Culture eats strategy for breakfast
- Peter Drucker, senior consultant
In other words, your corporate strategy is only as valuable as your company culture is strong. Those who think they can design an effective corporate and company strategy without involving employees in company life at all, are mistaken.
In this case, employees are neither committed nor motivated, as culture doesn’t just depend on leadership, it also depends on their people. The road to shared achievements takes teamwork, where continuous feedback and inclusion are the foundation for effective company structure.
We spend over 75,000 hours of our life at work. That means that often we see our colleagues more than our friends. That’s exactly why a good team, family atmosphere, and a supportive environment is a top priority. Our engagement surveys and internal employer branding project results clearly demonstrate, that according to 39% of employees, a good team and a supportive community offset negative company characteristics (like lower salary, or poor leadership). White collar employees with over 5 years of work experience, that is 78% of desk workers, are the most committed to a workplace when the team is good.
As we can see, workplace communities have massive retainment power. Not only do they help existing colleagues in strengthening their company identity, they also help new hires in orienting themselves as well. In addition to this, they provide motivation for strong informal workplace relationships. Motivated employees are more likely and more proactive in achieving company goals.
In addition to advantages within the institution, strong communities can improve the company’s reputation in the job market — companies that place a strong emphasis on their people and teams quickly become well-known.
Though management and HR often tries to control everything from the top, it’s worthwhile to loosen the reins when it comes to community building, and to provide space for self-managing groups.
To achieve this, it’s important to build a company culture, where anyone can freely express their ideas and opinions, and also maintain and communicate excitement around company life. This requires an openness from the company, and the right amount of time and material sources. For that, employers need to actively communicate and maintain the connection, for which a dedicated platform is useful.
Below, we list a few tried and tested ideas and strategies, which employers can effectively engineer into their communities. It’s important to note that every institution is different, so these ideas shouldn’t be viewed as a recipe to follow step by step, but rather as inspiration on the road to community building.
Storytelling supports us in getting to know our colleagues better, so that they can connect to each other better, and synergies and similarities can come to the surface.
Don’t just create a direct channel between colleagues, but also create one between leadership and employees. A good example for this is a CEO forum or vlog.
Strengthening a culture of recognition and positive feedback within the company. Recognition isn’t just positive for the person who receives it, but also for everyone that is part of it.
Employees can share courses, books, articles, educational materials and professional events with each other that contribute to their professional development.
Employees can notify each other about various national or social promotions, and they can also organize programs that build up the community, and support society and the environment.
Teammates who enjoy the same outdoor activities can share their experiences, suggest programs for each other, or organize challenges and races together.
Connect those whose life revolves around sports in a community. These groups don’t just support community building, but are equally important for promoting health.
With Blue Colibri App’s latest function, community building is easier than ever. We can create any amount of groups based on interest, hobbies, and professional direction, where employees can freely share content - be it text posts, videos or photos. Teammates can react to each other’s posts, invite others into relevant groups, or organize and create groups themselves.
