Growing a business can present a number of challenges. Among the more fundamental of these is how to maintain a unified company culture when your business is spread across many offices in several different territories. A lack of shared experiences, physical distance, and a sense of separation from the whole can all contribute to a feeling of isolation, demotivation, and even discord in your employees. Moreover, it is nigh on impossible to build a strong brand without a properly integrated workforce where every cog in the wheel is recognized as a vital contributor to successful business performance.
In an age where remote workers are making up an ever more significant chunk of your workforce, maintaining company culture across a global workforce is a challenge that seems set to stay in the years to come. However, all hope is not lost – some of the world’s most successful business operations with the most recognizable brands operate seemingly effortlessly on an international scale. Browse these main methods for ensuring a cohesive company culture – taken in combination, they will help to preserve and advance your company ethos, no matter how thinly spread your team may be.
Three Ways to Maintain Company Culture Across a Global Workforce
1. Stay connected
Online meetings are the next best thing to in-person discussions. Not only are these a great way to track performance and employee wellbeing, but having regularly scheduled conversations help workers to see their progress and feel motivated to play their part for the company. This approach should be backed up by online Human Resource management systems that put remote employees in easy reach of support should they need it. Day-to-day, open communication via platforms like Microsoft Teams should be encouraged to ensure that employees working remotely are able to bond with their peers in addition to discussing the efficient work.
2. Running in-person events
While online meetings are essential in uniting your global workforce around an idea or task, the in-person alternative allows your staff to communicate more effectively and therefore opens up more discussion which helps to iron out flaws and avoid confusion with each part of the project. If your offices are scattered across one country, consider semi-regular physical meetings for major projects. If this is financially and logistically impossible or you have a global workforce, do not overlook big company events. Although a significant investment, they can be vital opportunities to bring staff together and eliminate that feeling of separateness that creeps into fractured workplaces.
3. Use brand ambassadors
Ideally, all of your employees should act as ambassadors for your brand. However, it can be hard to integrate brand values across all aspects of the business, and remote workers could quickly feel separate from your company’s core ethos. Having specialized professionals serve as a connecting thread for your entire workforce can be enormously helpful, or you could appoint someone within the company to be responsible for all branding matters, from educating new staff to ensuring that all documentation has the correct logo, typeface, and brand voice. Ideally, such people should be experienced, with tenure in your company, and enthusiastic enough to project positive energy to those around them.
A brand ambassador might drive up your staff retention rates and help to identify not just where the company’s values aren’t getting across, but where those values might need to be reconsidered.