How to Preserve your Culture in a Virtual Environment
The new normal we’re all living in has many companies working in a virtual environment. For some, this is temporary, but for many, this is permanent. No matter which one you fall in, there are things that are missed when you move to a virtual environment. Culture is one of them. How do you preserve that culture you had in the office in your new virtual environment?
![Person holding beer on Zoom video chat with team](https://www.handler.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Preserve-your-culture-in-virtual-1400x431.jpeg)
As you work to preserve your culture, start here:
- Define your culture. What does it mean? What mattered most when you were in person? Ask your team to define the culture as well – you’ll likely get some great responses from them.
- List out your values. Your values should be at the core of everything you do and it’s important to keep them in mind as you think about your culture.
- List out events you did in person that created your culture. What were the team events that you did while your office was in-person? What did those look like and how often?
- Take the in-person culture, virtual. Looking at everything above, how can you translate that to virtual? If you did happy hours as a team, how can you make those virtual happy hours? If you celebrated birthdays, what you can do to continue celebrating your team members’ special days?
- Communicate with your team. Talk to your team members about the culture and working to preserve it. Share the new plans with them (or opt to keep some of it a surprise).
The most important thing is to be intentional about everything you do. You don’t want to overcompensate just because you’re virtual. Don’t lose the culture you created for your company – it’s more than in-person ping pong tournaments. Culture is about people, and you didn’t lose that by going virtual.