Company culture is one of those buzz phrases that has been getting thrown around a lot over the past few years. While there have been many think pieces written about how to improve this ever-important, abstract metric, few companies have really hit the nail on the head and come up with real solutions. Many businesses are still trying to tout their open office plan as a benefit to their culture, even though these layouts have been shown to lower productivity and harm employee health. So how can you actually improve your company culture? Here are four ways software can boost camaraderie among your employees.
Good Software Makes Work Easier
You want your employees to bond with one another. However, you don’t want them to bond over how much they hate using your company’s internal software. Bad software wastes time and can be hugely frustrating—even for those old-timers who have figured out all the nuances of a program. Frustrated employees aren’t going to want to spend any more time than what’s necessary thinking about work. However, if your business utilizes superior software that’s efficient and easy to use, your employees won’t have to expend their energy being angry. Instead, they will be able to spend their time getting to know more about one another, which can be invaluable to lowering turnover.
Increase Collaboration
Effective software affords great collaboration between employees. This can come in many forms. Cloud ERP software is one great example of this theory in practice. Cloud ERP software essentially puts all internal company functions onto one platform that can be accessed by anyone with sufficient permissions anywhere with an Internet connection. This allows for people from different departments, or regional offices, to collaborate and access information more easily than ever before. Cloud ERP software can make even the largest companies work in a way where everyone can be on a first-name basis.
Minimize Costly Mistakes
Errors are one of the biggest buzz kills in an office. Whether it’s accidentally missing a deadline or erasing a key file, mistakes will force employees to stay late and overwork—neither of which will help build a stronger company culture. Good software can alleviate mistakes in a few ways. For companies that need to stay up-to-date on regulatory codes and rules, being non-compliant even one time can be a huge problem. Luckily, there are software solutions that can automatically update operations to reflect current regulations. This will save employees a lot of time and energy. A potential worst-case scenario for any company is losing all critical files and data. This can truly spell disaster for otherwise healthy companies, leading to layoffs and a paranoid work environment. Software is one of the best ways to combat this possibility. This is because modern software often automatically backs up to the cloud. So even if there’s a catastrophic data loss, you will be able to recover all key files from the cloud in no time at all. Your employees won’t have to feel like they’re walking on eggshells if they can rest assured that mistakes can always be reconciled.
Saved Money Can Go Back to Employees
Software often helps save companies money. It can come through optimizing or automating certain processes, or even just because software as a service often costs less than other options. No matter how you manage to save money, some of that will go back to your employees. And if they know that they will be getting bigger paychecks because of software upgrades, you can be sure that they will be happier coming to work every day.
There’s no perfect solution to improving company culture. However, if you want to make some gradual improvements, implementing better software is a great place to start.