Top Ways to Foster a Thriving Workplace Culture
- Clare Willson
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
In our fast-paced world, your company's greatest asset isn't found on a balance sheet - it's your people. Creating a positive workplace culture is no longer a "nice-to-have", it's a must. Your company culture is the engine that helps power your business, and is the invisible thread that connects every employee to your mission, motivating them. An engaged teams drive higher productivity, lower turnover rates, and a better environment for everyone.
Understanding Workplace Culture
A vibrant company culture doesn't just spring into existence. Its built on the strong foundations of shared company values, nurtured from when employees first onboard at your organisation, shaping how employees behave and interact. A strong workplace culture empowers and unites teams, so they truly feel part of something bigger. However, keeping everyone aligned can prove tricky, especially for large or rapidly scaling organizations.
With a workforce that is increasingly remote or hybrid, companies must adapt how they build culture. Digital tools are critical in bridging those gaps, and can help ensure your employees feel connected, regardless of their location.
By leveraging the right digital tools, like an employee intranet or engagement platform, your company can significantly enhance your employee experience. These solutions can not only lay those strong foundations of a workplace culture, but help you to continually building on it, reinforcing your company values and message, allowing you to nurture those team connections so that everyone is on the same page and rooting for the same cause.
The Role of Digital Solutions
HR and Comms teams who are the silent champions of maintaining your workplace culture - and sometimes they need a helping hand. That's where smart solutions like social intranets and engagement tools come into play. From employee onboarding and tracking employee satisfaction, to knowledge management and learning, these digital workplace platforms provide the backbone companies need to align teams, reinforce their values and deliver a better employee experience.
Most effective strategies for building a better workplace culture strategy:
1. Start with Shared Purpose and Storytelling
Imagine a workplace where every employee truly understands the fundamental reason for your company's existence – not just 'what you do', but 'why you do it'. This 'why' underpins everything about your company, and your employees need understand this shared purpose in order to feel rooted in your company's journey. Cultivating this in your workplace culture takes 'storytelling' - regularly sharing compelling news / updates that illustrate your 'why' practically, making your company's purpose come alive. Your intranet's homepage and news feeds play key roles in your company's narrative, not only keeping employees informed, but highlighting achievements that personify your shared purpose. Encourage leaders to champion this through their own messaging, and have them actively participating in engaging teams.
Crucially, your intranet should provide employees with the opportunity to tell their own story, sharing their updates, feedback, and insights through group chats, employee-centric news, or personal blogs. By celebrating your employees and making them part of your narrative, you can cultivate a more engaged and workplace culture - making them feel part of your shared narrative.
2. Design Moments That Matter From Day One
First impressions matter - and your employee onboarding process is pivotal. It lays the foundation for a new employee's sense of belonging at your company, and shapes their integration into your workplace culture. This initial period is a prime opportunity to immerse new hires in your company's values, mission, and ways of working. A well-designed onboarding experience goes beyond just paperwork and logistics; it actively envelops the new team member in the very fabric of your organization, making them feel welcomed, informed, and prepared to contribute. Thoughtfully curated content and interactions during this phase demonstrate that you value their arrival and are invested in their success.
A comprehensive employee portal can play a crucial role in this process, providing a central hub for everything a new hire needs to navigate their initial weeks and months. Platforms like HUB help you create onboarding environments dedicated to new employees and moulded to their needs. With bespoke navigation, role-specific guides, and more, its the perfect platform to make new team members feel valued and part of your company's journey from Day One.
Key features include:
Personalized Onboarding Dashboards: Offering tailored task lists, introductory videos from leadership and team members, and role-specific resources to provide clarity and direction.
Structured Training Modules: Delivering essential training on company policies, processes, and the specific skills required for their role, ensuring they feel competent and confident.
Cultural Immersion Content: Sharing the company's history, values, employee testimonials, and examples of the culture in action to foster a deeper understanding and connection.
Team and Key Contact Introductions: Providing clear organizational charts, contact information, and facilitating virtual or in-person introductions to build relationships and support networks.
Automated workflows and mandatory reads: From IT setup to compliance around policies and procedures, you can easily structure the onboarding process to get employees setup faster - especially handy for remote onboarding.
By strategically leveraging an employee portal to deliver a structured, informative, and culturally rich onboarding experience from Day One, you actively set the tone for a positive employee journey. Investing in these crucial early moments can help boost new-hire retention by up to 50%, and accelerates their integration into the thriving culture you aim to cultivate.
3. Foster Connection and Open Communication
True employee engagement flourishes when barriers between teams dissolve and open lines of internal communication are encouraged. To break down silos and foster a sense of unity, dedicated group forums within your employee portal can provide spaces for employees from different departments to connect, share ideas, and collaborate on projects or common interests. These forums act as virtual water coolers, promoting informal interactions and knowledge sharing that might not happen in day-to-day tasks - and they prove crucial for remote team engagement.
Also, we recommend establishing employee recognition and kudos-sharing schemes within your organisation and your digital platforms. Actively promoting peer recognition can significantly boost morale and foster a workplace culture of appreciation, where staff can visibly see they are valued. Allowing employees to publicly acknowledge and celebrate each other's contributions reinforces positive behaviours and strengthens team bonds.
