It's been more than 3 months since COVID-19 bullied us into fully remote work environments. While we've mostly managed to settle in, relax our expectations for smooth conference calls, and developed a schedule that includes remote learning breaks, there's still work to be done leveraging digital workplaces.

For organizations that relied upon in-person collaboration and relationship building, continuing to promote your corporate culture hasn't been easy. Those of us who have a digital workplace (modern intranet, digital employee hub, even an enterprise portal) have been able to rely upon it to help.

At Akumina, we asked a few experts for some ideas about how to continue to drive company culture using a digital workplace. Here's what they said.

Branding is key

For Church's Chicken, bright colors and a bold font is a huge part of their memorable brand. It's also an important part of their organization's culture. With franchisees, restaurant staff, and traditional knowledge workers all over the world, the intranet plays a critical role in unifying all Church's employees under a single culture.

Give your teams the best tools

One of the biggest pet peeves millennials and Gen Z-ers have is the lower quality of technology they receive at work. At Akumina, we call it The Innovation Gap.

The innovation gap is the experience you have when your personal technology is far superior to your digital workplace technology. The most successful companies acknowledge and actively avoid that gap. They provide best-in-class hardware and software, the latest versions of M365 and other applications, and more. The result is happier employees, less shadow IT, and extreme productivity.

Deliver great onboarding and offboarding experiences

We spoke with HR professionals from a variety of industries and each agreed on the importance of a great onboarding experience. On day one (or earlier), a modern intranet can provide new hires with all the information they need to start on the right foot.

Connect newbies with their teammates and their HR rep, provide computer setup instructions, and more. All on a single page, via desktop or mobile.

Search is non-negotiable

Even the most useful content is rendered useless when it's buried in a legacy intranet (a.k.a. a "content graveyard"). As we learned from Mike Gregory of BA Insight, being able to find the content that you need is crucial to employee satisfaction and success. Incorporating a powerful search tool into your digital workplace will save time, energy, and headaches.

If you're ready to create an engaging, collaborative modern intranet, digital employee hub, or enterprise portal, give us a shout and we'll get you started.