Why Ignoring Company Culture Could Be Your Biggest Branding Mistake

This article was originally written in September 2020.

COVID-19 has already affected companies, cities and even entire economies. Even though we are done with COVID-19, COVID-19 is not done with us. So, what does this mean for the way we perceive work?

COVID-19 has heavily impacted the way we work. I believe that, even if there will be a vaccine to the virus, there is no way we are going back to ‘what was before’. The way we work has been impacted in such a way that companies have finally recognized the value of alternative forms. It baffles me that, for some reason, we are still holding on to Dolly Parton’s nine to five dogma which was originally based on agricultural economies and even pre-historic cultures (you need natural light to hunt and grow crops). Now with the miracle of human-made light a lot of industries have the option to re-design their working days. So, in this blog I will be talking about how I will think that the way we work will be impacted (and what we are going to do with all those empty office buildings).

Working remotely

First, let’s get into the obvious. With the COVID-19 crisis many offices closed their doors, forcing people to work remotely. This often involves Zoom meetings with: people who are dressed in cosy clothes, interruptions of cat’s, children, and the occasional doorbell, and connectivity issues which makes you pull your hair out. But we have gotten used to it, more or less. The opinions are divided on how good it works. Some people want to go back to the office to socialize and others hail it as the new way of working. I am not going to take a stance in how well it works, but I am going to take a stance in whether this is a temporary phenomenon or not. Just to be clear: it is here to stay.

I think there will be some alterations in the future. Working remotely all of the time will still be an option, but I think that many people will opt for a combination of working remotely and working from the office. I think that people will be going back to the office for a part of the week to get in touch with their colleagues and stay at home for the other part to ‘really get things done’, but overall, I believe that working remotely is now an integrated part of working.

Working (very) flexible

Working remotely also opened up another door to working (very) flexible. Flexible working has already had its place in the workplace before, but the COVID-19 crisis and working remotely really accelerated this trend. It is not unusual anymore to receive messages early in the morning or late in the evening, while not being able to reach certain colleagues during the day. This sense of flexibility has opened up a sphere of ‘working a couple of hours here and there’ which means that we can restructure our entire day. What a relief for all those early birds or night owls out there!

Bringing the kids to school? No problem, work when they are to bed in the evening. Tired of recycling socks and in need of a laundry run? Easy, just run it and work a bit overtime. Still have to do groceries for the dinner of tomorrow? Fine, just get up an hour earlier, put in some work, and do groceries during your extended break.

Private and professional colliding

What working remotely and working flexible have caused is that there is not a clear distinction anymore between our private and personal life. You are not walking in an office anymore at 9AM and you are not leaving it anymore after 5PM. That is something people will have to deal with on a mental level, which is easier for some than it is for others. For people who are struggling with this, I think that lot of companies will (or should) move to a model where the teams meet (digitally) in the morning to open up the day and close down the day (digitally) in the afternoon. This brings back a mental sense of opening and closure, clearing up the blurred divide of private and professional life.

Another point that I want to make here is that there will be new models of facility, with options for people who work a lot remotely. In that sense you can think about compensation for the cost of living at home and facilities.  

Three cups of coffee a day does not cost a lot, but if you multiply with the number of days in a year, then costs begin to show themselves.

When it comes to facilities you should not only think about laptops and that kind of hardware, but also chairs, tables and ventilation. Basically, everything which turns your living room into an ergonomic working environment. I would argue that employers will also have a stake in this. Their cost of building up a workplace and providing coffee basically stays the same, but their cost of their physical buildings will go down as they can close down offices when people work permanently or flexibly, from home.

Working holidays

One form of impact that I have not heard yet is how this whole COVID-19 crisis will make us reconsider the line between work and holidays. I predict that people will rethink the way that they take holidays and how they plan their holidays, permanently. Firstly, right now, there is the obvious of not taking planes anymore and more regional travelling instead of international travelling.

But I would also argue that also the structure of our holidays will change, moving to being more flexible on holidays. Perhaps you are not able to leave the office for the entire week, take off four entire weeks in the summer, or even miss that one important meeting that distorts your family plans. So why not go to your holiday destination and work for a couple of days, one week of the four in the summer, or attend that one important meeting. I would say that combining work with holidays will become more common and it can provide a possible positive trade-off for employees (as long as they know how to properly balance it).  

Let’s talk office

Now that I have discussed the consequences for outside of the office, let’s move on to how this will impact things inside the office. First and foremost, I think that the current pandemic will influence the way we are perceiving as a hygienic working environment.

In this sense you can think about sanitation, disinfection, and ventilation, but also on policies regarding when somebody is considered healthy enough to enter the office (regarding the spread of infections). Most companies right now have a sort of ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards this issue and let employees decide when they deem themselves fit enough to enter the office.

We might move to a scenario where employers more actively encourage employees to stay away from the office when they show symptoms of a disease. Then there is of course the topic of training and education, which will also play a role. New guidelines will require training and education for your staff.

