Breathing life into remote corporate culture | Turtl
With work socials and table football off the cards, remote work has revealed what a company's culture really is. How can comms leaders engage employees?
Breathing life into remote corporate culture
How Temenos engages employees and nurtures a connected culture
Corporate culture <br> in 2021
The challenge of keeping employees connected in a time of crisis
The accelerated shift from office-based corporate culture to a virtual one means the employee experience now feels very different. This isn't a temporary change either; people have seen the benefits of not commuting five days a week and won't be in a hurry to return to that lifestyle. How do we build company cultures when we don't have people gathered together anymore?
This is a pivotal time for internal comms professionals. Content and communications have a big role to play in how businesses keep their people engaged and connected. We are being called upon to keep people informed and to keep them motivated. But crisis mode comms can only last for so long before people begin to tune out. It's not sustainable for the senders or receivers. We're at the stage now where we have to work out how and when to update staff, as well as precisely what to communicate and to who.
While the pandemic is a collective experience, it's impacting people in different ways. Internal comms teams must figure out how to communicate meaningfully with people in vastly different contexts: people with children, those without, people who live on their own, and so on. Corporate culture is based on authentic and personal experiences. How do we share information and keep people connected in an authentic and personal way from afar?
People often think of company culture in terms of team building activities, work socials, and table football. With none of these things possible right now, the crisis has forced light on what a company's culture really is.
Why company culture is critical
And the role of communications in shaping it
The experience someone has of your brand – be they a customer or an employee – is what the culture of your company is all about. The way your company talks and behaves is what sets it apart from other businesses with the same kind of offering. This is something you have to work on from the inside out. It starts with your employees.
Engaged employees are integral to the strength of your brand. If you don’t have happy employees, you’re unlikely to have happy customers because the two typically go hand-in-hand. In fact, research by Gallup has shown that organizations with engaged employees are 21% more profitable and 20% more productive.
If you have happy employees who understand what you’re trying to achieve, know their market, know your product, and believe in the value it can bring to your customers, then they will deliver a great and authentic customer experience.
If you don’t have happy employees, you’re unlikely to have happy customers
Emma Tucker, Head of Internal Communications, Temenos
Open, honest communications create a culture of trust
Emma Tucker, Head of Internal Communications, Temenos
The COVID crisis has impacted employee morale everywhere, so doubling down on ways to improve trust and motivation is critical. Internal comms play a huge part in that. The goal of an internal comms leader is to help employees experience a sense of belonging to the company. It's about connecting day-to-day activities with the underlying purpose of the business, so people understand how the work they do impacts the success of the company.
Open, honest communications create a culture of trust. They help to build a sense of identity and a consistent experience for employees across geographies and departments.
Storytelling is key to internal communications – whether you're explaining why an organizational change is happening, shining a light on great customer work, or sharing people stories. The story structure helps employees to connect the dots. We all suffer from information overload so helping employees to navigate everything that's going on and pick out the important stuff – that's where the value of good internal communication lies.
*A case study* Nurturing culture through content
Our approach at Temenos
Articulating culture at Temenos
The culture at Temenos has always been valued by people within the organization. In 2018, we celebrated our 25th anniversary and decided to become more explicit and deliberate in talking about our culture because we know it’s integral to our future success. At the time, we saw a new word enter our company vocabulary: Temenosity.
Temenosity is the key principle underlying the culture of Temenos and how we serve our customers. Whilst it's a fun word, the concept behind it needed building and communicating to help people understand what it means and why it's so important to the business. How our people behave, how we deliver our solution to customers – that's what really sets us apart from the competition.
Does that mean we have a perfect culture? As with a lot of companies, it's an ever-evolving process. We're constantly working to improve the employee and customer experience. But the fact that we’re conscious of it and the role that it plays in our business helps us to be more intentional about how we do things and to identify where improvements need to be made.
To articulate all of this very clearly we ended up creating a culture book. We didn't set out knowing that was what we needed, it emerged through the process of telling our whole story. We used the book to capture all the thinking around the culture in one document and to explain more about the principles of Temenosity, how we think at Temenos, and what’s important to us. It became something much better than what we had originally set out to create.
Our leaders have referred to Temenosity anecdotally a lot through the crisis to showcase the exemplary work that our people have done for our customers and for society more broadly. Quantifying the impact of this kind of communication isn’t easy, but what it really comes down to is creating that feeling of belonging in the company. People are talking about it, so we know it's hit home.
Looking ahead
What's next for internal comms
There's been a huge shift in internal comms in 2020. Not only has the volume of communication increased but its tone has evolved too: you simply can’t get away with producing content that isn’t authentic, empathetic, and compassionate with everything that's going on. Circumstances have compelled business leaders to take a less transactional and far more conversational approach to communication. And whilst the push from employees for this shift already existed pre-COVID, the importance has heightened since.
Even in the midst of massive global uncertainty, people will still leave a company if they don’t feel valued
Emma Tucker, Head of Internal Comms, Temenos
Conversational means two-way communications. Our work is not just about sending top-down messages and issuing information. It’s also about listening to people. The crisis has reminded everyone of this. Businesses need to get this right because even in the midst of massive global uncertainty, people will still leave a company if they don’t feel valued. Conversation is how we build relationships, and our relationships amount to our culture.
About the author
Emma Tucker, Head of Internal Comms, Temenos
Emma Tucker is Head of Internal Communications at Temenos. She's responsible for crafting and sending communications to the company’s 7,000 employees on everything from organizational changes and product launches to marketing initiatives and policy changes. Emma's worked in internal communications for the last 15 years, with a special interest in its impact on organizational culture.
Connect with her here.
