Culture vulture

Urban dictionary: ‘A culture vulture is a person who adopts something from a different community and makes it their own.’ Is internal communication becoming a culture vulture?

Fed up at 50

There is a midlife crisis in workplaces everywhere. There are millions of over 50s who are economically inactive and are unwilling to return because they are not understood or supported at work. Are internal communicators unwittingly colluding with other organisational functions to create and promote workplace cultures which are toxic for the over 50s, because we don't make the effort to properly understand them?

Left luggage

As the new year begins the pandemic is far from over and there is a naive and misplaced optimism that there will be some rapid improvement and a return to normality. The cruel reality is that the first nine months of 2021 are likely to be every bit as challenging as the last nine months of 2020. What should internal communicators be planning for and should asking ‘why’ more often be our new year’s resolution?

Voice Only

When did it suddenly become compulsory for remote workers to be ‘on camera’? Constantly being visible on camera is proven to be stressful and unproductive. We need to establish and communicate clear rules about how employees should interact in remote working organisations, to create healthy workplace cultures that are fit for a post pandemic world.

Living at work

We aren’t working at home, we are living at work. Virtual presenteeism amongst remote working employees is on the rise driven by a paranoia to be seen to be always ‘at work’ and fuelled by the rise of employee surveillance technology. It’s stressful, and internal communicators have responded with a barrage of mental health and wellbeing communication, but should we have been focusing on creating remote-first organisational cultures instead?

Paradise Lost

In the wake of the pandemic is your organisational culture an Eden destroyed or a Hell vanquished? For internal communicators tasked with helping organisations balance the needs of employees and the demands of leadership to establish a new workplace Eden, there may be some big challenges to come.

Values are go go…..

Are your organisational values more ‘no’ than ‘go’? Is a lack of understanding about what your values really mean keeping your organisation firmly on the starting block when they should be helping you win the race?