How Technology Can Help You Drive Culture

Do technology and culture mix? There’s an ongoing narrative suggesting that they don’t – anxiety over the role of technology in replacing workers and concerns that automation & increased remote working will erode human connection in the workplace put technology and culture at odds.

Is there merit, though, in the argument that technology could in fact enhance culture, rather than replace it? Culture, at its core, is about how we do things, how we interact and how we treat each other, and leveraging technology to support stronger interactions could improve communication, reduce friction and scale leadership.

Here are five ways that your tech stack could improve your culture:

Providing better, more frequent feedback. For environments to thrive, leaders must understand what’s really happening inside their organisations, especially when they’re not around. Traditional engagement surveys hold some value, but they often fail because they’re too infrequent, too generic and too slow – by the time they’re conducted and analysed, the feedback is already out of date.

Frequent, AI-powered pulse surveys, combined with NLP and behavioural analytics, can provide real-time insights into how employees feel about their work and their environment, while reducing the disruption a weighty engagement survey entails. By analysing free text, open ended feedback for trends and patterns, new tools can call leaders’ attention to bottlenecks, points of stress and areas of concern.

For those on the Microsoft Suite, the Viva module can help managers to spot burnout risks by analysing meeting load, email volume and work patterns, allowing proactive action and preventing issues before they occur.

Using video for scalable connection. As more of us work in remote and hybrid environments, we’re recognizing that text-based communication, whether via email or IM, is less than ideal for building relationships and fostering connection. Video helps us bridge that gap by making interactions more human, and especially for those in large organisations, can allow connection on a larger scale.

Welcome videos from leaders in preboarding and onboarding, for example, along with interactive learning modules created by key colleagues can speed up the rate of integration for new hires. When communicating important messages, leaders can use recorded video for asynchronous updates that still feel personal across different timezones or working patterns.

It’s only a matter of time, too, before AI-generated videos are accurate and customizable enough to make leadership communication feel genuinely personal at scale. Although AI messaging is pretty easy to spot right now, we’re in the very early days of it and the pace of improvement is rapid.

Automating away friction. There’s an old, simple concept that potential minus friction equals performance. It’s also true the main sources of frustration for many people about their work are the things that get in the way of them doing their jobs. While many express valid concerns that automation and AI will cause downsizing at scale in the workforce, there’s a counter-argument that says the right technology can eliminate unnecessary friction and allow Biotech teams to focus on the things they thrive on – innovation and impact.

AI-powered scheduling can reduce calendar conflicts. Automated workflow tools like Zapier and Notion can reduce repetitive tasks, and by decreasing administrative work, the right systems can allow people to focus their energy and effort on the creative tasks that are uniquely within their skillset. Automating unnecessary tasks should lead to reduced frustration too.

Like many things in the technology sphere, these tools are not yet refined enough to be seamless, but forward-looking companies are already using them to make their people more productive than ever before.

Tailored AI coaching, support and education. An area that’s gathering real pace and showing exciting progress is in AI driven coaching and learning. Instead of standard, centralized training programmes, companies can now provide tailored development plans that are optimized for the learning style, experience level and desired outcomes of each employee.

AI bots can provide real-time feedback and coaching on communication, decision making, leadership, sales and scientific strategy. Imagine having one of the world’s sharpest medicinal chemists in the room with you while solving a tough compound design problem – if you set up your bots in the right way, you’ll get at least some of the effect of that.

Adaptive learning platforms like Coursera and LinkedIn learning can adjust the content they provide based on learner’s progress, and AI-powered mentoring connects employees to the right experts, both internal and external, accelerating their career growth. Unilever are just one company who have developed an implemented an advanced learning system with these features, and they’ve seen noticeable increases in engagement and retention as a result.

Reward & recognition, reinforced by AI. Employee recognition is one of the most effective drivers of engagement that there is, but many companies don’t use it effectively or consistently. Recognition programmes often encounter managerial bias, lack of visibility and inconsistency, and therefore lose their impact. Using technology like Kudos to ensure appreciation is distributed appropriately, identify moments worthy of mention and make peer recognition easy all lead to more effective praise.

The long and short of it is this: culture is built around people, not technology. But judicious use of tech can amplify your efforts and make your culture stronger, more inclusive and more effective.

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