Employee Engagement in a Remote World: RIVA IRL

In early spring of 2021 RIVA– operating in a fully remote environment– toyed with the idea of instituting a hybrid work schedule. Prior to COVID-19, RIVA was an in-person only culture. While productivity was not an issue during the transition to remote, it is more difficult to find those informal relationship building moments, like running into someone grabbing coffee, when you’re interacting virtually the from comfort of your couch. A year into the pandemic, people were tired of being home and we thought maybe we should get back to the office a few days a week.

Fast forward a few months to May 2021 when we formally rolled out RIVA Flex , our remote-first, choose your own adventure model which empowers employees to work from whatever environment is most productive for them. Work from home, work from the office, work from the beach, we don’t care; just get the work done.

Why did we quickly abandon the idea of a hybrid schedule?        

We have trust in our employees. Everyone was making it work virtually and mandating and monitoring someone’s work environment just felt unnecessary. Having the ultimate flexibility in location and setting your own work hours truly provides employees a sense of balance and promotes overall happiness. Anyone found taking advantage of the option simply isn’t a good fit for our culture and has left. There is no reason to punish the entire employee base because of 1 or 2 bad apples.   

As 2021 became 2022 we began hosting more regular in-person meetings and workshops to facilitate collaboration across teams. We added back happy hours and lunches to promote days when people were encouraged to work from the office and see each other in person. Nothing is ever mandatory as we now have many corporate employees who have moved out of the area or were hired from different states. We promote in person events when appropriate as many people enjoy coming in occasionally, to catch up with their colleagues.

Being Intentional with Culture

The hardest part about a remote first culture is the amount of intentionality you need to have to build relationships. I’m not going to casually run into the new guy in the kitchen, I need to send a Slack message or set up a calendar invite to talk. I need to make space at the beginning of the meeting to catch up with my colleagues because those 10 minutes are better spent chatting than getting right into the content. Small actions can make a big impact, but you need to make the effort and that’s where most people fail.

Last fall, our CEO Naveen and I were chatting on Slack about several travel requests teams had submitted and how it would be great if everyone could visit the week of holiday party so we could save on expenses. Beyond cost savings, wouldn’t it be cool if we could get a majority of local and non-local staff into the office for a few days to put faces with names and just get to know each other off Teams?

RIVA IRL (in real life) as born.

Why IRL? I grew up in the 90s when Carson Dailey from MTV TRL blasted on the TV after school as I waited to log onto AIM for the evening. My Dad ran his business from home, and I wasn’t allowed to go online until after 5pm to keep the phone line free for work calls. Calling the program RIVA IRL feels nostalgic. Walking into the RIVA office and seeing all my friends, some whom I only see in person a handful of times a year, evokes the same feeling for me. I love seeing them all and its always as if no time has passed. We are also quite literally, in real life, so the name stuck.

This past December we piloted RIVA IRL on a small scale to see if the concept had potential. We planned several holiday activities like White Elephant, a hot chocolate bar, a piñata (which didn’t go as planned), and a RIVAKarma activity to pack snack boxes for active-duty military members spending the holidays overseas. The week concluded with our Holiday Soiree at La Vie and of course fireworks. We had varying levels of success and attendance across the week but overall, not a bad first try. We learned a lot and we got busy planning the next one.

90s IRL and GovCon Prom

Last week we hosted the first full scale RIVA IRL, culminating with our 8(a)-graduation party GovCon Prom. I’m still tired. Events take way more effort and planning than anyone realizes, except for those of you who also manage events. IYKYK. Looking back on what my team was able to pull off without any major issues, I’m amazed. We flew in over a dozen employees from across the nation, we facilitated multiple workshops to bring together teams to strengthen processes and share feedback, we hosted an entire 90s inspired day full of games, killer outfits, and even took a break for yoga, all within 24 of hosting GovCon Prom (more on that in a future blog…).

We do this because we want all RIVA employees to have a positive experience and we know the extra mile goes a long way. The number of times I heard people say, “wow it’s great to meet you in real life” followed by a hug makes months of work worth it. We all returned home on Friday with new friends, great memories, possibly a hangover, and a renewed sense of purpose, why we do what we do and why we do it at RIVA.

How do you promote culture in a remote-first environment?

Find ways to be intentional with relationship building. We’ve made a commitment to hosting IRL weeks quarterly. Each IRL we hope more and more employees choose to participate and we can strengthen bonds and forge new connections. Until then we’re all back home working from the couch, on an airplane, or wherever productivity strikes and I’m already dreaming up ways we can top ourselves for next time.

Is your company remote or hybrid? How are you all making opportunities for relationship building and intentional culture? Drop a comment below.