10 Best Practices to Build Company Culture with Technology
In today's digital workplace, more than 80% of the global workforce are employees in frontline or deskless roles. This shift has underscored the critical importance of cultivating a consistent company culture that transcends physical boundaries.
In this article, we will explore 10 best practices for leveraging technology to cultivate a consistent company culture.
How to create a consistent company culture
Download our free guide to understand how an intranet can create a sense of company culture and help your employees connect.
1. Deliver Hyper-Personalized, Timely Communications
Hyper-personalized messages are pivotal in enhancing employees' sense of belonging and engagement. Utilize advanced data analytics tools to track and analyze employee behavior and preferences, delivering communications at the most effective time and in the preferred format.
But how do you make hyper-personalized content without overloading your to-do list? One way to maximize your time and also help your employees feel truly seen is to utilize the campaigns feature in the LumApps intranet.
This innovative feature allows you to tailor content based on employee roles, locations, and behaviors, ensuring that communications are not only received but are impactful. Plus, you can schedule campaigns in advance, making it easier to plan timely content delivery around key company milestones, seasonal events, or important announcements. With LumApps Campaigns, you can create a dynamic content strategy that adapts to the evolving needs of your workforce, fostering a culture of inclusivity and engagement.
2. Recognize Contributions and Wins Made by Each and Every Employee
Startlingly, only 1-in-5 business leaders prioritize recognition as a strategic imperative, and a mere 24% of employees feel valued for their efforts. (Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace)
Acknowledging and recognizing individual contributions is a low-cost, high-impact method of enhancing company culture. Implement peer-to-peer recognition campaigns, dedicated employee achievement channels, and progress tracking for program improvement.
3. Provide Consistent and Constructive Feedback
A supportive culture promotes open dialogue and regular feedback. Implement a system that allows for regular feedback collection using digital channels, such as live chat sessions and anonymous surveys.
Surveys have revealed that approximately 65% of employees desire more feedback from their managers, peers, and leadership, yet only 28% of them receive it, highlighting a substantial gap between aspiration and reality in the workplace feedback landscape.
How to create a consistent company culture
Download our free guide to understand how an intranet can create a sense of company culture and help your employees connect.
4. Build Trust Through Transparency
Building trust through transparency is identified as a hallmark of inclusive, supportive companies. Leaders who openly share information about the company's direction, goals, and challenges foster a profound sense of belonging and direction among employees.
One idea to try - create a leadership corner in your intranet where executives can directly communicate with the rest of the company, fostering trust and a sense of belonging among employees.
5. Break Down Silos and Bring Teams Together
Breaking down silos and bringing teams together is pivotal for collaboration and trust, especially within large enterprises. Creating spaces where employees can connect around common interests fosters teamwork, inclusivity, and empowerment, significantly shaping the fabric of company culture.
Try this - create "Communities of Practice and Interest" within your intranet to encourage connections and friendships beyond work-related tasks. By creating spaces where employees can connect around interests, instead of just work, employees will be encouraged to create friendships that will translate to working relationships and contribute to breaking down silos that exist across teams.
6. Eliminate Confusion with Clear, Concise Video Messaging
It's no secret that the world is obsessed with videos on social media. Take a lesson from this viral trend – video can be a tool to significantly eliminate confusion and ensure that messages are conveyed accurately. The power of video lies in its ability to convey tone, body language, and context—elements that are often lost in written communications. This ensures that employees not only receive but also comprehend the intended message, reducing the risk of misunderstandings that can hamper productivity and morale.
For example, when leaders use video to announce organizational changes or updates, employees can gauge the importance and the urgency of the message through visual and vocal cues. This level of clarity is unmatched by traditional emails or memos. Plus, video content can be easily archived on your intranet so employees who missed the initial announcement can still stay informed and aligned with the company's goals and directives.
7. Break Cultural and Language Barriers
It's critical that all employees feel included, no matter their language. This is especially true for global companies that operate across time zones and employees are forced to collaborate asynchronously. Breaking language barriers, promoting open communication, inclusivity, and understanding, allows employees from diverse backgrounds to feel valued and heard and reduces feelings of disconnection.
Here's an example of how one company made it happen. By utilizing LumApps’ multilingual internal portal site, Japan Airlines succeeded in achieving seamless communication with their 36,000 employees around the world. Thanks to the multilingual features and support of the platform, Japanese and English-speaking contributors can now easily add translations and enrich their content.
A company culture that encompasses these values, and the technology to make it happen, provides further opportunities for cross-cultural learning and appreciation, thus dissolving cultural divides.
8. Connect Deskless Workers
Ensure that deskless workers can seamlessly access important company communications wherever they go by offering a cutting-edge mobile-friendly intranet platform. This initiative not only enhances connectivity but also nurtures a strong sense of belonging and inclusion among all employees, regardless of their work environment.
9. Create a Central Hub to Serve as Your "Digital Home"
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably transformed the landscape of work culture, arguable permanently. According to a survey by Gartner, 82% of company leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely some of the time, indicating a permanent shift in operational models. This data underscores the critical importance of adapting company culture in the post-COVID-19 era.
Many companies are turning to an intranet to replace the "water cooler" chat that used to happen in the office. Instead, they are using an intranet to create a centralized digital hub as the new virtual office to foster a sense of community and belonging.
10. Quickly Integrate New Teams, Departments, and Subsidiaries
Maintain a unified culture during mergers and acquisitions by focusing on cultural fit and developing a robust M&A communications plan to integrate new personnel.
For example, Just Eat Takeaway.com, formed from the merger of Takeaway.com and Just Eat, connects millions of customers with 250,000+ restaurants across 23 markets. Their intranet, The Kitchen, facilitated post-merger integration. The platform enhanced employee engagement, emphasizing communication, belonging, and advocacy. Post-acquisition, 83% of employees were active users, with 75% feeling connected to the company. Read their story to see how an intranet facilitated culture during the challenging M&A time.
By implementing these best practices, organizations can leverage technology to deliver hyper-personalized communications that can help facilitate a consistent company culture. Embracing technology-driven approaches will foster a strong and consistent company culture that empowers employees and drives positive outcomes.
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