To set your virtual teams on a path for success and keep processes smooth, all employees should have the same access to important documents. There are two types of accessibility important to fostering a culture of transparency, especially when it comes to remote workers: 1) accessibility of information and 2) accessibility of people. This can help give the remote employee a feeling of interpersonal connection with their colleagues, which is crucial to a cohesive office culture. When communicating, virtual employees tune in to their sense of sight by viewing a photo or a live stream of a person, which gives both parties the sense that they are in the same room. Virtual employees benefit from having a social presence with the use of telepresence tools. Creating an internal aboard, intranet or social media page where employees can chat, share ideas and communicate informally, the way they would in a break room or in the halls of your office.

Having the entire team access and collaborate on the same documents simultaneously through cloud-based drives and storage systems, such as Google Docs.Face-to-face interaction through video conferencing tools.Colleague communication in real-time through instant messaging tools like Skype.Some ideas for using technology to help create a culture of transparency include: It is important for companies with remote workers to take advantage of technology that lets remote workers feel like they are as immersed in the organization as onsite team members.īelow, I will discuss more ways in which technology contributes to other individual methods of building transparency. And many of these tools are very accessible and affordable. Technology has made it possible for colleagues to stay connected, even if they’re thousands of miles apart. In the rest of this post, I will share some of the tips from my thesis for creating transparency with remote employees A successful virtual work environment requires specific technology And, as we know, employee engagement is paramount to a business’s productivity. This is because transparency is paramount to employee engagement.

The importance of transparency to a remote workforceĪs part of my graduate thesis for Pepperdine University in 2015, I made the case for transparency being the most important cultural attribute for an effective remote work environment. While it’s important to take care to incorporate remote employees into your organization’s culture, it is also important to consider the type of culture you have and whether it’s conducive to having a remote workforce. Remote workers also help recruitment efforts by enabling companies to conduct national or even global searches for talent instead of being limited to the local applicant pool or to those prospects willing to relocate to your city. Startups and small businesses can benefit by hiring a remote workforce because it helps cut down on overhead costs and on the expense of relocating new employees from other cities. The number of employees who telecommute is growing rapidly-increasing by as much as 115% over the last 12 years, according to a recent report from FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics.

Transparent google paperless agent