How Symend leaders are scaling culture during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how companies operate, forcing organizations to rapidly adapt to remote work while maintaining productivity, engagement, and culture. At Symend, we faced an additional challenge: continuing to grow and scale our team while building a strong, cohesive culture in a fully distributed environment.
The culture challenge in a pandemic
Building and maintaining company culture has always been challenging, but the pandemic added new dimensions to this challenge:
- Transitioning existing team members to remote work while maintaining connection and engagement
- Onboarding new employees who may never meet their colleagues in person
- Preserving the spontaneous interactions and relationship-building that happen naturally in an office
- Supporting team members dealing with stress, isolation, and work-from-home challenges
- Communicating effectively when you can't walk down the hall or grab coffee together
Intentional communication and transparency
In a distributed environment, communication can't be left to chance. Our leadership team implemented several practices to ensure transparency and connection:
Regular all-hands meetings
We established weekly company-wide meetings where leadership shares updates, celebrates wins, and addresses challenges openly. These sessions create a shared understanding of where we're headed and why.
Leadership visibility
Our executives maintain active presence in team channels, participate in virtual social events, and make themselves available for one-on-one conversations. This accessibility builds trust and ensures team members feel heard.
Over-communicate, then communicate again
In a remote environment, it's better to repeat important messages across multiple channels than to assume everyone saw your first announcement. We've embraced redundancy in our communication strategy.
Preserving human connection
Technology enables remote work, but maintaining the human connections that drive culture requires deliberate effort:
Virtual coffee chats
We've implemented random pairing systems that connect team members across departments for informal video chats, recreating the serendipitous conversations that happen in office kitchens.
Team building activities
From virtual escape rooms to online trivia competitions, we've found creative ways to help team members bond and have fun together despite physical distance.
Mental health support
Recognizing the stress and challenges of pandemic life, we've expanded mental health resources and encouraged leaders to be open about their own challenges, normalizing struggles and creating space for authentic conversation.
Rethinking onboarding
Welcoming new team members to Symend has always been a priority, but remote onboarding required us to completely reimagine the process:
- Comprehensive documentation: We created detailed guides covering everything from technical setup to cultural norms
- Onboarding buddies: Every new hire is paired with an experienced team member for guidance and support
- Structured check-ins: Managers conduct frequent check-ins during the first weeks to ensure new hires feel supported
- Virtual introductions: We facilitate video meetings with key stakeholders across the organization
- Clear expectations: We're explicit about performance expectations, communication norms, and how success is measured
Maintaining our values
Company values are tested during times of uncertainty. We've worked to ensure our core values remain central to how we operate:
Empathy first
Just as we advocate for empathetic customer engagement, we practice empathy with our team. We recognize that everyone is dealing with unique challenges and we've built flexibility into how and when work gets done.
Innovation mindset
The pandemic forced innovation in how we work. Rather than viewing remote work as a temporary inconvenience, we've embraced it as an opportunity to build better processes and tools.
Collaboration over competition
Physical distance can't diminish the collaborative spirit that drives our success. We've invested in tools and practices that enable seamless collaboration across time zones and locations.
Lessons learned
Several months into this experiment, we've learned valuable lessons about scaling culture remotely:
- Intentionality is everything: What happened naturally in an office must be deliberately created in a remote environment
- Technology is an enabler, not a solution: The right tools help, but culture comes from how people treat each other
- Flexibility builds loyalty: Trusting team members to manage their time and deliver results strengthens rather than weakens accountability
- Culture is everyone's responsibility: While leadership sets the tone, every team member contributes to culture through their daily actions
- Regular feedback loops matter: We continuously gather feedback on what's working and what isn't, adjusting our approach accordingly
Looking ahead
While we look forward to the day when gathering in person is safe again, we've learned that strong culture isn't tied to a physical location. The practices we've developed during the pandemic have made us a stronger, more resilient organization that can attract talent regardless of geography and maintain connection regardless of distance.
The future of work is here, and companies that succeed will be those that can build strong cultures while embracing the flexibility and opportunities that distributed teams provide. At Symend, we're committed to continuing to innovate on how we work together, support each other, and build something meaningful—wherever we happen to be working from.
