85 | Culture Beyond the Office: Nurturing a Positive Remote Work Environment | Camilla Boyer

Building Better Cultures

EPISODE SUMMARY

Culture in the workplace is often assumed to be human-to-human contact in the office environment, so the concept of culture in a solely remote business, on the surface, seems irrelevant. On this episode of Building Better Cultures, Scott discusses the importance of culture within a remote-only business framework with Camilla Boyer, an experienced speaker and Head of Internal Communications and Culture at Hopin.

Camilla shares her extensive background in public speaking and communication and reveals that promoting positive culture is not only possible in the remote setting, but also necessary for the success of the company. A key term that she uses throughout this episode is ‘deliberate’ – being more deliberate helps effectively shape a culture within companies, and this starts from the top down.

Camilla breaks the barriers of any preconceived notions one might have regarding culture in the virtual realm. Find out the advantages and disadvantages of remote-first business models in relation to culture, the interplay of values and why they should be promoted in the workplace, and how businesses moving forward should be advancing towards a hybrid- or remote-based workplace system.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The common thread that has tied Camilla’s career is her effectiveness as a storyteller.

• The main benefit of being remote-first when hiring is the ability to hire purely based on talent without any proximal constraint, which allows much more freedom to hire anyone around the world

• Camilla looks for a few qualities when she hires people:
• • Someone who aligns with the company’s values.
  • Someone who desires a remote job rather than simply tolerating one.
  • Someone who is self-directed and knows when to work and when not to work.

• The importance of the transparency of values within a company and how they can be promoted is two-fold: on the employee side, creating a common language internally is essential for coworkers to uphold values; and on the management side, guiding behaviour and making sure employees adhere to the rules.
• The downsides to remote hires are the inability to regulate employees’ work-life balance – those who might be prone to over-working which can potentially lead to burnout, and the difficulty of ensuring everyone has sufficient information to effectively do their job.
• Onboarding at Hopin is a week-long event that helps incorporate real-world onboarding sessions on a virtual platform.
• Camilla addresses a couple different ways in which she is deliberate in fostering positive culture at Hopin:
  • How you talk about your culture and that comes through in the values – she received input from a representative sample of the company and formed values from their feedback, and incorporated those values in the hiring process and product decisions
  • How you enact your values – Hopin provides various seminars to bring people together
• Tools and resources within the company can help mitigate siloing – Camilla admits this is still a work in progress. At Hopin, there is a forum to match people from different sectors in the company to chat for 15 minutes.
• Often, the way in which a message is written may be misconstrued – Camilla addresses the importance of conveying the message so that it comes across in the way in which it was intended.
• Camilla is a strong advocate for moving forward and evolving with the times – it is foolish to believe that companies need to be in-person to thrive. Management within companies are realising that their employees are just as efficient remotely as they are in the office.
• The demise of some companies will be their requirement of working in-person – workers are recognising the flexibility and freedom that comes from working remotely.
• The schism of remote-first versus remote-forced mentalities boils down to a positive versus negative attitude. The focus should be shifted from adaptability to evolution – Camilla suggests companies pursue a remote-focused model, whether it is fully remote or hybrid.
• In remote systems, the importance of working with leaders to be more deliberate about how they communicate with their teams and how they are representing themselves, and the ability for the leaders to trust their teams requires hiring the correct people for the job.
• The ‘watercooler moment’ is a fallacy – it is a manufactured moment in a physical environment. Creating this in a virtual sense is difficult, yet possible.
• Remote-first doesn’t mean contact is discouraged – when in-person contact does occur however, it becomes more valuable and more impactful.

Equality of experience is a huge factor that must always be considered in remote or hybrid work models. If an opportunity is available, it must be equally available for everyone – this is the main hurtle for hybrid companies to overcome.

ABOUT CAMILLA BOYERCamila @LinkedIn and @camillab on twitter

Company Website: www.hopin.com

Hopin on Instagram: @HopinHQ and on Twitter: @hopin

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNESLearn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVOTo discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.