Companies come in many shapes and sizes, and there are many types of company cultures they can adopt. Regardless of whether your international organization wants to adopt a more transparent company culture or a more innovative company culture, there are some strategic and purposeful steps it must take for that culture to succeed globally.
If you’re interested in implementing a new company culture for your international organization, here are some things you’ll want to do.
Use Cloud-Based Platforms
Cloud-based platforms are perhaps more important for international organizations than they are for nationally based organizations, as they enable employees in different time zones, countries, and cities to remain connected all the time.
These platforms are also especially important when an international organization is adopting a new company culture because they will keep all employees involved with and apprised of changes related to the new culture in real time.
Understand Your Current Company Culture
Before implementing a new company culture, it’s important that you understand your organization’s current one. Even if you haven’t actively worked to establish a positive or more official company culture yet, there is still some sort of culture in place at your organization, albeit an unideal, a bad, or a toxic one.
Before you move forward with implementing a new company culture, take note of things like your current company values and mission and how they’re represented internally and externally on a global scale, your company’s methods and avenues of communication (or lack thereof), etc.
Recruit Essential Groups for Design and Buy-In
If you don’t get the right groups at your organization on board, you will never be able to successfully design or implement a company culture. Therefore, ensure you involve and gain buy-in from critical leadership teams, management, supporting teams, and everyday champions and influencers.
Endorse Diversity and Inclusion
It is especially important for international organizations to endorse diversity and inclusion across their organizations as they adopt a more centralized company culture. Employees from various backgrounds across global regions will need to understand and value one another’s differences if they’re to successfully support a new culture together.
Provide Training and Support
Once essential groups across your organization have designed and implemented your organization’s new culture, it’s important to offer employees appropriate training and support. Your managers and leaders should be prepared to do the following if they want their newly designed and implemented company culture to be successful:
- Foster social connections.
- Show empathy.
- Go out of their way to help.
- Encourage people to talk to them about their concerns, with proposed changes.
Keep the best practices highlighted above in mind if you want to successfully implement a new company culture for your international organization.