There is an old joke that goes something like this: “no one drives in New York City; there’s too much traffic.” And while the inanity in the joke is obvious, it’s not difficult to see why many New Yorkers might be keen to avoid the commute for just this reason. There is too much traffic.
In 2021, despite major reductions in traffic related to the pandemic, transportation data analysis firm INRIX’s listed New York City as one of the most congested cities on the planet — placing first in the U.S. and fifth in the world. According to INRIX’s data, the city’s traffic cost commuters more than 100 hours of their lives in 2021 — the monetary value of which added up to more than $1,500 per driver.
But helping employees avoid the stress of gridlock isn’t the only reason some of the city’s tech companies have offered their teams a remote-first option. Thankfully, many employers have cultivated exceptional virtual-first workspaces in the last few years, turning adverse circumstances into forward-thinking policies. For these companies, embracing remote work has allowed their team members to enjoy optimal flexibility, to work in an environment that best suits their needs and to bring distributed teams together by extending their communicative cultures into virtual space.
“We try to bridge the distance gap through consistent internal communication and team- and company-wide virtual gatherings,” said Meghan Lapidies, chief people officer for fintech company SmartAsset.
Built In NYC spoke to three leaders from companies on the vanguard of remote work to learn more about how company culture can transcend the office space.
SmartAsset is an online destination for consumer-focused financial information and advice that reaches 75 million people each month. The company operates SmartAdvisor, a national marketplace connecting consumers to financial advisors.
What is the biggest challenge to establishing a virtual-first company culture? How is SmartAsset working to overcome that challenge?
Maintaining company culture is a challenge during the best of times, and there’s an even higher level of onus on building culture given our fully-remote workforce. The pandemic quickly ushered in a new working dynamic for people around the world, and adapting to this change can be difficult for some. But there are ways to make virtual employees feel better connected to the company, culture, mission and colleagues.
Even though our assets are spread around the country, we try to bridge the distance gap through consistent internal communication and team- and company-wide virtual gatherings. For example, in June we honored Pride Month and highlighted Juneteenth via a company-wide trivia event. Our HR team gamified important LGBTQ facts, figures, events and topics to highlight the importance and significance of Pride Month and to support LGBTQ people within the company and across the world.
Additionally, our people team organizes smaller meet-and-greet events called “coffee calls” on a rotating basis. This gives our assets the opportunity to meet other people within the company every two to three weeks.
What’s your number one tip for fostering connection and collaboration among virtual teams?
Creating a positive environment with a shared vision through transparent communication with all employees on a consistent basis.
We all know how important mission, vision and values are in building culture. But it’s very important for leadership to have a shared vision of what leadership looks like and how team members can support each other to be successful from both the top down and the bottom up.
In order for a company to be truly successful — and have a highly engaged, collaborative workforce — you need to have the openness to create a place where people can come as they are, lead as they are and celebrate diversity in all forms.
The secrets to success to reinforce culture are effective leadership, clear communication and solid talent management.
What remote working tools do you lean on to reinforce culture?
The secrets to success to reinforce culture are effective leadership, clear communication and solid talent management with culture as the outcome. The remote working tools that work best are the systems and platforms that keep us connected including Google Workspace, Slack and virtual meeting platforms like Google Meet.
Another way SmartAsset fosters a business environment that is inclusive, diverse and collaborative is through our various employee resource groups. Despite a fully-distributed workforce across the U.S., employees have formed groups and initiatives that center around positive impact and change.
Through its various brands including Racing Post, Pickswise and Fantasy Alarm and in partnership with companies including DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars Casino and Sportsbook, Spotlight Sports Group engages millions of users in the sports betting and fantasy sports worlds.
What is the biggest challenge to establishing a virtual-first company culture? How is Spotlight Sports Group working to overcome that challenge?
The key to working virtually is for leaders to understand that everyone is different. Some people will need to make boundaries between their work and home lives. Others will enjoy the freedom to work more often and mix in aspects of their home life throughout the day.
