Company culture is often defined by a company’s physical location, the amenities that are provided, and the work environment with an alignment of employee’s beliefs with the ethics of a company.
But as the world transitions to a remote work environment, how does workplace culture transfer over?
While there are many ways to define a digital workplace, at its core, a digital workplace is based on employee experience. It is the use of technology to support employees’ ability to complete their daily tasks at any time and from anywhere, and it considers the entire lifecycle of an employee, from onboarding to leaving the organization.
The digital workplace is all about employees’ ability to do their job by collaborating, communicating, and connecting with their team, across departments, and with leadership. Building digital workplace culture revolves around having a distinct work culture in the first place. Research has shown a link between happy employees and a strong work culture.
How can employee engagement help with workplace culture?
Improving employee engagement and company culture has the power to impact everything in your business: growth, innovation, employee turnover, customer success, profits, and the list goes on!
As many organizations deal with this new-found shift to a permanent remote work culture, it’s more important now than ever to focus on employee engagement to help connect distributed employees. Time and time again it’s shown that engaged employees have strong internal company networks. As companies try to connect their distributed workforce not only across locations but also departments, it motivates employees to do their best by being tapped into organizational goals, community and strategic priorities.
How a digital workplace can transform company culture:
Facilitate collaboration
Collaboration is essential for any organization’s success and productivity. It’s important to invest in technology that allows employees to collaborate and work more closely together across locations and departments. Improving teamwork and collaboration in the digital workplace means looking for new solutions to your company’s problems.
Social aspect
It’s easy to feel isolated and alone while working from home. Now more than ever, it’s important to encourage social conversations and build personal connections with fellow coworkers. Facilitate social interactions with virtual happy hours, virtual water cooler, team-bonding activities, and digital coffee breaks to engage remote employees.
Mobile offering
No matter where employees are, they should have access to the intranet whether that’s through desktop or mobile. By having access to their digital workplace while on the go, it allows employees to catch up on company news, updates, or activities at any time.
Reward and recognition
Employee appreciation is an important human necessity at the workplace. Recognition helps employees know that their work and efforts are acknowledged and appreciated. As companies grow in size, leadership must think about the added value to the employee experience and especially to the recognition program.
Games and challenges
Oftentimes, we can get caught up in our daily work activities and miss the thrill of competition and teamwork. Using game design in a virtual setting is a fun way to engage employees to support one another and actively come together to work across teams.
Empower employees
A great company culture is rooted in two-way engagement between leadership and employees. Employee voices are often not only insightful but also motivational and critical. By empowering them to be a part of an organization’s conversation, the work employees produce is stronger and aligned to company goals.
Designing an effective digital workplace maximizes productivity and enhances innovation
The intranet should be used to share trusted and curated information that helps remote employees focus and align with priorities and cultural norms. In addition to feeling connected and aligned with the organization, remote employees need to also feel like they’re part of the family. The intranet can be a fun and innovative way to engage and communicate with your employees remotely.
