In light of this year’s events, organisations across the world are taking a good look at their brand and their company culture.
Your company culture is defined in two ways – internally, in the values and ethos that all employees adhere to, and externally in the way the world views your brand.
A strong brand and culture is something that needs both careful thought and planning and is developed over time with mutual participation from all employees.
But the events of recent months have made businesses everywhere take a closer look at their company culture – methods that had been in place for years have been tested to their limits.
For many businesses, their teams and their entire culture have been affected in different ways by Covid-19. What can organisations do now to strengthen their brand and culture in our Covid-changed world?
Remote Working and Culture
Perhaps the most significant way that your finance team will have changed is the physical distance between colleagues due to the advent of remote working.
Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about remote working, the benefits and drawbacks for both employers and employees.
At the start of lockdown, there was a lot of positivity surrounding remote working, as people appreciated having no commute and being able to spend more time at home with their family. But now, six months later, there is a growing concern that remote working isn’t the utopia many thought it was.
Remote working became the ‘new norm’ out of necessity, and while some people are happier and more productive working from home full-time, this isn’t the case across the board.
Remote working for some means loneliness, difficulty achieving the same results due to tech or home-office problems, and it can also reduce productivity.
But most of all, working from home shatters the company culture that once existed in the physical office.
Never before have employers been faced with the challenge of maintaining a cohesive company culture with the added challenge of distance.
It’s more difficult, but it’s not impossible.
The following are three ways to develop a strong brand and culture in your organisation in a post-Covid world.
1. Maintain Structure
A big part of your organisational culture is in the structure of the way you operate.
Do you have weekly meetings each Monday? Is Friday afternoon reserved for training?
Structure is not only essential for keeping a sense of cohesion in your team, but it’s also vital for facilitating excellent communication within your organisation – a necessity when some team members could be still working from home.
Without being overbearing or micromanaging your teams’ days and weeks, implement a schedule which allows your team to come together on a video call a couple of times a week to check-in, share news and ideas and troubleshoot.
2. Keep it Social
As well as designated times for work meetings, it is essential to provide your team with a channel where they can communicate with each other that is not strictly for work – a social media chat group is a great example of this.
A client also recently told me about their remote bake-off – where team members who were working from home were sent packages containing baking ingredients so that they could participate in the annual bake-off which usually happens in the office.
Your company culture defines your brand. Developing your company as one that looks out for their employees will only serve to strengthen your brand and attract quality employees in future.
3. New Leadership for the New Normal
Data from the Society of Human Resources earlier in lockdown found that 71% of employers were struggling to adjust to remote work.
Remote management is something that many leaders will not have ever been familiar with, and it is a new skill that must be learned.
Throughout lockdown, many leaders were focused on getting the team back into the office and getting ‘back to normal’. But the truth is that there is no such thing as ‘normal’ any more.
Remote working, flexible working and a completely different way of viewing the office have organically become a part of many organisation’s cultures, especially now as employees have seen that it is entirely possible to work from home.
The key is flexibility.
Some finance employees will want to continue to work from home for the majority of the time, some much prefer the office. Still, in general, as an employer, you need the ability to pivot and accommodate the different needs of your team.
Finally
Company culture and your brand are closely entwined.
The way you have reacted, and continue to respond to the new normal defines who you are as an employer, and this will impact on the success of your team and the ability to employ talent going forwards.
While it might feel uncomfortable addressing the fact that your company culture and your brand as an extension of this need to adapt to our post-Covid world, the companies who address it and get it right, will be the ones who succeed.
If you are looking for new financial talent for your organisation post-Covid, we can help.
Call us on 01282 930930 or click here to talk to our expert financial recruitment team about your current or upcoming vacancies. We will find you the candidates with the right skills and who fit your organisation’s culture.
Thanks,
Rachel
About Rebus Financial Recruitment
Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, which historically range from a wide variety of organisations including SME’s to large PLCs.
We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs; and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly. To find out more, get in contact with one of our team today, or you can call us on 01282 930930.
