In just two short years, Artisan Studios has grown from a team of four employees to 43; all working remote across different parts of the United States.

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When asked, “what’s the secret to sustaining such growth?” Artisan Studio’s CEO, Tim Mitrovich, reflects on a recent annual employee retreat, sharing that an investment in people and culture is rarely wasted.

In this Forbes article, Mitrovich share why investing in culture is key to sustain Artisan’s rapid growth moving forward. “Building culture and maintaining morale can be difficult even when people physically work together in an office. Trying to do that with a 100%remote workforce presents unique challenges.”
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But, what matters most is how Artisan works to overcome these challenges. Investing in our people and culture makes all the difference.

After end-of-year employee interviews unveiled the unsurprising response that people felt isolated from their colleagues, Mitrovich and his team knew it was time to get people back together. Cue the annual employee retreat.

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Concluding a long weekend spent together in Austin, Texas, on Artisan’s dime, “all awkwardness melted away and people began to genuinely have fun with one another. It felt like a big group of friends enjoying each other’s company.”

Now that we've returned to daily operations, the question is, how do you keep that momentum?

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• Fight isolation with intentionality.
  We’ve seen success from sending out employee surveys and encouraging regular one-on-one check-ins with direct reports, and spinning up an employee-led team focused on creative, remote culture-building initiatives.‍

• Create consistency by over communicating.
  Align around a shared mission so employees have a clear understanding of where we’re going and, more importantly, why we are going there in the first place.From regular all-hands meetings to #slack messages or the videos we post on our company intranet, they all need to communicate a consistent, unified message and reinforce the great culture we are building.‍

• Invest in the human experience.
  Don’t underestimate how significant in-person time can be for relationship growth. Teams will experience better communication and fundamentally have more fun together, simply because they know one another better.

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When it comes to investing in people and culture, the old consulting adage “time is money” isn’t entirely true. The four days spent on the annual retreat were worth every penny and minute, because it all went to caring for the people who make Artisan possible – the individuals who impact our clients every day.

To read the full article, visit Forbes.com. Interested in joining our team and joining the next Artisan Connect event? Reach out to us or learn more on our careers page.