Remote management resources: Cultural

There are no doubt dozens upon dozens of ways you can incorporate mentorship, teaching, and amazing perks and benefits into what you offer your team. But that can get overwhelming pretty fast. So in the interest of saving you time, we’ve collated a list of products, services, and ideas to help get you started. Let’s dive in.

Coaching and mentoring

While mentorship is especially prevalent in the software space, it’s no less important for teams from all different industries to grow and learn. When distance comes into play, however, it can feel challenging to get your team aligned with an appropriate mentor or coach. These online tools help to close the gap.

Teaming

As a manger, especially one with a remote team, earning trust from your employees should be top of mind. Teaming is built for team leaders and can be easily personalized to meet the unique needs of your team.

Integrates with Slack, Asana, Teams, Monday.com, Zoom, and more for a robust and interactive experience.
Understand the makeup of your team to help hire for gaps, improve team health, and set goals.
Designed for and by managers, so it keeps everything relevant and leaves the rest.

CoachHub

For small companies, pairing a team mate with a coach can be challenging due to lack of access to a broad range of talent. CoachHub matches you with a trusted business leader to focus on growth and learning through a three-phase program.

Coaching sessions are supplemented with micro-learnings between sessions.
App contains a chat feature that allows for 24/7 access to your coach.
Provides a holistic approach to professional development and leadership skills.
Has an astounding 260% ROI for the program as a whole.

Ten Thousand Coffees

10KC bills itself as a talent experience platform for inclusive mentoring and is specifically designed around mentoring and the remote workforce. They have a variety of solutions to choose from to tailor your team’s mentoring needs, and have designed it to be easy to scale.

Has programs for mentorship, connectivity, DEI, onboarding, early talent, and leadership development.
Seamlessly integrate with your existing HR tools, email, and calendar to make adoption a no-brainer.
Members can choose how they want to participate, so each mentoring program can be custom-built to suit specific needs.
Has a clean and modern UI that’s easy to navigate and use.

Clarity

Clarity is designed around a platform of experts who cover a variety of categories where they provide, well, clarity around how to handle certain situations, ideas, and questions. While generally targeting startups, there are no limitations around who you can talk to and why.

Serves a variety of industries, including SaaS, eComm, education, real estate, restaurants and retail, and non-profits.
You choose the expert you want to talk to, select a few times that work for you, and wait for confirmation.
Categories include everything from career advice, branding, and marketing, to user designs, growth strategy, and financing.

Learning and development

There are a lot of ways to incorporate learning and professional development into your team’s yearly goals. And while these options aren’t necessarily relegated to just remote workers, their online presence makes them the perfect option for enriching your team.

Reforge

Reforge is largely focused on the tech landscape, but has some other great applications as well, specifically when it comes to marketing. Courses are designed around a cohort-based program, supplemented with access to content and community that helps your company scale.

Programs are 4-6 weeks in length, done on a part-time basis with 2-3 hours of self-paced work per week.
The courses are supplemented with real-life case studies to support learnings.
At the completion of the course, each student has completed their own project and plan of action to incorporate into your current business model.
You must apply and be accepted, but once you are a part of Reforge, you can participate in any of their courses.

Maven

Maven is a live learning platform with over 400 courses designed to supercharge your career, get promoted, or even learn a life skill. The courses cover a variety of subjects from product and marketing to engineering and productivity.

Collections of courses are designed to provide a robust learning experience based around a single issue or growth need.
Courses vary in price, but Maven offers a bulk purchase option to ensure your whole team can participate.
Started by the founders of Udemy, altMBA, and Socratic, with years of deep online learning experience.
Courses can be quite costly compared to some of the other options.

Section4

Section4‘s mission is to make elite business education accessible to a wider range of people than other companies can offer. Their focus is tailored to core business principles, leadership skills, marketing, and product.

Business and individual accounts allow for both personal and team growth at scale.
Offers certificates in courses for business core, strategic leadership, digital strategy, product strategy, and marketing strategy.
At under $100 a month, it’s extremely affordable for the breadth of deep coursework.

edX for Business

edX is already a fairly popular destination for educational resources, but the professional focus of the business program sets it apart for working teams. With a focus on executive education and professional certifications, it’s a great way to boost your team’s value.

