03 Feb 2020

How to create a sense of community in multinational organisations with social wellbeing at its core

There is nothing more important than the health and wellbeing of your employees. For every company, it’s vital to create a culture where employees feel safe, valued, appreciated, and where their wellbeing is supported.

But for multinational companies, creating a sense of community is always a challenge. Ensuring that company culture extends to all offices and all countries is no easy task. There is, however, a way.

Being consistent

To provide an example, let’s look at employee benefits and how multinational companies can administer them across multiple countries.

First and foremost, the benefits offered to your employees should be based on your company values. Let’s say, for example, one of your company values is the understanding that, while the work employees do is important, what they do outside work is equally important to their wellbeing. As a result, you decide to offer your employees’ benefits that support their wellbeing.

In order to implement a successful benefits strategy in a multinational organisation a global-but-local approach is required. The overarching theme of your benefits is based on your company values (in this case, employee wellbeing) and is globalised and extended to all countries and offices. However, the specifics of the benefits are localised, depending upon the country.

In this example, we can see consistency carried across all markets, based on the company values. A consistent message helps align employees, regardless of location, around a central idea, which contributes to creating a sense of community.

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Read more about how to bring together benefits for an internationally dispersed workforce.

What techniques do other organisations use to support their international employees? Find out by using rebaLINK, our networking and due diligence platform.

Contact the Associated Supplier to discuss how to build an international workplace community.

The one common thread

Across offices and countries, your company values are the only constant, and they play an integral role in shaping your company culture. Therefore, to create a sense of community in a multinational organisation, you must reinforce your company values at every opportunity.

“Determine what behaviours and beliefs you value as a company and have everyone live true to them. These behaviours and beliefs should be so essential to your core, that you don’t even think of it as culture” - Brittany Forsyth, VP of HR, Shopify.

Creating community through unity

To create a sense of community, first, you must communicate and align employees with your company’s values. To do this, you must show employees that what they do matters. Help employees “connect the dots” and see that what they do has value.

As we suggest in our blog 4 tips for creating a culture where employees thrive, organisations would be wise to find ways to help their employees understand and practice the company’s core values. One way to do this is to make it part of employee onboarding. During the onboarding process, employees should be given ways to understand the company’s core values, and they should try to personalise those values in a way that resonates with them.

Regardless of location, regardless of country, employees who align themselves with the company values, and who feel part of a community where they feel valued, appreciated and supported, are more engaged and more connected to the organisation.

“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” - author Helen Keller.

This article is provided by Benify.