Ever since the pandemic hit the world, building a digital culture has been a top priority for almost every business. But the one thing that they are struggling with is: How to build a flourishing digital culture?
Many people have this idea that incorporating digital technologies or software is what will help them build a digital culture. However, this isn’t entirely true. You’ll need more than technology to create a digital culture. You’ll need collaboration, communication, and clarification to establish a strong foundation for digital transformation.
Importance of Digital Culture
A study by Microsoft EMEA revealed that organizations with a strong digital culture have:
- 5x more employees who feel empowered
- 4x more employees who feel engaged
- 3x more employees who feel innovative
- 2x more employees who feel productive
So if embracing digital culture is all you need to build such a strong workforce, then I think you shouldn’t waste a second and start thinking about how to build digital culture.
Steps to Build a Digital Culture
Below are the major 6 steps one can take to build a transparent, progressive, and collaborative digital culture:
1- Lay the Foundation By Embracing Transparency
When you make a transition as big as transforming your traditional culture into a digital one, you need to bring your team together and decide collectively what changes need to be made.
Define your organization’s core values; get your teams and strategies aligned with these core values and take inputs from your employees and stakeholders. Communicate the difference between organizational culture and digital culture and how these changes are going to impact the business and the employees. Make sure everyone is on the same page.
2- Make Friends With Technology
If you want to prepare yourself for the long run, then adopting technology is crucial. This is a technology-driven world, and if you are avoiding technology for any reason then you must give it a second thought. Opt for technology that allows automation of manual processes, makes it easier for you to analyze company processes, and maintains your security and privacy.
Make your staff familiar with new technologies so that they can take on this challenging business environment. Opt for cloud technology as it is easily accessible, easy to update, and offers damage recovery options.
3- Prepare Your People for the Change
You can’t just transform your business culture by just making an announcement on Slack or sending emails. You need to train your employees for this new transformation. Offering training in new technologies, processes, and systems beforehand can help your employees adapt more quickly to the change.
Organize training workshops, conduct mentoring sessions, and offer resources that can help your employees kick start new behaviors. Preparing your people for the change is important, after all the new digital culture is going to impact your employees in a great way.
4- Don’t Make It Too Exhaustive
Change can be overwhelming; this is why it is important to support your employees at every stage of this digital transformation. In an ‘always-on’ world, your employees need a break from time to time. It doesn’t mean you should let them take as many leaves as they want, but it means making them comfortable in their working space.
Encourage them to take breaks from digital to rejuvenate their mind and body, offer yoga or meditation sessions, or organize team activities or events such as comic nights. Create a collaborative work environment where employees can feel free to express themselves. Offer flexibility and autonomy to your employees and help them take more ownership of their work.
5- Involve Leadership
No change can happen until everyone in the organization is working in the same direction. A flourishing digital culture can be established when senior management and leaders are involved wholeheartedly in the transformation.
Before preparing for the change it is important for the leaders to ask themselves if they are really ready for the change or if they are planning to stick to business as usual, by just making small changes, for example, opting for an automated system to manage employees. Today, leaders need to reflect values they want their staff to embrace.
6- Monitor Progress and Measure Success
Finally, when you have managed to create a digital culture, it is important to monitor the changes implemented. If you don’t keep track of the progress you have made after driving digital transformation, then it would be difficult for you to analyze things that work well or that don’t work at all for your business.
Measuring success becomes much easier if you choose KPIs that can be measured easily. So always set clear, simple KPIs.
Final Words
The main idea behind digital technology is to make the world feel connected. Create a connected, collaborative, and productive workforce by establishing a strong digital culture. After all, it’s the culture that sets you apart from your competition.
While technology is important, don’t forget the value of human connection. Always keep your employees at the forefront and make sure you offer them all the support they need to thrive in these uncertain times.
