Keeping company culture alive across a global workforce

By Nicole Sahin, CEO and Founder of Globalization Partners

The global financial services market is one of the most significant employers in the world today and arguably the backbone of our economy. Earlier this year, John Glen, economic secretary to The Treasury, delivered a speech at the launch of the Financial Services Skills Task Report where he described an existential skills crisis facing the financial services sector. With a real lack of suitably-qualified professionals, the need to engage with and retain existing staff and attract new joiners is paramount.

However, employee engagement is challenging enough under normal circumstances when it is local and face-to-face contact is part of the familiar routine. But, introduce the complexities of the task for employees across disparate locations – many of whom are currently working from home – and organisations everywhere are having to find new ways of nurturing the employer/employee relationship.

Despite the difficulties of maintaining or adapting employee engagement activities at the moment, the fundamentals remain the same: good company culture with engaged employees leads to a happier workplace. That’s because, deep down, most people have the same basic needs, and maintaining some key practices can overcome cultural, geographic or separation barriers to help keep employee experience moving in the right direction in these extremely difficult times:

1. Effective Onboarding

Hiring globally can be an intimidating prospect because of the difficulties associated with onboarding employees who are based abroad. This is such a huge barrier to some businesses that it can impede their growth, because international expansion must prove its worth quickly, and new hires must engage and deliver fast.

It’s important, therefore, to standardise onboarding processes worldwide to ensure everyone has the same strong start. But this must also be done with local practices in mind, because an onboarding practice that is helpful in one culture might be harmful in another. So, take the time to study local practices that will set employees up for success wherever they are.

2. Keep consistent with company values

For employees to effectively engage with company values and thrive in a global environment, the employer should always communicate what “good” looks like. For example, how people treat each other with respect, dignity and kindness are fundamental values for many modern businesses. It’s important to take every opportunity to show employees that these values matter and reward them for demonstrating them in their everyday work. So, make sure everyone understands those key cultural points – it will help them feel more involved, and as a result, more engaged.

3. Keep communicating

To make sure employee engagement has an impact on employees across an entire organisation, apply the ‘rule of seven’ to communication. This is one of the oldest concepts in marketing, which argues that a prospect needs to see or hear a message at least seven times before they act and relies on the idea that communication is more effective when repeated. For instance, by sharing and

repeating company news internally via emails, all-hands meetings and via a company’s internal website, it’s possible to strike a good balance between the health and wellbeing information we all need to be clear about at the moment, and the team building messages that are such an important part of a healthy, long-term culture.

4. Video ‘on’

Many people have experienced first hand the huge recent increase in the use of video meeting services. Zoom, for example, has experienced a massive surge in demand as people try to maintain some level of face-to-face contact until they can return to the office.

This has always been important when communicating with someone who doesn’t share the same first language – bridging these divides is so much easier when you can see the other person. But, one of the positive things to come out of this situation is that a lot of global organisations will be currently gaining much needed experience in using video communications technology. Even when the current crisis subsides, video will continue to help global teams to connect regularly and more effectively regardless of location.

5. Celebrate success at every opportunity

One of the ways in which international businesses of all sizes can build and maintain company culture is to celebrate each other – it’s a great way of helping people to feel more connected, listened to and engaged. While video is a more personal way of breaking down barriers, using other tools such as an internal website for employees with a regularly updated news feed helps celebrate each other’s successes. Content can include weekly shoutouts from/to employees, life events (from weddings and birthdays to pet meet-and-greets and great vacations), holidays and traditions.

It’s this kind of activity that can help foster a positive outlook, which is a particularly important balance to strike when people are coping with such worrying and unfamiliar circumstances. To keep up team spirit, for example, continue to build community and learn more about each other with virtual events. There are a lot of options, from the virtual Happy Hour, to more ambitious ideas such as running a global talent show, or using services such as Slack to pair people with a new colleague every few weeks so the team can continue to connect, and even have a virtual coffee chat together.

Don’t forget that being global must not become a barrier to employee engagement – the two can go hand-in-hand. With the right approach, a high-growth, highly profitable global team can have highly satisfied clients and highly engaged (happy) employees, retaining their valuable skills within the company.