The challenge for leaders is to understand and be brave enough to challenge those who are not handling it well to help them define rules for working at home. As someone who has telecommuted for some part of my job since 1991, I have needed to use many different tactics in order to balance home and work life. Knowing and being able to pass these different tricks on to our teams allows them to try different approaches until they find the right system to succeed in both their job and the rest of their life.
What’s your number one tip for fostering connection and collaboration among virtual teams?
Genuinely care about the balance necessary to love your job and love your life. Assist in understanding your people on a personal level so you can help them get the accommodations needed to win for the team.
One of our team members loves his baseball team and likes to watch all their games, for example. Sometimes games are during the day, and we accommodate so he can do his work after hours on those days and watch his team live.
We know work looks different for everyone, and we need to respect team members’ abilities and not judge them.
What remote working tools do you lean on to reinforce culture?
There are tracking tools, organization tools and communication tools. None of them will work for everyone. Sometimes they can alienate your people as well, so you need to be careful. We like Jira and monday.com for organization, Google Docs for communication and Google Meet for having meetings.
We do not use tracking tools. We know work looks different for everyone, and we need to respect team members’ abilities and not judge them on how they decide to accomplish their jobs and have a happy rest of their life.
Tools can be a way of “being” as well. We all get personal for five minutes at the beginning of each meeting. We really do care. That is a tool, in my opinion — caring.
Fintech and professional services firm Arcesium delivers post-investment and enterprise data management solutions to hedge funds, banks, institutional asset managers, private equity firms and other financial institutions.
What is the biggest challenge to establishing a virtual-first company culture? How is Arcesium working to overcome that challenge?
For Arcesium, the most important thing has been ensuring new team members get proper onboarding training and introductions. We’ve grown significantly in the past two years, so ensuring each new team member has a good initial experience with our culture is key. When someone joins fully remote, we follow straightforward techniques for the first three months, including assigning them a buddy to help navigate internal processes and tools.
It’s also important to remember onboarding is not just a task for the manager. Making sure everyone meets the new person, at least over a video call, and spends time one-on-one is vital. Encouraging everyone — new and existing team members — to ask and answer questions on internal communication channels is another good way to ensure everyone is engaged. We use Slack, which has been a great tool to communicate within our teams and allow new hires to join corporate-wide channels.
It’s also worth highlighting the importance of clear and easy-to-find documentation that describes technical and functional aspects of projects. How-to documents help proactively answer commonly asked questions, which is especially important in a remote setting when there’s no “stop by your desk” anymore.
What’s your number one tip for fostering connection and collaboration among virtual teams?
While Arcesium has embraced a virtual-first culture, in-person meetings still hold significant value. For example, on our engineering team, where members are distributed across the globe, I encourage team leads to periodically gather their squad in person with a focused agenda – whether it’s roadmap planning, refactoring design or something else. We first tested this in India, where we made sure to be onsite at least twice a year. This approach proved to have a positive impact on collaboration.
Now that we have software engineering roles globally, it’s become an increasingly important practice. Depending on the team’s size or project, we may hold in-person gatherings quarterly or semi-annually. This practice has improved communication and understanding between team members. When planning for this, team leads should remember to be respectful of each person’s circumstances. Not everyone will be able to travel — so never make in-person discussions exclusive and be sure to include video and dial-in options.
At Arcesium, we often say, ‘Good conversations have URLs.’”
What remote working tools do you lean on to reinforce culture?
I recommend fostering asynchronous communication and believe written communication is a must in the remote-first world.
At Arcesium, we often say, “Good conversations have URLs.” For us, that means communicating in a shared forum where teams have time to digest information and ask thoughtful follow-up questions. By capturing notes, explanations, and shareable links, we can refer back to the discussion — which can be difficult following a traditional team meeting. I prefer public Slack channels for project work and software design discussions. I recommend enabling integration between your choice wiki, project management and document system, so they all talk to each other.
Not everything is about tooling, though. It’s our people who make things happen at Arcesium. Consider developing a culture where it’s acceptable to turn off the video occasionally. Not everyone wants to be visible all the time.
Lastly, I’d be remiss not to mention the age-old tool — one-on-one meetings. It’s become ever more important to check in with your team to hear concerns or help with a challenge. That layer of personal connection will never become obsolete – whether we’re working in person or virtually.
