Many will say this is the trade off you inevitably have to make when you transition to remote work, but my experience tells me that just isn’t true. Humans are social beings by nature, and we crave interaction with our peers. They’re now shifting the focus to building relationships with colleagues at a distance, promoting team camaraderie, and cultivating organizational culture - those vital elements of any team that exist outside the confines of KPIs and OKRs. The conversation around remote work is quickly shifting from “how do we make this work right now” to “how do we optimize remote work for the long term.” Team leaders are no longer satisfied with the immediate productivity benefits of remote work. It turned out to be the highest-attended event at the conference, and I was peppered with questions that centered on one theme: maintaining the “human element” in a remote, async environment. I expected a handful of people to attend and questions related to which tools to use to facilitate remote work, or the best practices we implement at Doist to keep 100 people across all time zones rowing in the same direction. The inspiration for this post came from a recent Running Remote event - the world’s largest virtual conference for advancing the “future of work” - where I participated in an 'Ask Me Anything' session centered around async communication. In 2023, the question isn't can companies build a strong team culture remotely, but whether or not they'll put in the time and intention to do it well.īecky and the Twist team Artwork by Anaïs Pirlot-Mares In today's newsletter, our Head of Remote, Chase Warrington, explains why leaders often focus on the wrong things when it comes to team culture, and lays out Doist's approach to creating human connection as an async-first team. It is 100% possible to build a strong team culture that respects people's time and attention and fosters deep personal connections. This week we're tackling one of the biggest challenges of remote - and particularly async-first - work: a lack of human connection.ĭoist is about as async-first as it gets, and I have literally cried when coworkers have decided to leave.

Doist blog