Running a successful business is so much more than balance sheets and profit margins, especially in the digital age. At the heart of any successful brand is its people, and behind them, a company’s culture. While it’s a somewhat vague term, the “culture” of your company really refers to the way employees engage with each other, with clients, as well as the tone of those interactions.
But how do you define (and maintain) this company culture? A digital workplace can be an excellent start – and here are five reasons why.
1. Your digital workplace will be the “source of truth” for your brand’s tone of voice
Naturally, the goal of any business is to grow, but scaling up comes with its fair share of challenges – not least of which is a lack of tonal consistency in communications. For example, if you have multiple locations across the world, an email coming from a junior team member in New York may have an entirely different tone to one composed by an executive in London. Ideally, your brand should have a consistent tone of voice, and one way to reinforce this is with a digital workplace. The materials you share, as well as the tone of the interactions, will, by osmosis, become part of the fabric of your brand’s voice over time.
Centralise your company’s brand voice on your digital workplace to keep it consistent
2. Digital workplaces are the ideal launchpad for new employees
There’s no doubt that ramping up new employees can be a challenge, especially if they’re new to your company’s culture. To avoid any new employees feeling like they just “don’t fit in”, it’s important that they feel supported by plenty of reading materials, video content, and anything else which conveys the brand experience. Beyond this, it’s also essential to make them feel part of the team and part of the culture. With a digital workplace, you can do exactly this, providing a place for open discussion with colleagues they may not have met yet, while also providing those key materials to make them feel integrated more quickly. Every company’s culture is different, so giving new starters a primer via a digital workplace can be a great way to make them feel at home faster.
A digital workplace can help new hires feel at home on their first day
3. You can showcase employee achievement and drive job satisfaction
While fierce competition isn’t necessarily something you want to nurture as part of your company culture, you still want to be sure that you recognise those who go above and beyond. With a growing company, having a way to communicate these achievements on a large scale is important, and that’s exactly what a digital workplace can do. Even better, by opening up the chance for friendly competition between departments, or simply showcasing random employees, you’ll give your team something to strive for (and something to brag about). Beyond that, employee recognition is an effective way to boost job satisfaction to those who are making progress within the company, ensuring that their achievements are recognised by everyone.
Use your digital workplace to recognise and reward employees’ achievements
4. Everyone stays in the loop on the latest cultural shifts
Just like people, companies change over time, including the ways in which they conduct and present themselves. These cultural shifts are easy to communicate and execute with very small businesses, but the larger the scale, the more difficult it is to ensure everyone’s up to date. A digital workplace solves this problem by providing a forum from which to explain both what the changes are, and why you’re making them. There are plenty of reasons for a cultural shift – perhaps the result of a rebrand, for example – but a digital workplace gives you the medium with which to amplify the message to the whole company.
5. A digital workspace nurtures inter-team communication
One of the growing pains many companies face is that their teams can become somewhat isolated and inward-facing as the business gets larger. This often leads to teams within a business not communicating very well (or at all), which in turn leads to a mismatch in priorities, a lack of knowledge of what others are doing, and overall diminished productivity. That spells trouble for the entire company, and it speaks to a lack of centralised communication and a lack of a truly defined company culture. The solution is to provide a place where teams can communicate openly – like a digital workplace – to share regular updates about what they’re working on. In this way, everyone will be on the same page, will understand how their contribution fits in, and make sure everyone is focused on the same goals.
