Company culture refers to the traits and behaviours of a company and its workforce. You’ll see the company’s culture in how the employees interact with each other, what values they hold, and how they decide for themselves and the organisation.
It encompasses different elements, such as the work environment, company mission, and vision, ethics, goals, and expectations.
The culture in a company is essential for its employees as it could play a massive role in their job satisfaction. If you work in a comfortable culture, you’ll most likely develop better relationships with your coworkers and become more productive.
The Need for Transparency And Collaboration
Collaborative work is common in a company. To accomplish some tasks, you need to work with someone. However, in today’s world, people can work from anywhere. You and your coworker could do your jobs simultaneously, even though you are in physically different places.
Getting the data you need can be a challenge, but you’d be able to get hold of the things you need through digital culture, making your job more efficient.
Transparency is also the key to accomplishing goals within the company. Employees must identify which tasks are not yet finished when they work together. If transparency exists, employees don’t need another person to access the data they need.
If you need the data from your coworker, you can easily access it as there is transparency. The collaboration will allow you to finish the tasks faster as you have the tools for the job.
What is a Digital-First Culture?
A digital-first culture shows how companies integrate technology for better collaborative work and enhanced end-to-end workflow. It doesn’t only focus on utilising technology but essentially creates a stronger organisation as it puts technology and company culture together, strengthening the business.
One of its advantages is the efficiency it brings to the whole organisation. Since the work will be faster and better, customers and clients can enjoy doing business with your company with ease and convenience.
Digital Workplace Culture
From my experience in the corporate world, digital culture is essential. We need it to become a part of our daily tasks to make everything more accurate and efficient.
Adoping a digital culture allows team members to communicate more efficiently. They can connect anywhere and anytime. Messaging tools are a critical part of daily tasks, especially when communicating with other teams outside our area of work.
Having a digital work culture helps to break hierarchy, which is a key element to speeding up workflow. Employees who are able to exercise autonomy are then empowered to make quicker decisions.
Another benefit is that a digital culture encourages companies to create the space that motivates employees. This will enhance their learning allowing them the opportunity to try new ways of working, and therefore increase productivity.
Aside from communication, data management is a core part of the business. It’s a tedious process where as we know that doing it manually can take us forever to complete. Thanks to the various software solutions available today that can organise and analyse the data and help us in making critical business decisions within a fraction of the time.
Ways to Build a Digital Culture
Building a digital culture in the company can help the business grow. The process of building a culture is similar to building a brand. In order to achieve success, you can utilise both push-and-pull marketing strategies. Here are effective ways to create one:
Work Out A Communication
In any business, communication is an integral part. Whether the employees work locally from the same office or are a dispersed team regionally, nationally or globally , there must be communication within the organisation. There are many messaging tools, but the key is deciding which tool(s) are best suited and aligned with the needs of the team and the business as a whole.
Promote The Idea Of Change
Change is inevitable, especially when using technology. However, some employees may not be open to trying something different. If they are used to a way of working, they’re unlikely to give it up. It’s best to let them know that new things can help them with their job, and how.
For instance, although you know that a new feature in your company’s software can help speed up the job, your employees may not be eager to switch gears simply because they are unfamiliar with it. So instead of forcing it on them straightaway, train them gradually and let them experience how easy it is to use and how important it is for better work efficiency.
Integrate Technologies
Whenever there’s an opportunity to introduce a new technology to improve business workflows, try to incorporate it. It is the perfect way for them to practice using new software and tools. Once they become familiar with it, you’d be in a much better position to introduce other newer pieces of technology.
For instance, if your accounting department still uses spreadsheets, you can introduce software that allows the entire team or key people to view the input data. This saves paper and time on email. With just a few clicks, anyone can view the data they need.
Avoid The Tech Trap
Tech trap is the term used when buying technology you don’t need. Promoting a digital culture in the company doesn’t mean you need to buy all the latest gadgets or adopt all the lastest tools being promoted related to your industry. It will always depend on the specific tasks and needs of your business.
For example, if you have a video editing team, you need super computers to run high-quality videos. This doesn’t mean that the accounting department needs to have the same tech. Their tasks are probably lighter, so the specs shouldn’t be too high.
Get Buy-In From Senior Leaders
When building a digital culture, you need the cooperation of everyone, especially the senior leaders, as they are the key to promoting it to the rest of the employees. When the employees don’t see their leaders adapting to the change, you can expect less from the employees.
Start promoting the culture to the senior leaders. You can introduce using the software to them, especially when managing their team and tasks. They would most likely follow when employees see their managers using technology for their jobs.
Celebrate Each Other
Celebrating is one way to keep the employees’ spirits alive. For every success they achieve, you can celebrate with them. This is the same when they have mastered using the new tool you introduced.
When you celebrate each other, you build motivation, and simultaneously, build teamwork within the organisation.
The celebration doesn’t need to be costly. A simple appreciation for their hard work is enough. Your employees would see that their efforts are being noticed, acknowledged, and appreciated by everyone, which then would make them happy and most likely use the tech to its full potential, and learn about new ways of working.
Stay Proactive
Being proactive is critical in building a digital culture in the company. Everyone should be able to contribute to the usage of technology. If there are employees who are still left behind, bring them on-side quickly. Get the whole team to master the essential functions of the tools your company has implemented.
When everyone is aligned, it’ll be easy to build the culture, even if it regularly changes with changing business or market requirements. Always be open to new technologies and softwares that can bring more efficiency. Your employees may know some, so consider their suggestions too.
To Sum Up
Building a digital culture in your company might not be easy as the whole organisation needs to do its part. The team leaders need to set an example of using the technology as the rest of the employees master the tools required. Of course, business owners must do their part by promoting the culture but avoid using unnecessary tech.
Once you build a digital culture in your organisation, your teams will become more productive and efficient in their jobs.
Author: Owen Carter – Senior Account Manager at Plat
Photo credit: Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash
