Making remote first work for people and culture

11th March, 2022

For many, remote first is a scary idea and begs the question, how will it impact people and company culture? At Telness Tech, we’ve always been a remote first business - here’s why it works for us, and why it can definitely work for you.

Practice what we preach

Whilst we made the decision to be remote first during the pandemic, we considered a multitude of factors - the first being our values. As a tech organisation, we truly believe that the future of communications is digital and in turn, all work can be conducted remotely.

And although Telness Tech was established during the pandemic, those of us that joined from other telecom roles have also made the switch from in-house support teams, conference phones and outdated IT, to unified communication tools that enable total flexibility.

This shift and change of mindset may have been thrust upon us during the pandemic, but it’s as if the obvious question was staring us right in the face - why on earth haven’t we prioritised working digitally until now? It seems contradictory for us to be a tech communication company who doesn’t place it’s trust in being digital. But does being tech-first mean we’re not human first?

Making virtual a reality

As a business of 20 employees, we’re currently a small organisation. However, with big aspirations for growth there is a lot to consider. Most importantly, how will we instil and grow company culture?

There’s no denying the value of face-to-face - but there’s beauty in the way digital communication can emulate in person communication. To make virtual feel as real as possible, we invested in the right tools, such as Slack, Mentimeter and Teams. Although we’re physically apart, we can still show how we’re feeling through emojis, ask questions over instant messenger, or come together as a group on video calls.

The right toolstack enables easier communication, but it still doesn’t instil culture. So what does? A clear focus and continued investment in creating structures that enable us to create culture. For us, that means investing time into coming together as a team through midweek meetings, 1-1s and so on.

And whilst we’re remote first as business, this doesn’t mean we never leave our homes to spend time together as a team. In fact, with us investing into flexible, cloud-based solutions and saving on office spaces - we have more money to spend on valuable time together, including in-person company-wide meetings once a month, regular away days and nice lunches and dinner after work when we do get the chance to meet.

Step into the future of communication

But what does all of this mean for businesses considering the switch to remote first, or hybrid working?

First, you need the right tech to allow your business to thrive. Like we said before, it’s not uncommon for businesses to still be running off of massively outdated legacy infrastructure. This may look like a big cabinet full of wires and flashing lights in a storage room in the office. The issue with working from these systems is that they’re costly to build and run, and impact massively on the flexibility to work remotely.

Self-sufficient telecoms is the answer. In this day and age there’s really no reason that businesses can’t be running off self-service systems that run through cloud-based models. This not only frees up your team to work flexibly, it also gives you back time and money through savings on technicians and electricity bills - money that can be invested back into your people and culture.

Our Next Generation PBX does just that. It works together in harmony with company systems to provide flexible, modular telco platforms that can be deployed and run on any of the major cloud solutions and incumbent IT systems. No more hefty storage units, wires or flashing lights - just reliable software with customer experience at the heart.

Switching from cable to cloud isn’t complicated, it’s logical - and it means more money and time to invest into your people and company culture.