Successful businesses now depend heavily on remote teams, and we’ve seen a lot of businesses gradually implementing the hybrid model, where some workers work online and some on-site.

As they learn to work as a complicated network of individuals, international virtual teams are the secret to many global brands’ greatest triumphs. Businesses that successfully utilize virtual teams worldwide have access to talented human resources that allow them to compete internationally.

Although it presents a significant obstacle, the intricate idea of culture is nevertheless essential for remote and mixed work environments. This is due to the fact that members of virtual teams collaborate remotely across cultural boundaries and that technology is the only means of contact.

This article describes how to create a strong culture with a remote team in 2025 so that groups may come together, coordinate, and motivate their members to achieve success.

The foundation of any successful company is a solid culture. Nonetheless, some businesses have struggled to adapt to the change to remote and hybrid working, which can occasionally lead to misunderstandings, diversions, a sense of loneliness, a diminished work-life balance, an increased dependence on technology, and a lack of social interaction.

Employees that work remotely benefit from a strong workplace culture that makes them feel connected, respected, and appreciated despite their physical distance from one another. It makes teams more receptive to the company’s mission, helps them deal with loneliness more effectively, and helps them retain top talent.

There are still businesses that prosper on a remote and hybrid work model and have managed to create a positive culture in spite of the difficulties associated with missing face-to-face encounters. These six best practices can help you get started and see results if you are trying to create or restore a strong remote work culture.

How to Build a Strong Culture With a Remote Team

1. Define, Refine, and Share Your Company Culture

Workplace culture consists of an organization’s shared expectations, perceptions, practices, and values that guide the thoughts and actions of its members.

Whether you’re a new business or already an existing one, you can develop your culture from scratch or refine what you have. Know your “whys” to serve as the foundation for your success and translate them into your mission and vision, company values, and key performance indicators to maintain them.

Always communicate your culture clearly through all forms of communication such as your website, social media pages, emails, ads, and job postings. As a remote team, it is important to have a culture that attracts the right talent from a global talent pool.

Internally, keep your company culture documents in a file that all your team members can access and refer back to anytime. They may need to lean on your core values when faced with uncertainties such as making important decisions, resolving conflicts, and interacting with one another. During onboarding, company culture should be incorporated into all aspects of the process.

Keep in mind that your culture is dynamic and changes all the time, in both small and substantially noticeable ways, as the company grows. So, you have to continue redefining, refining, communicating, and making them available to everyone on your team.

2. Hire Self-Starters Based On Cultural Fit 

A strong company attracts a wide variety of talent. When hiring for your remote team, look for people who: 

• Believe in your mission and vision and whose personal values are in alignment with your core values and company culture. 
• Are self-starters who are motivated, resourceful, and able to efficiently work with little supervision.

Team members whose beliefs are in accordance with yours are more likely to stay committed to your company, demonstrate hard work, be more productive, and contribute to creating a positive remote work environment.

Remote workers need to be self-starters. In a remote workplace, it is vital to have team members who are capable of doing their jobs without a boss micromanaging them to stay on track with their deliverables.

Previous remote work is an advantage because they’ll know what to expect in a virtual workplace. Candidates with no work-from-home experience may require more training to get used to the remote environment which would require more careful consideration but should not be a hindrance.

3. Give New Hires a Good Remote Onboarding Experience

Virtually onboarding new team members can be challenging so remote teams need to develop an effective onboarding process that helps new them to get acquainted with their virtual team and the company. Here are our recommendations:

• Be Proactive

Make the new hire feel welcomed even if it’s a fully virtual onboarding process. Take the initiative to prepare and send the welcome email even before their first day of work, with a complete summary of your company’s culture, handbook, values, the people and team they will work with, and the onboarding schedule and agenda.

Read Also: The Importance of Communication in Hybrid Work Environments

This will help ease their first-day nerves and build confidence in knowing they are equipped with the basics when they log in on their first day.

• Employ a Virtual Buddy System

Appoint someone as the new hire’s role buddy who will support them, answer all their questions, and proactively reach out to them to create a connection between the new hire and everyone on the team.

• Make the first day fun and exciting

Aside from online training or video call meetings, set up their virtual workspace such as passwords, access to files, announcing the new team members in the group chats, and any virtual activities to make them feel welcomed.

4. Communicate and Collaborate

Remote team members must work through technology, and across cultures and time zones that’s why they must trust one another. A culture built on trust means working together to have open and honest communication and maintaining transparency to achieve a common goal. Technology is used so everyone can connect and collaborate. This includes team management software for group chats and personal messages, virtual team meetings, emails, and video calls.

Create a collaborative approach when using communication tools. Create group chats for teams, sub-teams, and the entire organization to keep the discussions alive, inspire participation, and engage in meaningful conversations where knowledge and insights are shared.

Communication and collaboration are essential for a team to accomplish its goals. Maximize collaboration tools and strategies so people can work well together even in a dispersed workplace.

5. Create Psychological Safety

Psychological safety at work involves creating a safe space where everyone can be vulnerable and speak up about their experiences, thoughts, feelings, opinions, questions, or concerns without fear of rejection or punishment.

When you build trust, you already have the foundation of a psychologically safe environment. You just have to support such space by setting clear expectations, connecting with your team on a personal level, and encouraging conversations by using available tools and technology that foster structured conversations for better understanding between co-workers.

