Office spaces full of chattering employees is a less and less common scenario these days. While remote and hybrid workforces have become more popular, creating a sense of engagement and establishing culture is more important than ever. But doing so across a mixed workforce can come with its challenges.
Whether it’s technical issues with hybrid meetings, finding ways to host meaningful company events or developing collaboration across departments, these challenges can create barriers to having a connected workforce. Luckily, there are solutions.
Intentional meetings, entertaining hybrid activities and company-wide celebrations ensures all employees, no matter where they work from, feel connected to their company culture.
These four companies are prime examples of employers creating engaging cultures across a variety of settings. We spoke with Cleo, AllCampus, Chime and Silkroad about how they make sure their hybrid workforces feel equally engaged and cared for.
Cleo is a SaaS provider focused on offering cloud integration services for the logistics and manufacturing industries.
Describe an event, ritual or activity where you saw success in engagement from both your remote and in-office workforce.
Cleo runs a virtual “Happy Hour and Learn” once a week to better connect in-person and remote teams with the intent to close the knowledge gap across different teams. Each happy hour begins at the tail end of the work week and pulls in various members of our sales, marketing, solutions architecture and operations teams to collaborate and present new topics.
Cleo members are encouraged to bring their favorite drink (adult beverage or not) to the call and enjoy it while their peers are present. Topics typically range from role specific functions like sales prospecting or giving an effective demo, to industry trends and customer stories. When possible, we try to pair remote and in-person employees for a joint presentation to encourage breaking down the virtual silos that so often exist in today’s hybrid work structure.
What feedback did you receive from the participants of this event?
Feedback from both in-person and remote employees has been extremely positive. The happy hour provides an opportunity to not only promote in-person and remote employee collaboration, but also cross-departmental communication.
We have seen Cleo-ites present extremely creative topics that in turn have helped our team better understand our technology and the customers we serve. The impact is also evident in Cleo employees, as we’ve seen the learnings seep into day-to-day tasks like outbound communication, customer calls and department priorities.
In your opinion, what should employers be doing to create an engaging hybrid culture?
When planning a hybrid engagement, we push ourselves to have specific goals in mind regarding what the outcome will be following each session. Examples include knowledge sharing, friendly competition, fostering cross-pollination of perspectives and promoting team camaraderie to name a few.
It’s also important to track the results or impact of these sessions after the fact. Do you notice more in-person and remote employee collaboration? Are certain focus areas improving following hybrid training? Did employer net promoter score feedback improve regarding the topic of camaraderie and communication? It’s critical to measure the after-effects of each effort to ensure you aren’t just spinning your wheels when it comes to creating an engaging hybrid culture.
AllCampus is an edtech company providing data analytics services for universities to conduct market research and extract insights from enrollment data.
Describe an event, ritual or activity where you saw success in engagement from both your remote and in-office workforce.
In January, we held a two-day annual planning event that included both in-person and remote attendees. Both days started with an all-hands meeting that discussed the year's main objectives and provided an opportunity for employees to ask questions to the full leadership team.
The afternoon consisted of breakout sessions across different departments to foster collaboration and communication. Each day also included lunch and a happy hour, one in the office and another that was offsite. Although we have an office-optional policy at AllCampus, we encouraged local employees to attend in person and made sure to test and improve upon the technology used for remote attendees so they could be actively engaged throughout the event.
What feedback did you receive from the participants of this event?
Employee feedback is so important to AllCampus’s growth, and so it’s something we encourage. After the annual planning event, we created two surveys, one for in-person and one for remote attendees.
In-person attendees felt energized after the event and that everything felt well planned and worth the time investment. One common suggestion was to provide agenda topics further in advance so there would be more time for them in future planning meetings, which we plan to implement. Remote attendees noted that the meetings were easy to follow along and participate in. Some suggestions for future events included exploring interactive tools like digital polling and having dedicated facilitators for remote attendees so they can feel as included as possible.
In your opinion, what should employers be doing to create an engaging hybrid culture?
Employers should be considerate of all employees when planning activities, regardless of their work model and location. We are currently planning our annual Summer Fun Fest event, which is held offsite during work hours. It’s a great opportunity to get together to have fun and relax outside of our typical work setting. For those who are working out-of-state, we’ll be sending a fun Chicago-themed treat in the mail and having a half day. We also make sure to host many virtual activities throughout the year, like professional development opportunities, cooking classes, virtual trivia and holiday bingo events for charity.
