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How can we foster a strong culture of positivity and collaboration in a remote environment? Despite hybrid and remote work exploding in the last decade, it already feels like an eternal question.
It becomes even more challenging when the organization reflects a classic startup team structure. Priorities, performance, and growing pains don’t always leave the door open for traditional team building.
Let’s take a look at how the environment and attitudes may differ. From there, we’ll share some effective SaaS startup team-building strategies.
What is a startup environment, and why is it different?
Startup environments are more flexible and independent than the average workplace. This is meant to support greater agility in performance, problem-solving, and collaboration. Depending on how they scale, they can eventually have an executive team atop a multi-layered structure.
However, the reality for many smaller startups is that the structure is rather flat. The founder/CEO wears various hats while also serving as the lone oversight for multiple departments.
On the plus side, being able to take initiative and work independently is essential for a fast-paced, innovative startup environment.
But that attitude and drive will only last if they feel responsible to a community, part of a culture, a member of a team.
4 SaaS startup team-building strategies
The distinct skill sets present at SaaS startups leave them at a higher risk of being too siloed to form bonds.
However, the following advice and ideas work for any team that doesn’t have the time or place for trust falls (if they even wanted to do them). They’re also easy to maintain as the team grows.
1. Respect individual schedules and preferences.
Gaming tournaments and virtual cocktail hours are two examples of popular team-building activities for remote workers. But live streaming isn’t always ideal for asynchronous startup employees.
If team members are expected to execute tasks and make decisions autonomously as part of their roles, they’ll need autonomy here, too. Sometimes it’s a time zone issue. Or they simply don’t have the will to go live at 7 pm sharp. Either way, try not to make every team-building effort a live, scheduled event.
2. Set up a virtual water cooler.
This is a chat channel dedicated to casual, off-topic conversation that employees can join at their leisure. This way, they can have live conversations on their terms, without disrupting their flow.
It’s convenient, accessible, and just makes sense. Pop in and add some hot takes to get a conversation going. The very idea that off-topic or personal conversations are acceptable will send the message that rapport and community are priorities.
3. Create friendly competition.
Startup culture is big on hustle. Some competitiveness isn’t unusual here. Keep it light by hosting a weekly or monthly competition. Team members have a window to submit their entries instead of attending a live event, such as a trivia tournament.
Consider a deck-a-desk contest. Employees decorate their desks according to a theme, seasonal or otherwise. Other spins on costume contests, pet of the month, funniest photo, most interesting dinner, and more leverage both the competitive spirit and lighthearted team bonding.
You can also run polls and accept submissions for paper plate awards and distribute the results in a newsletter.
4. Introduce peer recognition tools.
Weekly top-down recognition can be a big ask at many startups. The secret to success in team-building for organizations like this is a solid commitment to peer-to-peer recognition.
Peer recognition tools also inspire cross-department praise. This has huge benefits in startup environments. Asynchronous teams become more familiar with the responsibilities and efforts of others, appreciating and relating to one another more.
Gamified recognition that’s a perfect fit for startup culture.
HeyTaco is a tool that covers every team-building strategy presented here at once, with gamification for good measure.
- Drop a virtual taco 🌮 in team chat to acknowledge someone’s wins, help, or ideas. You get to decide who gets one of your tacos and when.
- Create a chat channel dedicated to taco-driven recognition. Team members can share what they’ve achieved or who they appreciate.
- Taco givers and receivers appear on a leaderboard. They compete to see who will gain or give the most tacos while climbing levels, earning rewards, unlocking themed avatars, and more.
- Peer recognition becomes part of daily operations. There’s a method for connecting that’s scalable, low-risk, pressure-free, fun, and really rewarding.
Make HeyTaco part of your startup’s culture for free.
“It's brought us closer together as a team, and that's priceless. It also brings more awareness to what everyone's doing, which is another big plus!”
- Steven B., QA Automation Engineer