Last but not least, there are already companies who specialize themselves into making virus-free environments, such as the six-feet-office introduced by Cushman & Wakefield. Again, I believe that COVID-19 will have a lasting impression on how we regulate health in the office.

In conclusion

I believe COVID-19 has a significant impact on how we perceive ‘work’ going forward. It has shocked the working world, turned it upside down, and made us realise that there is a contingency (the idea of choice) in what we do. In a last remark, I would add that all of this is just a prelude to much larger changes which will improve the quality of our lives. If working regimes become more flexible to adapt to our preferred lifestyle, then you will notice that:

• less and less people press themselves into public transport during rush-hour;
• more people will move out from the cities into the countryside to work remotely;
• we travel less to work on location (decreasing our environmental footprint);
• people can organize their lives better to their own preference;

and this will ultimately benefit our (mental) health and wellbeing as human beings. Therefore, I embrace this change and am looking forward to keep working in the new normal.

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“Quiet quitting” – it seems to be the latest within HR fashion. What is it and why are we talking about it?

First off all, I think the term “quiet quitting” is wrong and bad. People are not silently leaving office buildings to stop working or quitting their jobs in complete silence – that is not at all what this is about. Quiet quitting is the idea that people are not going “above and beyond” their paygrade anymore and just do the work they are paid for.

Let’s be real. Why should an employee do more than they are paid for? An employee agreement is just that: you pay somebody to do their job. Nothing more, nothing less. That means: not answering emails on a holiday, not working outside office hours, and not staying late to finish that project.

So, if there is anything I want you to take away from this post, then this is it: let’s stop talking about “quiet quitting” and start talking about “disengaging”, because that is what it is. People are still doing their jobs, but they are slowly become disengaged and unmotivated to “go above and beyond”.

Why more and more people start to quit quietly?

Now you might ask: Why? Why is this happening? The internet seems to be split up between two reasons: 1) Employees are drastically re-evaluating their work-life balance, or 2) bad leadership has undervalued and demotivated employees. Whatever the reasoning behind it, its implications are truly important. Disengaged employees will perform less than engaged employees, impacting the performance of your company overall.

Before we jump into solutions for a “problem” we do need to consider whether somebody became disengaged because of re-evaluating the balance in their worklife, or because of bad leadership and demotivation. If somebody wants to revaluate the balance in their worklife, there is maybe nothing you could (or should) do. Your employee will do their job, but according to the parameters that you have set in the contract – and that is it.

If somebody became disengaged because of bad leadership or demotivation, then there are opportunities to re-engage your employees. So, let’s move on to the interesting stuff: how to re-engage employees!

What can we do?

At this point, if you still expect your employees to go above and beyond without them getting anything in return you should not be surprised that your employees get disengaged or unmotivated. And why should they? You are offering nothing in return. The good news is there are solutions. The bad news is that those solutions will require effort.

If you are a boss, manager, or leader whose employees are slowly disengaging, there are ways to turn this process around. How? By re-engaging with your disengaged employees. Here are 5 ways to do that:

1. Asking the tough questions

On a daily basis, walk around the office and stop by or call one colleague and blatantly ask them: “What are we not talking about here at work? What can we improve?” This is a powerful way of directly asking somebody to vent some frustrations and let them be a key part of an improvement process that they see as problematic.

You might discover some unique opportunities while engaging one employee at a time. There are ways to make this into a scalable process as well for larger companies.

2. Inspiration and daily work

Remind people of your vision, your mission, your morning-star. Connect meetings to the abstract level of your purpose. We are here to make money, yes, but there is more to it. “Today we are doing A, B, C, which will allow our clients to do D, E, and F – which will improve the lives of/the world/the environment” – you get the drill. People need inspiration to stay engaged. Continuously.

3. Allowing engagement

A lot of managers expect a top-down management structure where employees simply accept the strategy, take on their tasks as instructed, and are fully engaged into everything they do. Now this is a prime example of having you cake and eating it. You can’t have it both. You’ll have to choose. Either you choose a management structure where you want to impose your will, strategy, structure, and tasks – but also accept disengaged employees, OR you involve your employees with decision making processes around structure, strategy, and their tasks to get them engaged.

4. Development, perspective, and incentive

One way of engaging disengaged employees is by giving them a clear-cut “carrot” to re-engage. You can do this by giving them the perspective of development. That either may be a promotion, an education or training (paid for by the company), or a wider set of responsibilities.

Now I know that this is a bit of a sensitive topic, but you can do that through a bit of good-old performance management. Does that mean measuring every datapoint you have from when somebody clocks in to how fast they type emails? No of course not, this is not the 20th century anymore. But you can set up a couple of KPI’s that reflect a concrete goal and subsequent reward.

5. Improve leadership

Sometimes it is hard to admit, but if you can’t point out the problem in the room – then maybe you are the problem in the room. During your times you meet 1-to-1 with your employees, try to ask what you can improve about your leadership style. Ask your employees what you can improve or what they miss in your leadership today. Sometimes your employees require different ways of leadership than what you are offering today – maybe more directive, maybe more guidance, or maybe more freedom and individual responsibility.