Crucially, actively seeking and valuing employee feedback is essential for understanding and improving your workplace culture. We recommend implementing regular polls and surveys within your digital workplace, to provide channels where employees can share their honest opinions and insights anonymously. Analyzing this feedback allows you to identify areas for improvement, address concerns, and demonstrate that employee voices are heard and valued, ultimately contributing to a more positive and thriving workplace culture.
4. Cultivate Growth and Wellbeing
Organizations that prioritize the development and wellbeing of their employees, experience significant upticks in both engagement and retention rates. By demonstrating a genuine care for your people's progression and overall wellness, you foster a culture of support and growth. Employee engagement platforms can be instrumental in delivering personalized learning journeys and wellbeing initiatives directly to your employees.
One key aspect of this could involve leveraging a learning management system (LMS) within your digital workplace. This allows for the creation and delivery of personalized learning paths. Simultaneously, employee wellness pulse surveys can be run anonymously to gauge employee satisfaction. Making sure you prioritise areas of your digital workplace to focus on employee growth and wellbeing ensures your employees have easy access to vital resources and opportunities, such as:
Personalized Learning Paths: Tailored development opportunities based on aspirations and skills.
Accessible Training Modules: Easy access to courses and certifications within the platform.
Wellness Resources: Pulse surveys, access to mental health and wellbeing resources, key contact information for support (both internal and external).
By seamlessly weaving together opportunities for professional development and wellbeing support within your engagement platform, you demonstrate a commitment to the long-term success and health of your employees, fostering a more engaged and resilient workforce.
5. Bridging The Gap For Remote & Hybrid Teams
In today's flexible working world, making sure our remote and hybrid teammates feel truly in the loop, not out of sight and out of mind, is non-negotiable for a thriving employee culture. It's about building bridges across distances so everyone feels connected, valued, and every bit a part of the team heartbeat. Working from home or offsite shouldn't make an employee's day more difficult - the shouldn't be barriers to accessing essential resources or being unable to communicate effectively with their team onsite. Digital tools can help breakdown those barriers and avoid the endless email chains, offering a lifeline to keeping every employee - no matter where they work - productive, happy, and feeling like they've got everything they need right at their fingertips.
Think of your central digital workplace as a virtual HQ, accessible to everyone, anywhere, anytime. Imagine seamless online access to all the vital stuff – project files, company news, even where to find the latest chat thread about everyone's cats. This instant access isn't just about getting work done; it's about feeling plugged into the flow. We're talking dedicated team spaces buzzing with ideas, where those casual connections spark, and regular online social events that bring us together, no matter the miles. It's about making sure everyone feels seen, heard, and genuinely part of our shared journey.
Essential digital tools to make this happen:
Your All-Access Digital Hub: One-stop online shop for all resources, making finding what you need a breeze for remote teams.
Team Talk Zones: Dedicated channels for focused chats and collaborative magic, ditching email overload.
Virtual Hangouts: Fun online spaces for coffee breaks, team building, and celebrating wins together.
Regular Alerts About Relevant Content: Keep teams 'in the know' with regular, inclusive news updates and dedicated alerts so staff feel connected to the bigger picture.
Your Voice Matters Feedback: Easy polls and surveys ensuring everyone, everywhere, can share their thoughts and help shape our culture.
6. Embed Culture into Your Everyday Tasks
A truly thriving workplace culture isn't a separate initiative; it's the very essence of how work gets done. Embedding culture into everyday working roles means weaving it into the fabric of your company – its processes, communications, and the tools employees use daily, like your intranet. It's about ensuring that your core values aren't just posters on a wall but are actively reflected in how teams collaborate on projects, how feedback is given and received, and how successes are celebrated.
Your intranet can be a powerful engine for this cultural integration. Imagine project workspaces where team charters explicitly outline how core company values will guide their approach and decision-making. Consider feedback tools integrated into project workflows that prompt users to frame their comments not just on task completion, but also on alignment with cultural principles like innovation or collaboration. Recognition features can go beyond celebrating employee achievements, to specifically highlight instances where people have demonstrably lived the company values in their work.
To ensure everyone stays informed and connected to the evolving cultural narrative, personalized and automated alerts can proactively notify employees about important company news, updated content that reflects cultural shifts, and crucial policy changes, ensuring everyone is kept in the loop and reinforcing a culture of transparency and shared understanding. Even seemingly mundane tools like meeting agenda templates can include prompts to briefly connect the discussion back to the company's mission or values. By intentionally designing these everyday digital touchpoints to reflect and reinforce your desired culture, you move beyond aspirational statements and create a workplace where your values are intrinsically linked to how work is accomplished.
Final Thoughts
Your journey to a truly thriving workplace culture is powered by every employee at every level. From the moment a new team member arrives, you want to be giving them a fantastic employee experience, fostering open employee communication, and ensuring your teams stay informed and connected - not matter where they work. The engaging power of HUB Intranet amplifies all this potential and more. It's more than just an employee engagement platform; it's the beating heart of your connected organization, actively cultivating team spirit and bringing your shared values to life every day. HUB can help unlock a future where everyone feels they belong, is inspired to contribute, and can truly thrive.
