The COVID-19 pandemic has created a massive cultural shift within the workplace. Many organizations were forever changed by the pandemic when they were forced to alter their means of production. While businesses have been forced to redefine their culture, values, and purpose, it has also given them the opportunity to learn more about their employees. With employees working from home, it is harder to maintain a company culture that embraces diversity, team building, and work friendships.
In one of our latest blogs, Returning to Work After COVID – Hybrid Work, we covered the elements of hybrid work, but is hybrid work enough to retain your top employees? The short answer is no, simply incorporating a hybrid work model is not enough to increase your employee value proposition. It is time to re-evaluate corporate culture.
When job seekers search for opportunities, you may assume that the most crucial factor to consider is salary and benefits. With the end of the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), there will be many more job seekers who are looking for a company that can offer them more than their last place of employment. However, while salary and benefits are most certainly large components, there are many more components that contribute to one’s Employe Value Proposition (EVP).
What exactly is EVP? An employee value proposition is a set of benefits that an employee receives from the company in which they are employed. While salary and benefits are traditional factors of EVP, in an ever-changing workforce, companies must keep up with their competitors to recruit and keep top talent. In the pre-pandemic world, many companies would offer perks to their employees within the office such as free coffee, donuts on Friday’s, a ping pong table in the breakroom, or a paid half-day before a long weekend. But, with many of our employees in isolation in their remote stations, how can we ensure that the culture of the office doesn’t diminish? How can we ensure EVP does not suffer with remote work?
One answer, re-evaluate your corporate culture and introduce elements that benefit your EVP.
What exactly is corporate culture? Corporate culture relates to how employees and managers interact with each other outside of business operations and transactions. It extends further than simple interactions and into the views and practices of your company. Your business should have a defined corporate culture and your employees should exemplify and contribute to expanding and growing the culture within your company.
Ways to Add to Corporate Culture to Enhance EVP While Many Continue to Work from Home
While many of our employees spend little to no time in the office, there are still many ways in which employers can continue to add and enhance corporate culture which will enhance EVP.
Time Away from Home/Office
To step out of the norm and enhance EVP, a benefit you may want to consider for your employees is an allowance to spend a night out of town. With the shift to work-from-home, many employees may start to feel trapped or cooped up in their homes. They may not use vacation time to leave their homes and with winter approaching, there are less opportunities and desire for time outdoors. If employees are given an allowance for a night out of their homes, they can have a break from their home/office and take some much-needed time to increase their mental health. Many of us had to cancel flights and vacations last year and we did not get an ‘actual’ holiday. Giving your employees a night to go to a different town (or even the same town) might help them feel like they had an ‘actual’ holiday.
Schedule Team Building Activities
For many employees who started a new job during COVID times, they may not feel as connected to their colleagues as those who started before the pandemic. With many employees working from home or having to physically distance themselves while in the office, they may feel that it is harder to form bonds with their colleagues. A fun way to build corporate culture is to schedule team building activities such as a game of Kahoot! or a JackBoxTV party game. These games are easily accessible on a computer, phone, or tablet and employees can take time to get to know their colleagues and let loose (HR tip – make sure you set some ground rules and make sure everything is safe for work!).
Address Mental Health Issues
With the proposed legislation of Bill 27, we want to emphasize how much impact corporate culture can have on mental health. One way you can ensure that Mental Health is at the forefront of your culture is to create guidelines and propositions that reinforce work-life balance and demonstrate boundaries. For example, on weekends and evenings, employees must turn on their out-of-office notifications. And create reasonable expectations for turnaround time on email responses and project deadlines.
Hybrid Work
Yes, we are talking about hybrid work again. We cannot emphasize enough how much of an impact hybrid work can have on your corporate culture and EVP. Incorporating hybrid work into your culture can create a large impact on EVP. Given the changes the pandemic has created in workplaces, you want to ensure that you are keeping up with the times. You can read more about hybrid work here.
Not sure where to start? That is where we come in! If you are looking for ways to enhance corporate culture and evaluate EVP, contact CulturedHR today. We can get you started and support you along the way.
