In corporate environments, there’s a lot of thought given to making remote employees feel like they’re connected with their colleagues at the headquarters. In some companies there are no headquarters so everyone is working remotely; there’s tools to bring them together and make them feel connected as one organization. This is easy when it’s digital or document work, but what happens when it’s an organization like a restaurant chain?
Currently restaurants start to splinter off from the chain and the individuals in each branch start feeling like their branch is the most important. They don’t spend time to get to know the members of the other branches so even though it’s part of a chain, it’s essentially independent.
How do companies try to overcome this?
Gatherings / parties
- Restaurants have to close
- Hard to schedule things for people’s personal time; especially when F&B hours are long
- Bonding occurs but only for a short while; it’s not ongoing
Newsletters
- Not interactive, one-way flow of information
- Requires employees to create the content and disseminate
Facebook group or online group / corporate intranet
- Requires effort on the employee
- SMEs don’t have the infrastructure for this so people will need to be on Facebook. A blur of professional and personal lives there.
Send personnel from HQ to each branch
- Only the HQ people bond and connect with folks across the branches
- Not organic
What companies create solutions to foster employee culture in this scenario?