Nearly three years after co-founding Yuvo Health, we’ve quadrupled in size. We now have more than 65 full-time employees who work across four countries, 18 states, and 13 different time zones. Throughout this evolution, we’ve proudly maintained a collaborative, employee-centric culture prioritizing collaboration, empathy, and empowerment.
Growing quickly can wreak havoc on company culture, especially in the early growth stages. With so many employees coming and going, the team dynamics are constantly shifting, and culture can get harder and harder to manage consistently. This is especially true in remote-first companies, such as Yuvo Health. Many employees never or rarely get the chance to meet who they’re working with daily. Understanding this, senior leadership needs to build structures and processes that support both new and seasoned employees – and make it possible for the culture to evolve and grow with the team.
To maintain a collaborative, empathetic culture throughout our growth, the Yuvo Health team has made a conscious effort to be flexible, transparent, communicative, and inclusive. We want our employees to feel valued, respected, and supported, whichever stage of growth the company is in.
Here are some recommended best practices:
Foster connection during the onboarding process
Our new employee onboarding process provides a thorough introduction to our company culture over a three-week period. Part of that process enables new hires to engage with leaders across various departments and learn about shared norms, values, and expectations. In the first two weeks, we ensure that new employees gain access to everything they need to thrive. That access includes more than just tools and systems. It spans technology, people, and ongoing initiatives.
In the third week, we help the new employee understand their role and its significance within our organizational strategy. We don’t hire just to hire – and we don’t want employees to come in and do a job. We want them to know what value they will provide, how their work will impact the company’s outcomes, and how they will be supported on a day-to-day basis.
Understand and respect cultural differences
Our employees are not a monolith. We all have unique viewpoints, opinions, and approaches to work shaped by our unique lived experiences. We want to celebrate and honor this. Doing so requires senior leadership to understand, respect, and incorporate the different religious and cultural norms across their teams into how they do business.
At Yuvo, for example, we have an India-based team that observes different religious holidays on top of the national and regional holidays that are not observed in the U.S. We encourage employees to utilize the unlimited PTO policy to take the time off they need to observe these occasions and take personal time as needed.
Cultivate in-person connection
Every employee at Yuvo Health has the opportunity to work from anywhere (any state or country). But we’re a remote-first company, not a remote-only company. What does this mean? We prioritize in-person gatherings and face-to-face meetings, knowing that human connections carry into the remote workplace. Meeting in real life, employees can build more personal relationships – and these relationships make it easier to work collaboratively, with empathy, and within a team mindset.
Part of our company-wide budget is allocated to in-person activities, including team meetings and an annual off-site. We give staff ample notice, as all our employees have families, personal obligations, and full lives outside of work. During that yearly off-site, we lived into our company values (which include compassion and solidarity): we created opportunities for more meaningful human connection and spent quality time on culture and team building. We also have physical spaces in New York, India, and London, where our staff can congregate.
Leverage digital channels for continuous engagement
In the digital age, we have access to a myriad of tools that support real-time and asynchronous communication. No matter where your staff lives and what hours they work, they should be able to identify a project’s status within minutes and know what’s outstanding and what tasks they must accomplish during their workday.
In addition to using platforms for project management and real-time tracking, we encourage all remote-first companies to utilize collaboration platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams and email and video conferencing. In addition to sharing pressing news and company-wide updates, employees can create their own channels for non-work conversations, such as a family channel, book channel, and celebrations channel. This helps employees build rapport, connect on more intimate levels, and continue to foster better relationships.
Build one universal culture across the company
One of the best ways to build a more collaborative, empathetic team is to break down the silos that often exist between departments and ranks. Give your junior employees direct access to senior leaders. Create virtual team-building activities and social events at different hours of the day (such as lunchtime) to accommodate employees in different time zones. Pair up different employees from various parts of the business so they get to know each other.
Solicit anonymous feedback and be willing to listen to employees’ suggestions, incorporate changes, and evolve your processes to accommodate the needs of your growing team. A practice that once benefited a team of ten may not work for fifty.
We’re all humans behind the screens
In a remote-first environment, it’s easy to get caught up in work and forget that each person you interact with over email or a shared document has a life outside of work. In addition to being engineers, clinicians, marketers, and leaders, your employees are also spouses, parents, friends, and community members.
There are many benefits to working remotely, including the ability to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Remind employees that you support their interests, passions, and personal obligations, which may, at times, take precedence over work. This recognition and appreciation are essential to building a better culture.