In conclusion

“Quite quitting” is a bogus term that is simply incorrect. People are reconsidering what they want in life and can become disengaged at work because of a multitude of reasons. If they are simply reconsidering their work life balance, then there is little you could (or should) do. If they are becoming disengaged because of bad leadership or demotivation, then there are things you can do. If you need help:

1. asking the tough questions
2. connecting your vision and mission to your daily work
3. identifying where you can involve your employees more
4. developing incentive programs
5. improving your leadership capacity

Then get in touch with us and see what we can do for you!

First impressions matter. So being aware of the first impression of a new employee in your company is crucial to his or her future performance. That’s why in this blog I’m taking a closer look at onboarding.

Onboarding somebody into your company is a lot like welcoming somebody into your house. As with all welcomes, it is not just a first coffee and a short introductory chat. It is a continuous demonstration of cooperation and affection. A good onboarding process is paramount for the productivity of your employee and his or her integration with the team. It encompasses everything from the first small introduction over a cup of coffee until the more formal monthly one-to-one meetings. In this blog I will give some practical advice on how you can improve your onboarding process and the integration and engagement of your new employees. If you’re thinking: “well most of this doesn’t apply to us because the COVID-19 crisis is forcing us to work remotely”, think again. Onboarding is now more important than ever to create a well-functioning team, you just need to rethink your structures in a digital matter. More tips on that here.

Handbooks and more

Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. As a part of any onboarding process, there are a lot of practical matters and questions that your newly hired employee has. Handbooks are a great way for employees to peacefully read through and find an answer for their questions, in the first turbulent weeks of a new employment. In the same line, make sure that the handbook has a FAQ as well, where the employee can find the most frequently asked questions, just to make it a bit easier for him or her.

It does not all have to be dull practical stuff, however. You can also include more interesting things in your handbook such as:

• A formulated version of your vision, mission, strategy, culture and values.
• An overview of your team members, including pictures, practical information and fun facts.
• An overview of your customers/clients and stakeholders, and a short summary on each and every one of them.  

Meeting the team(s)

If you want to feel at home, you need to know who are living in the house. It is therefore important to have meetings with the different teams. Now this is where things become a bit difficult to define. As companies differ in size, it becomes more difficult for them to involve everybody in the process. Meeting the team is a process that starts off large, with a lot of people involved, and is narrowed down over time.

Normally the process looks like this:

1. A (digital) announcement of the new employee, who he or she is and what he or she will be doing, for the entire company.
2. A short (digital) introduction of the employee to the entire company (or a larger part of the company).
3. A more thorough introduction with colleagues from different departments with whom the employee will work closely with.
4. A meeting with representatives from the HR, Legal, and Facilities/IT departments.
5. A meeting with the closest colleagues of the employee (or the entire department). Hold this meeting off-site, perhaps as a lunch meeting or afternoon coffee so that the team can really spend some quality time to get to know the employee.
6. One-to-one meetings with the manager.
   

Introduction and training

After you’re done with shaking hands, just like at home, it is time to take a coffee and sit down to talk about some more serious stuff. In this sense I am talking about more thorough introductions on what the company does and how they do things, what they stand for and how they communicate this. Employer branding is a big topic in these introductions and trainings. You need to give the newly hired employee a good idea of what your brand represents and how this translates in his or her activities.

This is also the moment when an employee gets their first introduction to the internal systems, ways of working and contact persons, including possible clients. In this sense it is good to have a training set up from a more senior employee or somebody from the IT department to make sure that the new employee can work with the systems you use. Client or stakeholder meetings are also a big part of the process. A senior employee should take the new employee with him to introductory meetings with the potential clients and stakeholders so they get an image of who you are working for/with.

Another part of this process are job-specific trainings which can be ongoing, but which get introduced in the onboarding process.

Feedback

So now that you have bombarded your newly hired employee with as much information as you possibly can, it is time to harvest some information as well. This means: one-to-one meetings with feedback. These are often meetings between the newly hired employee and his or her manager, where both parties can give feedback to one another. These meetings should be held regularly and continuously throughout the career of your employees over at your company. Try to have such a meeting roughly every month with your employees, even their first month. Of course, everything is still fun and games then, so there will not be that much feedback coming from your employee but try to challenge them even then already. Is there really nothing that the company can improve? How was the first impression? Was it well enough? Is there anything that should be improved? Remember, the image that the company gives of to its own employees often also translate into the same image that they give off to clients and stakeholders.

In conclusion

A good onboarding process is everything from the first handbook until formal meetings with clients and stakeholders. It is a large process which, if done correctly, can kickstart the career of your new employee within your company. In this blog we have given a brief overview of all the essentials. If you want to have a more detailed roadmap of what a good onboarding process looks like, click here.

If you need help setting up your onboarding process, just reach out to us and we'll set up a meeting to see what we can do for you!

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