‘Staff need a place they trust': how to instil a workplace culture in a fast-changing world

The Guardian

a day ago

A workplace culture isn't just about an organisation's stated values – it's also about the processes that make those values tangible. In other words, how stuff gets done. Before today's era of hybrid and flexible working, employees tended to absorb their workplace culture almost by osmosis. 'You'd be living and breathing it five days a week,' says Nish Chowdhury of the marketing agency Oliver.
As the agency's global director of people systems and operations, Chowdhury has had to grapple with the dramatic upheaval in working practices of recent years. While the shift started with the global work-from-home experiment that many companies underwent during the Covid pandemic, it has continued apace. 'Covid really put a spanner in the works in terms of how we see company culture,' says Chowdhury.
A workplace culture is now harder to absorb, especially for new hires. And it isn't just about people's physical presence: the pace of business and technological change has also accelerated. The constant upheaval makes it that much harder to instil a corporate culture. Employees might find themselves suffering from 'change fatigue' or feel overwhelmed by technology and the numerous apps, platforms and information sources they now have to work with. For some businesses, the questions of culture and change management have grown increasingly intertwined. On top of this, the geopolitical environment is a lot less stable than it used to be, which has fed through into the economy.
In such a fluid business environment, company culture is more important than ever. It binds employees together, ensures shared values and goals, and keeps everyone engaged and motivated.
So how do you instil a workplace culture in today's fast-changing world – and make it easier for a distributed workforce to acquire?
In broad terms, managers now need to make their workplace culture more obvious and intentional. For instance, they can try to articulate the culture more explicitly. This doesn't necessarily have to entail formally codifying every aspect of your workplace culture – there are human ways to do it, such as demonstrating the culture and building processes around it, or publicly recognising employees and actions that best embody it.
Managers can also try to express their workplace culture more frequently, and make it more ubiquitous. Technology can help here. Chowdhury highlights how her agency adopted a new HR system that can be configured to reinforce the company's culture. 'We have customised our [HR portal] homepage so employees are exposed to our culture wherever they're logging on from,' she says. 'It might be adding our values or mantras, having hosted videos or branded experiences.' The idea, she explains, is that no matter where you are, you feel connected to the company. 'People are on their phones a lot and so you give them mobile access to the business.'
The system used by her agency is Sage People, an HR solution. Steve Watmore, HR and payroll product manager at software company Sage, says these features and personalised experiences can be particularly crucial when companies are onboarding new starters, as it isn't always possible to physically get new hires in for face-to-face time. 'The question becomes: 'How do you create that culture of welcoming people in and starting the kind of conversations that bring teams together?'' he says.
However, it's not just about having the right technology: you also need to make it easy to use. One way of doing this is by providing staff with a one-stop shop – a single point of contact – instead of having numerous apps and platforms that result in a very fragmented experience. Lampros Sekliziotis, a product leader at Sage, says having a single self-service portal for employees is key. 'Everything feels easy and smooth. You log on to your phone and you're immersed in the company.'
Technology solutions such as Sage People can also help companies improve their workplace culture by breaking down barriers to connecting – for instance, making it easier to synchronise meetings and schedule in-office days. Sekliziotis says that for remote workers you can also emulate some of the feel of a physical workspace. 'You have interactions that would normally happen in the office – so you make them happen in the flow of work.'
All this helps to make people feel more part of the business – and it helps the business run as a more cohesive whole. Moreover, the portals can be personalised and tailored to the needs of individual teams, geographies and so on.
There are many other benefits. In a world where fake news is rife and can damage company culture and morale, having a single reliable portal that staff can go to for facts is increasingly important. 'You want staff to have a place they trust that they can go to if they need information,' says Chowdhury.
However, workplace culture isn't just something that comes from the top down. It's always been a two-way process that is also shaped by employees. This has become increasingly true with social media and digital communication. Traditionally, employees had a chance to give their own views and feedback with annual satisfaction surveys. But once a year is far from ideal in today's world. Tools such as employee pulse surveys – short, quick surveys that are sent to employees on a regular basis – are becoming increasingly important as they allow HR managers to spot changes and issues quickly and take action to maintain employee engagement and satisfaction. Sage People therefore incorporates pulse surveys and other similar features as a built-in function.
'It's about getting real-time feedback from the employees,' says Watmore. He notes that the employee induction process is an example of how useful this can be. 'Maybe at the end of onboarding you can send a survey to the new hires to ask them how the process went. Did you find something that they didn't like?' The next round of new hires can benefit from this feedback.
Going forward, more sophisticated data analytics and, increasingly, AI mean that companies will be able to use platforms to generate ever-more useful cultural insights from the information they hold. Thus, the future of company culture is a sophisticated, ongoing tech-enabled conversation that delivers a better workplace for everyone.
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