2020 and 2021 have been hard, extremely hard.
It has been some of the toughest mental challenges we have had to face as a globalised population.
We have seen many teams just survive, we have seen a few do well and a tiny percentage thrive the last 15 months.
In recent weeks we have seen huge investment into the software side of company culture.
This is great news.
Human First Hybrid Company Culture vs Software First Culture
(Company) Culture as a service or CaaS for short is an area so many businesses are going to have to look at in the hybrid world of work.
Company Culture (aka organisational health) has often been seen as an important and unique aspect (a USP to some) to many businesses success and if you ask a mid manager to senior exec they will make a comment of how important company culture is and why it is central to their company goals.
This has not always been true and often a crafted narrative companies use to attract staff or manage internal expectations.
A Reminder: Perks Are Not Culture
This is the same way perks were confused as company culture from tech firms and have failed to keep colleagues happy once these were removed or rightly seen through.
As we are on a mission to fix the broken world of work, Company culture is one of our core pillars, Focus have called out the importance of company culture and drive for organisations to add as much weight to company culture to the one company-wide overarching strategy.
As we are planning the post pandemic return to the office it vital we understand the right steps to take forward.
In the hybrid office world, we have seen the culture shift, we have seen virtual first communications and virtual first connections disconnect many teams and even the closest of colleagues.
Deliberate & Hybrid
In the hybrid office future, where the office will turn into a performance centre and be seen as an arena, it is clear that we have to be even more deliberate, we have to be deliberate in reconnecting teams, we have to be deliberate in connecting teams to their departments and co-build the right hybrid environment for cross-functional collaboration for your company to succeed from the short term to the long term.
Sharing Moments
The sharing of moments, the unplanned collaboration, the unplanned problem solving and getting around the whiteboard has been missed by many however in this new world of work we have to make these occurrences as seamless as they would in person and as hybrid as possible.
Company Culture As A Service
Company culture requires two things,
1/ willingness to want to address the issues and
2/ taking internal and external ownership of a company culture issue or truly co-building a company culture that you are proud of.
Software Second
The right software can help however it is imperative to understand that the right human-first approach is taken and then the right tools and software are introduced to complement connection, understand a deeper level to surveys and engagement feedback, providing an opportunity to address any underlying issues or the foundation to improve company culture.
Listen To & Hear From Everyone
Leadership, HR and staff of all levels need to be heard, have open and transparent conversations and treated as equal partners. This is the way you build connective culture and not a series of subcultures,
“the we are always going to outperform many solo me’s”.
Software and tools are often the go to procured solution to company culture however the right internal and external agencies or culture consultants will guide you and your company forward in the right approach for your company and your current and future employees.
Culture Is More, It’s Deeper
On-demand Culture and (CaaS) culture as a service are going to see huge areas of growth, many businesses have already thought about the importance of culture but allowed it to peter out or implode in the work from home experiment.
It is essential that business place company culture and strategy on the same level and plan an intentional and deliberate plan of attack for improving and building company culture.
Tools will always be important, software is central to 95% of our days but our people, the beahviours we co-create, the chemistry and connections we build peer to peer and the environment we build and nurture helps to shape company culture and success.
Remember when making a choice between an internal team and an external company or software, you remember collaboration is key to success, hiring the right partner for the quick wins is important but company culture will take a long term partnership, a dedicated and flexible plan and most importantly everyone to be on the same page, it cannot be dictated to or from the 10 bad HiPPOs sitting around the conference room table.