Master the essentials of building a people-centric organization for globally-distributed teams
When you have a globally-distributed workforce, it’s crucial to have a modern people organization that can support it.
In this article, I will outline how your business can do that, with particular focus on building a lasting company culture, setting and implementing goals, leveraging data and analytics, and enhancing employee engagement and feedback.
I’ll also touch on how Remote demonstrates these practices, and how a global, remote-first workforce can perform effectively.
To see a comprehensive, in-depth breakdown of what’s discussed in this article, check out the full free masterclass, available here.
The foundation of any organization is its culture, which can be defined as its:
Of course, culture can evolve over time, and as HR leaders it’s important to ensure that your culture continues to retain and engage your people. This is especially true as you grow, with new hires from diverse backgrounds bringing their own values and experiences, and influencing the culture.
A big part of this is establishing values, which act as the cornerstone of your culture. While other facets of your business may evolve, your values should be pressure-tested every two to three years to ensure they align with the company's current direction and future goals. In 2023, for instance, we reviewed and updated our initial core values.
As leaders, you must then ensure that values resonate throughout the entire organization. This involves extensive communication and documentation, with every role understanding and embodying these values. At Remote, we used a six-month communication strategy to align the team with our revised values, focusing on the specific behaviors each value represents across different departments.
As well as creating an optimal culture, you need to get the basics of people management right. It’s often overlooked, but this is as simple as ensuring that your employees know where they stand, and have clarity on their role, goals, performance, and growth opportunities.
Strong leadership is integral to this. Managers need to guide employees, provide feedback, assist with growth, and ensure alignment with your company's values and goals. They should also assess performance through two lenses: the how (behaviors and alignment with values), and the what (achievement of goals and impact). It’s absolutely crucial to focus on outcomes and impact, rather than arbitrary metrics such as the number of hours worked.
Of course, to achieve all this, you need to develop your leaders as well, through training, documentation, and real-time feedback. Managers have multiple roles (i.e., mentor, coach, and guide) and need continuous development to excel in these areas.
You should also seek to promote transparency. Your people should always know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they are being perceived by their peers and managers. This enables employees to grow, and course-correct where needed.
Goals are another essential component of an effective people organization. They help align your vision and mission and provide clarity for employees on how their work contributes to broader company objectives. Goals also maintain engagement and excitement by connecting your employees to your strategic company-wide initiatives.
When setting goals, don’t hold back. They should be ambitious and inspiring, and motivate your people to strive for big achievements. At the same time, these goals should also be measurable, and align with your long-term vision (i.e., two to four years).
To ensure this process is effective, follow the SMART framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Each department needs to set clear goals that align with your broader strategic objectives, ensuring accountability and providing a roadmap for success.
While leadership should set strategic goals, goal setting should also involve employees at different levels of the organization. This ensures a comprehensive, inclusive approach that incorporates input from teams, and gains buy-in across the company.
Once goals are set, actionable plans should be created to achieve them. These plans should include specific steps and milestones, and be assigned to a directly responsible individual (DRI) to ensure progress. Goals should not be ignored once set, either; they require ongoing check-ins and adjustments as necessary.
Data and analytics provide an objective foundation for decision-making in any organization, complementing — rather than replacing — your gut instincts. They offer a rigorous approach to evaluating the health of your organization, and can validate or challenge assumptions.
At Remote, for instance, we share a quarterly "org health" dashboard with the leadership team, covering everything from talent acquisition to employee performance and retention. As well as exploring key metrics around hiring, the dashboard examines the distribution of employees by department and level, the span of control (manager-to-employee ratio), and whether managers are efficiently utilized. This helps identify if certain managers are underutilized, or if teams need restructuring.
We also use data to:
This data — as well as regular engagement surveys — are used to create KPIs for Remote’s senior leadership, which then informs strategic decisions regarding talent acquisition, compensation, attrition, and engagement.
The final piece of the puzzle is to have a robust engagement and feedback system in place for your people.
Comprehensive employee engagement surveys — which we conduct twice a year — are integral to this, covering topics like compensation, management effectiveness, alignment with company mission and values, and employee retention. These surveys include both quantitative and qualitative components, with the latter offering deeper insights into employee sentiment.
The completed surveys provide valuable insights, helping identify areas of concern and enabling proactive action. At Remote, survey results are compared across departments and against previous surveys, allowing leadership to track progress or identify issues.
As mentioned, transparency is key, so these results are then communicated back to the organization. At the same time, leadership identifies four or five key focus areas for improvement (which are also communicated), and volunteers are invited to participate in working groups to address them. This approach ensures that employees are part of the solution and helps generate buy-in.
This should be done at the department level, too, with managers encouraged to address issues in their own focus areas.
It’s also important that your organization sees feedback as a continuous, cyclical process, rather than a linear program. Conduct follow-up surveys to assess whether you have made progress on the identified focus areas, and share updates with your teams.
To build a modern people organization and effectively support your team, you need to focus on the five areas discussed above.
And, by maintaining transparency, aligning values with business objectives, and continuously measuring progress, you can create a dynamic, engaged, and high-performing workforce that drives long-term success.
To get more insight, check out the full, free Masterclass session now!
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