How to Create Community in a Remote and Distributed Workforce

A craft circle may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about how to bring a dispersed workforce scattered across the globe together. But it might just be the answer you're seeking for the complex management challenges facing today's organizations.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Molly Anglin, community manager at Valtech, and the firm's former chief strategy officer, Freek Bijl, about how and why they focused on communities of practice — what they call "craft circles" — to bring people together at the global consulting firm. After a period of rapid acquisition-fueled growth followed by a pandemic-forced move to remote work, craft circles became the way they wove a community out of separate global fabrics.

"It was really important for us to have some kind of flexible system where it prioritized continuous learning support, finding people, sense making, and knowledge management without a really heavy handed kind of top-down approach," Molly said.

Highlights of the conversation include:

How Valtech created a community-based approach to management and knowledge sharing.

Why historical approaches to knowledge management and intranet design are too static for the way work is done now.

How leaders can support community development and sustainment. How to get employee buy-in when starting up a community of practice.

Why a community-based approach to work is right for this moment

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Molly and Freek about whether web3 is overrated or not and bartending as the way to understand human psychology. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].