by-product of mistakes) penalized or celebrated?
15. Are employees always in a process of development paired with effective accountability?

Upgrade performance reviews
16. How effective are your performance reviews at inspiring engagement, development, and improved performance?

Utilize both proactive and responsive accountability
17. How skilled are your leaders at using both types of accountability, getting better results the first time and effectively responding when expectations aren’t met?

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We hope these questions help you create conversations in your workplace about where you want to focus on development initiatives.

As you embark on creating a new culture, keep in mind a leader’s behavior remains the most accurate source employees trust to reflect what is truly expected and acceptable, regardless of what is written in your values or touted at company-wide meetings. 

When you set your leaders up for success in aligning their mindset and actions with the culture you’re committed to creating and empower them to effectively hold employees accountable for these same behaviors, everyone in your company will benefit.

Want support? We can do as much or as little as your company needs to help build a strong culture with a remote team. Contact us to explore the many ways we can work together to strengthen your company culture, employee engagement, and performance results.

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We’re here to help by offering Inspiring Accountability training, consulting, and coaching, along with our signature book and online course. Connect with us to see how we can support you and your team!

Get Our Best Inspiring Accountability Resources!

Inspiring Accountability in the Workplace is available on Amazon as a paperback, eBook, and audiobook.

Or learn online with our signature course: The Brain’s Secrets to Inspiring Accountability Crash Course.