Chime is a fintech company that offers banking solutions like debit cards and savings accounts for individuals.
Describe an event, ritual or activity where you saw success in engagement from both your remote and in-office workforce.
The theme for Women’s History Month at Chime was “cultivating meaningful relationships and connection at work.” At first, we thought of doing separate remote and in-person events, but then realized we could all have a shared experience by joining the same flower-arranging class. So our community and events team partnered with Chime’s employee resource group, ChimeHers, to host a fully hybrid class with Alice’s Table.
We hosted in-person events and watched the flower class on Zoom in our San Francisco, New York and Chicago offices. Employees joined in remotely from all over, including Vancouver and Hawaii. Additionally we made sure to schedule the event at a time that was inclusive for all time zones. Flower kits were bulk shipped to our offices and then individually drop-shipped to Chimers’ homes. We truly brought the theme of the month to life, connecting Chimers from all over in one event.
What feedback did you receive from the participants of this event?
Remote Chimers were excited and appreciative to be included in this fun, hands-on event. And while our vendor didn't ship to Vancouver or Hawaii, the community and events team found local vendors to ensure Chimers had the same or similar flowers delivered — creating a consistent experience for everyone. Several in-person attendees shared that they found the workshop relaxing and fun.
And while the in-person experience became more about connecting with others in-person, remote attendees enjoyed a more one-on-one experience with the teacher, while still connecting to fellow Chimers and feeling included in the ChimeHers programming.
In your opinion, what should employers be doing to create an engaging hybrid culture?
I like thinking about events as consistent but flexible — not every event has to be hybrid, and some events make sense to be fully virtual or fully in-person. When it does make sense to do a hybrid event, I’ve learned that it can be magical. Successfully creating a shared experience across time zones, offices and people’s homes is really powerful.
While planning in-person events is easy, hybrid events pose some challenges. When putting together a hybrid event plan, I find it useful to start with the virtual experience, then nail down the details for a clear run-of-show. If your details are clear, you can avoid moments of awkwardness, like during a break in programming, when the in-person group will naturally start chatting and the remote crew might feel left behind. To avoid this, be intentional with the programming and goal of the event and incorporate activities like panels, musical performances and trivia.
We’re all experimenting with hybrid events in this new work environment, but as long as you put yourself in the shoes of both your in-person and virtual employees, you'll be off to a great start.
SilkRoad offers HR software solutions for recruiting, onboarding and performance management.
Describe an event, ritual or activity where you saw success in engagement from both your remote and in-office workforce.
We saw high engagement from both our in-person and virtual holiday events this year. As we transitioned from a partially remote to an almost entirely remote workforce in March 2020, it created several unique engagement opportunities.
For our 2022 holiday parties, we took advantage of having several densely-populated areas of employees by hosting in-person events across the globe. These events consisted of gathering at local restaurants or private event spaces. In addition to our in-person events, we hosted four different virtual holiday events for different teams. During the virtual events, a senior leader kicked off the call with a message of gratitude, a holiday trivia game and at the end, employees were rewarded through our recognition program with a gift card. At SilkRoad, our people are our greatest asset. It is extremely important that our people feel a positive sense of culture and gratitude while working in a hybrid environment.
What feedback did you receive from the participants of this event?
We received positive feedback for both formats for our holiday events. Employees who worked in an office prior to the pandemic shared how nice it was to see colleagues again. Some employees were even willing to drive over an hour to attend the in-person event, which was great to see. Most of our remote teams never reported into offices, so a virtual event was much appreciated. Our employees shared that they enjoyed connecting with coworkers outside of their respective teams during the virtual event.
In your opinion, what should employers be doing to create an engaging hybrid culture?
It’s crucial to find ways to involve your people in the planning process of both in-person and remote activities. One way to involve them is to send out a survey with different activity options so they can voice their preferences. In turn, you will learn what your people are interested in and likely increase the activity’s engagement.
Another way you can involve them is to assign a few activity planners from teams across locations. For example, we assigned someone local to each in-person holiday event to oversee selecting the establishment for their holiday event. Since they live locally, they know more about the area and its popular places, which resulted in a better experience for everyone. In addition to involving your people in the planning process, we like to follow the rule that for every in-person event planned, a virtual one will accompany it. This prevents remote workers from feeling left out, while still allowing in-office teams to get together.