Unlimited access to over 1,200 self-paced courses make it easy to accommodate work schedules.
Learnings are informed by science via the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Integrates with Workday, SAP, Cornerstone, and more.
Starts at $349 per person for a year of access, with more inclusive enterprise plans available.

Offsite options

Okay, so technically isn’t everyone offsite when they work remote? Yes, effectively. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still figure out a way to get together two, three, four, or even twenty people at a time. These can serve as a great way to build interpersonal connections, regardless of the number of attendees.

TeamOut

TeamOut is specifically designed to make retreat planning easy for remote teams. Their platform allows for customizations, including location, activities, and more. And because they partner with curated properties, the accommodation comes with on-site help.

All locations are in close proximity to an airport to reduce travel stress.
Can be customized from accommodation only, all the way up to public spaces and meeting room add-ons.
Provides multiple levels of budget to choose from.
Minimum team size is 30 people.

BoomPop

BoomPop is another offsite planner, but with flexibility in the size and use case for your event, including small team offsites, retreats, client events, and virtual activities. Their easy click-through trip builder provides multiple options to choose from.

Allows you to set a per-person budget to ensure your retreat options are affordable for the company.
Has various initiation fees based on the number of offsite events you are planning.
Can be used for a team as small as 5 people or as large as 1,000.
The team negotiates accommodation costs for you, so you know you’re getting the best deal.

Conference attendance

What are those things we used to do? With all the people? And all the knowledge sharing? Oh yeah! Conferences. Sending a few team members to one can have more benefits that you think.

Provide an organized presence of your brand in a large-scale social setting.
Allows teammates to collaborate or divide and conquer, bringing back valuable information.
Gives the traveling team a chance to interact in person, building important interpersonal relationships that generally help team growth.

In-person stipends

Being remote doesn’t always mean being far from another employee. Providing a stipend when tow or more of your employees get together can help encourage in-person meetings.

When it’s framed as a reward rather than a request, employees are more likely to engage.
Small-group collaboration can hasten the implementation of large-scale ideas.
Who doesn’t love free coffee or getting the creative juices flowing with a beer?

Office space

A full 71% of people who work remotely say that their home office set up was an afterthought or is in a makeshift space in their living quarters. With all the money you’re saving on an office building, you can afford to invest in helping your employees find workspace that works.

Wayfair Professional

The professional arm of the ubiquitous home goods site not only provides tons of options for home offices, they also have special pricing.

Personalized service means you can set pricing and options for your team.
Members-only pricing makes it an affordable option for outfitting a whole team.
Direct shipping means no middle man.
The wide variety of options means each team member can decide what works best for their space and work style.

WeWork

There’s not much that needs to be said about WeWork‘s offerings, as their name is synonymous with flexible workspaces. Locations around the globe make it a great way to offer an alternative to working from the house.

725 locations around the globe provide the ultimate flexibility in where to work remotely.
WeWork spaces can be used for individuals or to bring the team together for an offsite event.
Coworking access is an easy way to allow your team to get out of the house once a week or multiple times a month.
A space management app and business address features are great solutions for remote teams without a physical home base,.

Health and wellness

Health and wellness benefits are consistently ranked at the top of the list of things employees are looking for, and it’s not just health insurance (though you definitely need to offer that). Studies have shown that healthier employees are more productive, which means you should be seeing returns on this investment.

Planet Fitness

At $22.99 a month for access to over 2,000 clubs in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Panama, Planet Fitness provides just one example of how affordable it can be to provide a gym membership to your team.

Many gyms are open 24/7, providing flexibility to fit in a workout.
The $22.99/month membership allows your employee to bring someone to the gym with them, extending the benefit to a friend or family member.
Has single-gym memberships as low as $10.99/month.

Peloton

With the number of Peloton bikes sold during the pandemic, there is sure to be at least one enthusiast on the team who can talk up the benefits of a Peloton plan. Their corporate wellness plan is perfect for the whole team, regardless of whether each person has the bike.

Includes access to workout classes and challenges.
Peloton members can schedule classes with coworkers and friends, regardless of how far away they live.
Allows you to receive aggregated, anonymous data about usage to determine how effective the program is for your employees.

Calm

Did you know that 84% of people who regularly meditate with Calm report improved mental health, while 81% report less stress? Mental health is health care, and Calm’s corporate membership can benefit your whole team.

