It’s no secret that companies can’t pay enough attention to corporate culture these days. But it’s still challenging to know just what your focus should be when creating or changing a corporate culture. Should you add more perks and benefits? Upgrade your office space? Implement a new communication strategy?
Ultimately, company culture comes from leadership and stems from the company’s values. Other factors, like your workplace and the technology you use, are very valuable tools that reinforce the culture you’ve established. Changing a corporate culture requires you to use these tools thoughtfully and deliberately.
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How Technology Plays a Role in Changing a Corporate Culture
The technology you use in your organization may not be able to single-handedly create or change a corporate culture, but it can have a huge impact. Here are some of the ways technology can be used to establish, reinforce, or change your company’s culture:
1. Collect and share accurate, real-time data
With space utilization software like Serraview, a department head can access usage data to instantly gain a better understanding of her team’s work habits – where they work and their interactions with other teams, without having to go through HR, IT, or CRE (or some combination of those departments).
A hiring manager can collect all the information on a candidate—resume, application, interview notes and feedback—and access it from any device. Hiring decisions can then be made faster.
Benefit: Greater transparency, efficiency, and evidence-based decisions
2. Performance management moves to performance enablement
At Serraview, we stress that the goal of technology should be to make work frictionless. By reducing barriers, employees are empowered to work in the ways they are most effective and productive.
Serraview’s wayfinding tools, for example, reduce the time spent trying to locate a colleague, find a meeting space and more.
Benefit: Increased communication and collaboration; employees feel supported and empowered
3. Provide and receive feedback
Survey and goal-tracking tools allow managers to quickly check in with employees more frequently, instead of waiting for an annual performance review.
HR can use quick survey apps to capture employee sentiment or ask for feedback and suggestions. Leadership can host “AMAs” (Ask Me Anything) with employees to ask and answer questions about company goals and initiatives.
Benefit: Stronger communication; companies are able to course-correct and proactively address potential issues
4. Offer more flexibility
Technology makes it easier for employees to work remotely or when traveling. They can also “clock in” at more convenient hours if they’re unable to be in the office during your working hours.
Some companies are moving away from all-encompassing enterprise systems and seeking out technology that is source-agnostic, modular, and interconnected. Serraview’s workplace optimization solution, for example, can take in data from disparate sources, analyze it and turn it into useful information.
Benefit: Flexible, family-friendly work policies without sacrificing performance; able to adapt and scale easily when technology itself is flexible.
5. Increase efficiency with automation
With software that monitors your building systems, you can conduct audits and tests of various systems and equipment seamlessly.
Serraview’s scenario planning functionality lets you create different move scenarios to estimate the ROI and practicality of each. When you decide to implement a scenario, the Conflict Resolution tool tracks changes made in the VBS (the Visual Block and Stack that contains your live data), and reports back on changes that affect your chosen scenario. The tool takes the guesswork out of whether your scenario baseline data is still accurate.
Benefit: More efficient decisions without spending hours buried in spreadsheets
6. Reach sustainability goals
This isn’t new—but technology is getting better and better at helping offices go paperless (or at least, paper-reduced). Tablets and digital whiteboards mean less printing, which means using less ink and toner, and reduction in physical space needed to store paper files.
The Internet of Things offers huge opportunities to make your building more efficient and green. Smart lighting or HVAC systems save money by only turning on with presence detection or various environmental stimuli.
Benefit: Reduce energy and building costs; good corporate social responsibility PR
7. Recognize and reward employees
Recognition and reward software can allow anyone to give a “shout out” to any employee who’s done exceptional work.
Gamification can be used to improve training and onboarding or to guide employees wanting to advance their careers. They’ll get a clear understanding of the skills to build or milestones they need to attain before their next promotion.
Benefit: Boost employee engagement
Although technology plays an important role in changing a corporate culture, it’s important to remember it’s just a tool—it can’t do all the work on its own. When selecting technology, have a strong understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish and how. Ensure the software, app, platform, or service you choose will help you achieve the change you’re trying to support.