Do you have a desk for everyone?

Remote work, not to be confused with “WFH,” is an interesting topic. I could fire off statistics left and right on the now numerous studies and polls done on remote work, but I will keep it to a couple I found relevant to the topic of developing and maintaining a company culture. An astonishing 67% of remote workers say their lifestyle has gotten healthier since they started working remote. That is a substantial number, as it is well over 50% of the populous of remote workers. What healthier in this case means can be attributed to a variety of factors, but some I can say for myself are

Extra time in the mornings and evenings not spent on an hour long each way trip.
Less money spent on gas and lunch.
More time to spend with my dog. At this point, I’m not sure how she would react if I went back to the office full time!

So, what’s the bottom line here? COVID or not, remote work is here to stay. What started as a means for workers to continue working during a global pandemic, has turned into another war – the war on talent. Now that increased companies have remote offerings, the landscape for top talent has changed.

This is where a strong company culture, such as the one at Blackink IT, becomes so important. With some of us working regularly in the office and other’s such as myself spending far more time remote, being able to maintain a healthy and fun culture becomes more important.

Being able to advertise that our culture is as consistent as the day many of us went remote is no small feat. Some of the way’s Blackink IT has been able to maintain its culture include:

Microsoft Team’s group chats. From the entire company, to groups based off teams. While this doesn’t replace the serendipity of spontaneous office chatter, it does help ensure a steady stream of communication between teams.

Regular All Staff meetings. What better way to keep the whole company up to date than a good old fashion round table meeting? Except, there’s no table, and we do it over Team’s meetings 😊

Hiring the right people. This might be the most important one. With a heavy focus on personality, drive and the term “humble, hungry, and smart,” all of Blackink IT’s staff meet these requirements.

There is still a desk for everyone. While some employees are still remote, Blackink has recently gone through an entire office makeover. With desks for every employees and open seating and gathering areas (with COVID rules still!). This encourages employees to rotate through the office from time to time and stay engaged with each other.

While some companies may be requiring employees to slowly return to the office, Blackink has made great strides in being an industry leader on what it means to work in a hybrid work environment.