Corporate culture is no longer just an HR buzzword. It is an idea that has gained momentum and become increasingly popular in recent years.
Millennials and Gen Z workers have been the driving force behind this shift, valuing purpose over paychecks, and becoming more concerned with the culture of the organisation they join.
During times of crisis, such as our experiences this year, it can be tough to maintain a strong sense of corporate culture. The vision for the company can become blurred due to sudden change. Communication can reduce due to higher workloads. The work environment can become dispersed due to remote working. And individual autonomy can be sacrificed for company-wide decisions.
Concerns over the fate of corporate culture are not misplaced, but there is a solution.
Virtual communities and online employee engagement programmes can help to maintain the corporate culture and boost organisational morale, wherever your team are based.
Why is a sense of community important in the workplace?
Ensuring productivity, collaboration and staff wellbeing
A sense of community within the workplace is proven to increase employee engagement. And, did you know that companies with increased employee engagement are out performing companies with low employee engagement by 202%? Since the beginning of the pandemic, many organisations have turned to online collaborative tools to ensure business as usual.
Beyond facilitating productivity and collaboration, communities are proving valuable for staff wellbeing as places to come together and chat and enjoy social workplace activities are being replicated online through virtual activities and social events like happy hours.
With virtual communities able to mirror elements of working together in an office, more organisations are likely to stick to this as a long-term solution and method of working together for the foreseeable future.
Overcoming home-office obstacles
Remote working has long been a hotly debated topic. Many organisations were concerned that it would signal the end of corporate culture, collaboration, and skills sharing.
Before Covid-19, the physical workplace was seen as essential to productivity, collaboration, culture, and attracting talent. However, smart organisations have understood that through implementing the right tools to create a strong community they can better adapt to this new way of working.
Enables sharing of knowledge and skills
A community is very helpful for support during difficult times, to push an intrapreneurship project, to network, to acquire new skills, or to train online.
Virtual communities have given employees the tools and resources to be able to effectively keep up communications within teams and the wider organisation, enabling the sharing of knowledge and skills. Even whilst working remotely.
Adds real value to the business
A sense of community can help to add real value to a business. It goes beyond online conversations and helps to forge deep relationships amongst employees, and increase engagement across the company.
Helps to attract and retain talent
Corporate culture that encourages a strong sense of community between co-workers can help to attract and retain talent for the organisation. Community within organisation can help to foster happiness amongst employees, businesses that can achieve this find they can attract top talent, and even better, keep them (think Google!).
Creates engagement and connection amongst employees
Work relationships are incredibly important to employee wellbeing. These relationships can either positively or negatively affect an employee’s stress levels, productivity and general feelings of happiness. Strong social connections make people happier and more engaged with the organisation as a whole, which translates into their workplace performance.
Embracing technology
There are many arguments for embracing technology with organisations.
Millennials and Gen Z employees are taking the working world by storm. These are tech-savvy employees who are used to using technology in their daily lives. So, they will expect a certain degree of technology in their working life too.
Technology has become ever more crucial for workforce performance this year. During a year of enforced physical distance, embracing technology has become key in keeping staff together.
Our communities have transitioned to virtual spaces to support our community members at this time, offering them a place to connect, even while they’re apart.
Creating positive, engaged communities online
Our team are experts in creating positive, engaged communities online. We create an entire community programme that is completely tailored to your community’s needs. We look at all aspects of the community including strategy, relationship building, events, clubs, activities, and digital services as well.
We promote community discussion and feedback through our social media channels, clubs, and community apps, allowing us to deliver exactly what our members want, and providing a way for them to foster meaningful relationships with other community members.
Our virtual communities have become active social hubs for our members, where they can take part in fitness classes, masterclasses, creative activities, clubs, or meet regularly to chat and catch up.
If you’re interested in creating a positive, engaged online community, speak to us today.
