Building great culture is a challenge for any company; doubly so if its workforce isn't all working under one roof. ClearGears is what's called a virtual team -- a group of individuals who work together with the help of technology, despite being in different time zones and being separated by vast distances. 

In our most innovative experiment in culture-building yet, ClearGears sent its New York-based programmer, Suyash Remineni, to work with our India-based CTO, Hemant Patel. Sending Suyash to India for 2 months was an opportunity to speed up his ClearGears acculturation process while simultaneously investing in the ability and cohesion of our team. Though sending an employee abroad may not sound like an exercise in culture building, that's just what it turned out to be.

The results were an astounding success. For Suyash, being able to work in the same room with Hemant was priceless. Suyash and Hemant developed a short hand for communicating with each other that allows them to work together much more efficiently today. The success that Hemant and Suyash enjoyed while working together only confirmed Suyash's belief that "communication is the most important aspect for any business to function and survive." 

Unorthodox as this trip was, it turns out that there really isn't any substitute for face-to-face interaction when trying to integrate a new employee into the cultural fabric of a team --virtual or not. If you can send employees to work side-by-side with their colleagues, you should.