Options for both self-guided meditation and group workshops.
Content can be tailored to your employees’ personal needs, and has an option for family support.
Has a user-friendly platform that lets leadership see how adoption is leading to increased business performance.
Starts as low as $59 per year, per user.

Socialization

We’re YEARS into the pandemic at this point, and there has yet to be a good solution for the proverbial water cooler. So how can you facilitate interaction? Help people find common ground and allow them to take it wherever it goes.

Book and podcast clubs

There are so many directions this one could go, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be a directive from the top. Ask if anyone is interested and let those involved decide on the topic, format, and frequency of meetings.

Work-related clubs can help facilitate meaningful product discussions.
Non-work topics help coworkers find common ground about hobbies and interests outside of work.
Podcast clubs help to accommodate teammates with busier schedules who may not have the time for books.

Coffee chats and happy hour

Half of you probably rolled your eyes when you saw “happy hour,” but hear me out. Small coffee groups and no-pressure happy hours are great ways for people to relate on a social level and learn about what everyone has in common.

Small-groups of 2-3 people meeting for coffee once a month helps to build trust and interpersonal communication.
Happy hour must be “no pressure.” Sometimes 2 people show up, sometimes it’s 15. These obviously work best for smaller teams.
If you have a larger team, break happy hour rooms out into subjects like weekend sports games, families, or hobbies.

Slack channels

Most teams have Slack channels covering just about everything under the working sun, so why not add a few fun ones where people can share pieces of themselves? They’re easy to start, low stakes, and can be changed up at any time.

An all-encompassing “random” channel is an easy way to discover what people are comfortable sharing.
A channel where nomadic team mates share their latest location can help boost the image of remote work.
Save reddit scroll time with a pet channel at the ready.
Food, photography, advice for parents, music, and a place to share personal accomplishments are all ways to help build camaraderie.

Perks

Everyone wants to believe their company genuinely appreciates their hard work, so why not show your team their value with a couple of perks? From bonus days off to a clean house without lifting a finger, the things you can do to keep your employees happy will also earn you returns in employee retention and productivity.

4-day work weeks

Multiple studies have been done that promote the benefits of a 4-day work week. Splitting the team’s off days between Monday and Friday can allow for partial coverage. While this isn’t a viable solution for all, it’s definitely been gaining some steam. This study has the details.

63% of businesses find it easier to attract talent with a 4-day work week.
78% of employees reported feeling happier, while nearly all (96.7%) reported less stress.
In just six months, overall revenue increased 8.14%/

Monthly 3-day weekends

If taking a whole day off every week is too much, another alternative is to offer everyone one three-day weekend a month, completely aside from their regular PTO. This can be done on one day for the whole company or have each department rotate weekends to maintain coverage.

Many of the same benefits as the 4-day work week, including increased productivity, energy, and morale.
Having a weekday off means appointments, errands, and other weekday necessities can be scheduled outside of the regular work week.
This approach can have the biggest benefit without sacrificing access to your team as a whole.

Blue Apron

How often, when working in an office, did you swing by to pick up takeout on the way home? Now that the commute has been kaiboshed, a Blue Apron subscription can let your employee decide when it’s time to take a break from the kitchen.

The website makes it easy to decide how many meals to send, and how many meals plans to order.
Blue Apron offers breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, and ready-to-heat meals.
Gift card doesn’t need to be used all at once, and will let users pause shipments.
Meals can be purchased for two or four people.

Molly Maid

It’s hard to tell if our houses are dirtier these days because we never leave them, or if they were always this dirty and we just never noticed because we were at the office. Either way, a nice, deeply cleaned house is something we can all appreciate.

Molly Maid‘s nation-wide service means this can be rolled out for your whole team.
Gift certificates allow you to personalize the service or send it as a surprise and delight.
According to a Roborock study, 83% of people feel more productive and better motivated when their work space is clean.

Wrapping up

Providing a safe, comfortable, and enriching environment is important in the workplace, and we hope that some of these resources can help you do that for your team. While this list is extensive, it’s not meant to be exhaustive. It’s also not a bold suggestion that you incorporate them all (but if you do…you hiring?). It’s just a few ways that you can show the team who is working so hard for you is appreciated and that their wellbeing is important to you. And really, isn’t that what everyone wants?

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