Establishing business values is an important aspect of any successful organisation. It helps to give everyone a point of reference for decision-making and drives professionalism throughout your enterprise. It creates an environment where everyone understands what’s expected of them and has a clear direction in achieving objectives, and ensures effective strategy can be developed. This can be particularly important for maintenance and facility management teams, who will want to ensure efficiency and a high standard of service.
Making sure your business’ values are upheld is essential no matter what size your team is or where they are located. If you have a remote team, it can sometimes be difficult to ensure that everyone is on the same page in regard to those core beliefs. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to make sure that your business’ values remain intact in a remote work environment. Here’s how.
Set clear expectations upfront
The first step to upholding your company’s values with a remote team is setting clear expectations upfront. This means creating policies and procedures based on your values and making sure each employee is aware of them. Additionally, any specific rules or regulations should be clearly outlined in the employee handbook so that all of the employees know what is expected of them from day one.
From there, make sure you provide consistent feedback to each member of your remote team. Regular check-ins can help ensure that everyone understands the expectations and knows how their performance aligns with the company’s goals and values.
Encourage open dialogue within the team
An important part of any team is fostering a culture of open dialogue. When people feel comfortable communicating their thoughts and ideas, everyone benefits, including the organisation as a whole. It’s essential to create an atmosphere where everyone feels heard and respected, and can engage with one another in meaningful conversations about how the company can improve.
Feedback around improvement shouldn’t just be restricted to the employees’ immediate peers either – they should feel able to give feedback to team members who are more senior, and even directors. That way, everyone is held accountable to the agreed business values. This open culture can also benefit safety when it comes to the maintenance industry, as employees will feel able to raise any safety concerns without the fear of questioning someone who is more experienced than them.
Celebrate success
It can be easy to focus on giving feedback to employees who need to improve, but celebrating success is also important. Not only does it boost morale, but it also clearly highlights behaviour and work that the company wants to encourage. This can be done on an ad hoc basis via email or internal messaging software – or you could even consider nominating an employee of the month. Creating a culture of recognition is one of the keys to fostering a high-performing team, so consider how you can reflect employee performance in your benefits package.
Conclusion
By following these tips for maintaining consistency in both processes and culture across all teams within an organisation, facility managers will be able to rest assured knowing that their business’ core beliefs are still held up no matter where their employees may be working from at any given time.