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April 24, 2020 //  //       //  Opinion

Great Company Culture is a Two-Way Street

By: Courtney Newman

Some businesses will emerge from the COVID-19 crisis with stronger company cultures, while others will see the ties that bind staff weaken under shelter-in-place orders. The difference will be how well businesses engage their employees in a two-way dialogue. 

Here are five tips to help you build or maintain a strong company culture, whether your staff is working remotely or back in the office.

Establish your cultural roadmap. Collaborate with staff to identify three to five core values that define a successful employee in your company and use them to recruit, onboard, evaluate and celebrate staff. If your company hasn’t developed yours yet, start a conversation with staff about the strengths that help you weather the current crisis and get consensus on the most essential traits to drive the business forward.

Make time for facetime. Regular interaction between your leadership team and employees – via live, interactive town halls and educational events – not only enhances investment in the company’s vision, but also allows you to uncover pain points that impact personnel. With staff quarantined at home, you can maintain this personal touch by hosting virtual town halls, recording video messages from your leadership team and developing a CEO advisory council of staff from various levels, functions and geographies to share their insights on video chat. 

Be transparent about business challenges. During times of crisis, employees crave honest information about business performance and job security, and leaders who deliver this build trust and loyalty even when the news is bad. Solicit “Ask Me Anything” questions anonymously with an online survey tool like SurveyMonkey and have your CEO address them in an all-hands webinar. Given the ever-evolving nature of the global pandemic, biweekly sessions may be necessary.

Solicit feedback and act on it. It’s also essential to assess staff’s wellbeing and needs to tailor your internal communications and support systems accordingly. Conducting anonymous pulse surveys on a weekly basis will allow you to respond in real time as the crisis evolves. You also need to be explicit about how such input is being used. Neglecting this step is a trust buster and will make staff less likely to chime in and be forthright.

Offer perks that encourage teambuilding. Job satisfaction is enhanced when employees genuinely like each other, so it’s essential to offer perks that encourage them to have fun with each other and the top brass while they’re on the clock. Working remotely puts a damper on social events like running clubs and serving meals to the homeless, but there are many ways to continue the fun in video meetings: group workouts, icebreakers, book clubs, trivia, fitness challenges and home tours in the style of “MTV Cribs,” which offers all-access tours of celebrity homes.

An honest, two-way relationship between leadership and employees will not only foster a strong workplace culture but will also help you uncover great solutions to meet the challenges of COVID-19 and build an army of loyal followers to implement them.

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Partner Courtney Newman leads learning and employee engagement for more than 500 A+Pers in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific. Her A+P career highlight is the agency being a perennial PRWeek Best Places to Work winner.

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