Sabina is the Director of Team & Talent Development at DocuWare.
She oversees the company’s global recruitment and is involved in the building and management of HR strategy, leadership, and corporate culture.
THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY, LIKE MANY OTHERS, IS IN THE MIDST OF A HIRING CRISIS AND ‘GREAT RESIGNATION’.
Hiring new talent and retaining existing employees has never been more important. Culture is one of the main reasons employees join a company and choose to stay. Without a good corporate culture, employees would just be a number and ultimately look to move to another company where they feel like a valued part of a team.
But when we talk about culture, it isn’t just staff socials and offering tea and coffee throughout the day. The corporate culture I see employees pushing for now – and rightly so – is the likes of greater diversity and inclusion in the workplace. That’s why now more than ever, fostering and maintaining a positive company culture can be the make or break for those of us working in the competitive tech space.
What helps build this positive culture that every company needs? The answer is diversity and decency
Diversity in the workplace across many levels is the building block of a positive culture. Only through diversity can we reduce unconscious bias and create a culture that everyone wants to belong and contribute to. Diversity brings insight and increases Emotional Intelligence. Harnessing these learnings leads to understanding how to provide a more positive and supporting environment for employees, offering more empathetic customer service and maybe even developing tech products that better answer buyer’s needs.
At DocuWare, one of our core values is “Decency” and by this, we mean that we are respectful, helpful and reliable when working with customers, partners and colleagues. We talk about this during our recruiting and onboarding process, and it is always met with interest and positivity. This is something we live every day at work, and I see the positive effect it has on our employees. We have employees who have been with us for over 25 years – this is unusual in the tech industry where there is so much movement. This positive culture that we build from within our organisation drives our progression in the world around us and even in the products and services we deliver to our customers.
Culture is far bigger than one person or one department
We should all be culture champions and this way we can all continue to challenge inequalities. As culture champions, we must be conscious of our own behaviour, language and actions and work on reducing our own biases. We must hold a mirror up to ourselves and review how we interact with other groups.
It is the responsibility of HR leaders to spread the values of the business and champion them, so they are accepted and “lived” by all. But we can all be culture champions and positively foster relationships and environments where all employees can feel valued and grow professionally and personally.
