Preserving comPany’s culture among global workforce for thriving comPany’s original mission

Corporate leaders world over are battling with a pressing new challenge that of global workforce engagement and the need to elevate it while keeping the company culture intact. Most global organizations face issues with a real lack of suitably-qualified professionals. Hence, the need to engage with and retain existing staff and attract new joiners is paramount.

During normal days, employee engagement is challenging enough when local and face-to-face contact is part of the familiar routine. The introduction of the complexities of the task for employees across disparate locations, many of whom are currently working from home, and organizations everywhere are having to find new ways of nurturing the employer/employee relationship.

Why Preserving Corporate Culture is so important

Building and nurturing a culture in the organization is unlike any other business endeavor; it involves creating an intangible set of subtle rules and ideas that are often difficult to manage. Corporate leaders should constantly be working towards a singular company culture where employees feel aligned with the company mission. However, as your company grows and you get down to managing remote employees, certain challenges will arise.

You do not want a situation where global employees feel unaligned with the company’s mission, and to lose sight of company goals. Companies should devise tactical decisions that can make your company’s employees feel more aligned with a company vision. Ultimately, strong company culture will keep turnover rates low, productivity high, and employees happy, whether they’re in the company headquarters or half the world away. Despite the difficulties of maintaining or adapting employee engagement activities at the moment, the fundamentals remain the same: good company culture with engaged employees leads to a happier workplace. This is because, deep down, most people have the same basic needs, and maintaining some key practices can overcome cultural, geographic, or separation barriers. It helps keep employee experience moving in the right direction in these extremely difficult times. The organizational success lies in the potential of business leaders to overcome the cultural differences within the organization. This helps in building a productive and united workforce spreading across the globe.

Key Practices to Maintain Corporate Culture alive across the global workforce

1. Efficient and Effective

On-boarding

Hiring and onboarding employees across the globe can be an intimidating prospect because of the difficulties associated with onboarding employees who are based overseas. For some businesses, this has become a huge barrier, such that it can impede their growth because international expansion must prove its worth quickly, and new hires must engage and deliver fast. Hence, it is important to normalize onboarding processes worldwide to ensure everyone has the same strong start. The onboarding process must be done keeping local practices in mind because an onboarding practice that is helpful in one culture might be unhealthy in another.

2. Maintain consistency with company values

The employer should always communicate the company values with consistency. This helps employees to effectively engage with company values and thrive in a global environment. For instance, how people treat each other with respect, dignity and kindness are fundamental values for many modern businesses. It is important to take every moment to show the employees that these values matter and reward them for demonstrating them in their everyday work.

3. Regular Communication is pivotal

To make sure employee engagement has made an impact on employees across an entire organization, apply the ‘rule of seven’ to communication. This concept of marketing is quite popular which argues that a prospect needs to see or hear a message at least seven times before taking any action and count on the idea that communication is more productive when repeated.

Organizations can share and repeat company news internally via emails, all-hands meetings, and via a company’s internal website. It is possible to strike a near-perfect balance between the health and wellbeing information we all need to be clear about for now, and the team building messages that are such an important part of a healthy, long-term culture.

4. Encourage Video ‘on’ Mode

People working in various sectors have recently experienced a huge recent increase in the use of video meeting services. Various video-enabled meeting applications have witnessed a massive surge in demand as people try to maintain some level of face-to-face contact until they can return to the office.

Video meetings have been important when communicating with someone who doesn’t share the same first language – bridging these divides is so much easier when you can see the other person. But, one of the positive things which have come out of this situation is that a lot of global organizations will be currently gaining much-needed experience in using video communications technology. Video meetings will continue to help global teams to connect regularly and more effectively regardless of the location even after the COVID crises subsides.

5. Honor and celebrate success at every opportunity

Celebrating the success of employees is another way by which international businesses of all sizes can build and maintain company culture – it’s a great way of helping people to feel more connected, listened to, and engaged. Tools such as an internal website for the employees with a regularly updated news feed helps celebrate each other’s successes. Content can include weekly shout outs from/to employees, life events (from weddings and birthdays to pet meet-and-greets and great vacations), holidays, and traditions. Do not forget that being global must not become a barrier to employee engagement and spreading the organization culture – the two can go hand-in-hand. With the correct approach, a high-growth, highly profitable global team can have highly satisfied clients and highly engaged and satisfied employees, retaining their valuable skills within the company.