Company Culture: How Technology Can Support HR

“Transformation,” the new martingale for decision-makers, has been on everyone’s lips for several years. Digital transformation, agile transformation, organizational transformation…

While the intricacies of each of these topics may themselves be the subject of dedicated debate, one thing is clear: the way we work is changing, and businesses urgently need to adapt.

Establishing a strong company culture is an essential part of this change. As such, human resources departments and managers are at the forefront of this process. To achieve this, they must understand why transformation is essential and how new tools, technologies, and methods can contribute to its management.

International, Flexible, Agile – The New World Of Work

A number of factors are contributing to rapid changes in the world of work. With more than 1.8 billion people, Millennials are now the most represented generation in the world. In many regions, they even constitute the majority of the working population. This demographic shift has occurred in parallel with the increase in the dispersion of teams: collaboration between employees separated by different time zones and continents has become the new norm.

Many of them also want to find a better balance between work and personal life, with all the flexibility that implies. Employees are now expressing the need to include these priorities in their career plans. At the same time, they are aware of the effects of increasing globalization and digitalization; thus, according to an American study, 91% of them say they seek to get closer to their colleagues, while nearly 85% wish to feel a closer bond with distant colleagues. However, businesses face new realities in the contemporary economic order.

For example, business agility and the ability to respond quickly to market changes are essential to business survival today. Fortunately, there is one element that helps meet both the evolving needs of employees and the priorities of businesses: culture. But this is not just a matter of trust and team building: it must embody the company’s values. Additionally, culture underpins an organization’s approach to its employees and their employees’ approach to their work and their business.

How Can Technology Support The HR Department?

Teamwork, alignment around a common goal, and retention of information are elements that strengthen corporate culture. Human resources managers play a central role in this alignment throughout the employee journey, and new technologies can help them in this support. This is particularly the case for collaboration platforms that offer communications via dedicated channels.

Each chat stream hosts a conversation on a specific topic, and where members can be added or removed effortlessly. For example, it is possible to create one to discuss internal recruitment needs. Human resources managers can thus easily supervise the needs expressed by team leaders, which reduces the fragmentation that occurs with the occasional sending of emails by requesting teams. Additionally, managers benefit from a holistic view of business priorities and needs.

Feel Close Wherever You Are

As for recruits, they can be added to discussion channels dedicated to their project and thus immediately access the history of discussions on the subject. Thanks to the inclusive nature of these channels, employees working remotely no longer feel “out of sight, out of mind,” significantly since the democratization of other technologies, such as videoconferencing, also reduces the feeling of distance. When it comes to getting information from employees, robots, or “bots,” are practical solutions for regularly receiving their opinions.

Which collects, on a weekly basis, the reactions of the company’s 1,500 employees to a series of 5 questions on various topics. The HR department can then quickly analyze the collected responses. In this way, HR, managers, and management can respond effectively and proactively to the needs of the business, contributing to the overall improvement of the employee working environment.

Technology alone cannot create or even nurture a company’s culture. However, it offers a new framework for sharing knowledge within an organization and encourages the adoption of more collaborative methods. But these tools are only there to serve one ambition: a work culture that places the professional at the center. The HR teams who are currently laying the foundations for the transformation of their company are the essential cogs of a change that will see the introduction of many challenges but, above all, great opportunities.

Also Read: The Role Of HR Management In The Digital Transformation Paths Of Organizations