6. Host Virtual Team Building Activities

When you have virtual events or meetings, allocate some time for some fun and competitive team-building games to bring everyone closer, alleviate any feelings of loneliness or isolation, and strengthen the company culture for better collaboration and teamwork. Examples of virtual team-building activities are virtual coffee breaks, game nights, trivia challenges, icebreakers in meetings, and guided team meditation.

7. Create a Career Development Plan for Your Team

A career development plan is a written roadmap for short and long-term goals that team members set for themselves and work on to achieve career goals. Provide your team with training to ensure their personal growth, improve their performance, develop them to become great leaders, and retain top teams. Create a culture of learning by codifying career development plans. Define and include these values in performance appraisal, operating principles, coaching sessions, and meetings. Offer online classes, workshops, training, job rotation, mentoring, and participation in conferences.

8. Invest in Workplace Culture

Provide your remote team with communication and collaboration tools so they can do their work effectively. One way of doing this is to invest in a team that is solely focused on the team and culture such as the People and Culture department.

Another way is using a platform like RemotePass which allows companies to easily hire, onboard, manage and pay remote teams internationally. You’ll have the ability to streamline these processes on one platform, manage team members’ benefits, and seamlessly align your team for a more efficient selection process, increased productivity and motivation, and improved remote work environment.

By implementing these recommendations, you will establish a solid foundation to build a strong remote team with a shared belief that supports your goals and encourages better performance, teamwork, productivity, and team retention and satisfaction in a remote environment. 

Best Practices for Nurturing a Strong Culture in the Hybrid Workplace

According to this Gartner poll, a noteworthy 76% of recently migrated remote and hybrid employees had a positive opinion of the hybrid work environment, demonstrating how flexible and hybrid work helps employees embrace a positive culture.

Furthermore, the findings show that 64% of remote workers and 66% of hybrid workers say that their company culture has a positive impact on their job satisfaction. This is a much greater number than the 52% of employees who only work on-site.

Intentional and Relevant Communication

Communication barriers lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, information loss, and a decline in morale and connection among individuals. Poor communication makes it harder to retain and engage top talent and reduces productivity, incurring substantial costs for companies.

Transparent communication channels foster a collaborative work environment and build trust within an organization. When leadership and employees openly share information and can communicate candidly, people naturally become more motivated and innovative.

Keeping everyone informed ensures that team leaders and members are aware of project progress and potential issues that arise. Providing regular updates helps individuals focus on goals and tasks rather than investing energy in misunderstandings and mistrust.

Team members play a significant role in effective and concise communication in the workplace by expressing concerns, asking questions, and providing feedback, learning the necessary power skills to manage conflicts and achieve common goals.

Social Interaction

Research shows that quality workplace relationships are linked to increased productivity and well-being. When a company encourages social interaction, it creates a social space where people can connect, communicate, and celebrate.

Opportunities for in-person interactions, even occasional ones, are positive but not always feasible in a hybrid or remote work model.

Some examples of social interactions for hybrid and remote teams:

• Virtual coffee breaks using apps like Donut (Slack integration), randomly pairing individuals in the organization for a quick connection and informal chat
• Virtual cards for birthday wishes and other occasions, like Kudoboard
• Online happy hours, which can be themed
• Interest-based workshops, such as a wellness session or something creative like a drawing workshop

These activities connect people beyond day-to-day work and foster a sense of belonging even when someone is working remotely.

Investment in Training and Development

People desire to grow and develop, learn new skills, and enhance their work performance – this LinkedIn survey shows that learning and growth opportunities are key drivers of a strong culture.

By investing in a training and development plan aligned with the company’s needs, employees feel better supported, enhancing productivity and work accuracy. Other positive effects of talent development include improved worker morale and engagement, reduced turnover, and less need to recruit from outside the organization.

Even when individuals have autonomy to allocate their training budget, training professionals need an in-depth understanding of business objectives to map the competencies required for the company to reach the next level and ensure these skills are being developed.

Recognition of Contributions

Recognition programs enable workers to know that an organization values the work they do. By acknowledging and celebrating individuals who make relevant contributions, a company can boost morale, increase productivity, and reduce turnover.

Recognizing contributions can take various forms. Many organizations use performance-based programs that acknowledge employees who meet or exceed goals.

Celebrating work anniversaries and employee of the month or year programs are easy ways to recognize team members’ service. Peer recognition provides feedback while building relationships among team members.

Flexible Policies

Hybrid and remote work have become an irreversible trend, amplifying the need for training solutions adaptable to any time and place.

In a study titled “The Future of Work,” results revealed that 41% of companies plan to increase their remote workforce in the next two years, while 73% anticipate continuous growth in remote and flexible work settings.

The integration of flexibility and remote work has become an established reality for both employers and employees. In this Gartner survey, 60% of respondents expressed the expectation to work remotely at least once a week, a significant increase from the pre-pandemic figure of 38%.

Adopting flexibility yields substantial benefits: organizations meeting individual needs witness increased morale and empowerment through autonomy, leading to higher engagement and commitment to the company.

Gartner’s insights highlight a significant trend: companies embracing radical flexibility see an impressive 40% increase in employees identifying as high performers.

Technology Resources

Implement communication platforms that facilitate asynchronous interactions among remote and in-office teams. Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom enable messaging, video conferencing, and real-time collaboration, promoting constant connectivity and information sharing.

Offer accessible and comprehensive training programs through corporate digital education platforms that are customizable to each individual’s profile and can be consumed anytime, anywhere, on any device, allowing learning to naturally fit into people’s daily lives – the increasingly strong trend of lifelong learning.