How to cultivate Culture of Engagement in the Workplace

Company culture is one of the most important things when comparing different companies. Today I would like to tell you a bit more about our culture at CoverWallet and how I see the culture in the organization it has evolved with working remotely.

A crucial aspect to keep any organization healthy is open transparent communication, focused on people. We can’t forget we all come with different backgrounds, we have different stories, and the way we communicate and how we approach our colleagues are all key to employee wellbeing.

In the past few years of working in our multicultural office environment, I have learned a lot, encountered various issues, and met many different points of view. We believe it’s crucial for a company to understand what people really need to be able to grow and the ultimate impact it has for business.

Daily communication with colleagues from all over the world requires high adaptability, empathy, and knowledge of perfect timing — while delivering any message. Certainly, you need to remember about deadlines for projects, holidays based on location, and any other aspect that could influence the message to ensure that the communication reaches its intended audience with the right tone and timing.

Another important factor in organizational culture is everyday gestures towards an employee. It might be something that seems natural, but make an effort in a busy business environment to engage as you would in person. It’s easy to miss it, but it’s essential for employee’s wellbeing, therefore I encourage you to look into detail in your relationships with people. For sure there is something you can do to facilitate a positive employee work environment.

While emotional support between the manager and an employee is important, colleague to colleague bonds also promote a healthy workplace. Fostering positive relationships is a part of strong leadership where people trust each other, give feedback, and are not afraid to innovate. At CoverWallet, we created affinity groups, where people with the same interest can share their time and experience. A few examples are hiking groups, event enthusiasts, or zero waste activists. These groups often come together for discussion, learning, and self-development practices. It facilitates communication and team bonding over time.

Another way to get people together is to schedule regular coffee calls between employees who don’t work on the same projects on a daily basis. It’s normal that not everyone has the availability to join, although I believe it’s a good idea to create a space for chatting and having a few sips of coffee while seeing your colleagues.

It’s important to establish a positive culture for communication from the very start. From the first message, any person who joins the company can see what type of communication is promoted at CoverWallet. We are casual, direct, we care to share our experiences with each other and we like to receive constructive feedback.

One more element of the culture is expressing appreciation, mentioning colleagues after the project is over by managers, by teammates. I see how little gestures can change the large picture of the organization.

At CoverWallet, we create an engaging environment so our team members can participate in our company events. We have organized our events around five pillars. These pillars always have an external Master of Ceremonies, who does not belong to the People & Talent team that initiates and coordinates activities related to that theme: :

1. Focus on Technology, where we organize events like hackathons, code-katas, tech talks, and demo days.
2. We understand the value of giving back therefore we stand for Fairness of volunteering actions of our team. We usually organize book donations or food donations.
3. Our team has a sharp startup vibe, we could not forget about Fun. We celebrate on various holidays and occasions. We organize Kids days, Halloween Costume Competition and with the remote work mode, we have organized Curious Mug Contest, the Best Working Station, or even the Best Working Buddy at home.
4. To balance our office lifestyles we encourage employees to choose any physical exercise, to follow any Fitness activity to keep them healthy. Not once we promote stretching at home or in the office and we try to highlight wellness day by day.
5. The last “F” stands for Food, because that’s what our team gets crazy about! We love to share a meal, explore new flavours, and talk about it. Although we share recipes and photos of our best dishes, that’s the part we all miss working remotely now. We can’t wait to share and debate while having a paella all together.

If you would like to get to know our culture better, connect with us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/coverwallet_es, there, we share activities and everyday life of the CoverWallet team.

Stay safe & healthy!