Workplace culture is a key component of talent retention in today’s market. Whether your employees are mostly together in one physical location or working in remote or hybrid scenarios, culture matters. Workplace culture tends to be hard to define, but employees and leaders usually know when the culture is not what they are looking for.
Many Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) and the Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that integrate with them can be vital tools for shaping employee culture. These tools cannot decide for you what your core values are, but they can help you communicate and demonstrate those core values to your employees in meaningful ways. They can help change employee attitudes and engagement levels, and give employees greater job satisfaction along the way.
Business culture includes core values, written rules, employee attitudes, and even unwritten assumptions. But how can leaders shape the culture that they want to see within their company?
Elements of a Positive Workplace Culture
Company culture impacts employee satisfaction and retention, because top performers are seeking a workplace environment that gives them purpose. That’s especially true since COVID, as increased remote work opportunities have expanded opportunities for many workers beyond their geographic area.
With these considerations in mind, how can you leverage HR technology to develop a positive culture that attracts top talent in your workplace? First, let’s take a look at what constitutes a positive employee experience.
- Communication – Employees have an outlet to communicate with leadership about questions or concerns, and communication comes back to them in a meaningful way. For example, managers may provide an anonymous way for employees to submit questions and feedback, and send answers back. The anonymous feedback and responses can be posted on the internal company website.
- Collaboration – Demand for collaborative technology experienced a huge surge when the pandemic forced many white collar workers to work remotely for a time. A collaborative environment encourages connection among colleagues, which is a key component of workplace satisfaction. It also provides a sense of purpose by helping each employee understand how their work contributes to the overall mission of the team or organization.
- Recognition – A workforce that expresses gratitude to each other for efforts and results contributes to each employee’s sense of happiness and well-being. If you can get employees to tie recognition to your company’s core values, the impact on culture will be even more profound.
- Goal-Setting – Employees and managers both need to know what goals the employee is working toward so that performance evaluations are tied to specific and measurable results.
- Responding to Employee Feedback – Employees need a way to anonymously ask questions and voice concerns. Even more, they need to see that you will respond to their feedback in a meaningful way. Technology enables the “suggestion box” concept to impact your culture more profoundly.
- Learning Enablement – Employees need to know that they have opportunities to learn and grow in their career. They also need to take ownership of their own career path for growth. Employees who are enabled to do so are more engaged at work and will stay with a company longer.
4 HR Tech Tools to Shape Your Culture
As you invest in building a positive company culture that includes the elements above, technology can help you implement your strategy. Here are four kinds of tools to consider:
- HRIS – An HRIS like UKG can house performance evaluations, integrate with a learning platform, and enable career interest and development tracking. These are all important elements of a culture of feedback and engagement. UKG can also connect employees to internal job opportunities for career development and growth.
- Employee Recognition Tools – HR technology tools like Achievers help companies enable a culture of appreciation among employees. Such SaaS tools should integrate seamlessly with your HRIS to ensure that employee data is up to date. Whether your teams work together or remotely, they can recognize each other for a job well done or for someone going beyond his role to help out. These programs also enable employees to download a copy of their own recognitions from others to use in performance evaluations.
- Collaboration Software – Collaboration software like Microsoft Teams allows employees to share files, carry on conversations in chat, and post to different groups and channels to interact with each other about projects. Microsoft Teams integrates with Outlook as well as your HRIS to import employee information, and it links to One Drive to house files in the cloud. Teams is also a video-calling platform where employees can interact with one another or with people leaders for more in-depth conversations.
- Learning Platforms – It is great to be able to recruit top talent, but you also need to invest in building the talent you need in the people you have. Learning platforms like Degreed are essential to keep employees developing skills and taking ownership of their own career growth. Degreed allows people leaders to build custom pathways so employees get the right learning resources at the right time, from onboarding to continuing education and skill development.
Culture is essential to creating positive employee experiences that keep your workforce engaged and satisfied in their roles. That’s why it pays to invest in HR technology tools that will make a significant impact on improving your company culture. Choose your HRIS and SaaS tools wisely with a specific thought toward how they will enhance your culture once implemented.
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