Today, developing an innovative corporate culture is one of the most important goals for both IT organizations and other companies. We understand that this target is quite challenging, especially when we consider the negativities experienced around the world in the last two years, especially after the pandemic.
Let's leave aside the hardness of developing a strong IT culture and try to understand what the most common mistake is. A primary reason many companies struggle to establish a culture and fail to see a positive outcome on investment is believing that training employees on business goals is sufficient to provide a strong cultural framework. Of course, company employees must first be trained on objectives in order to understand and adopt this culture, and this is a good starting point. But this foundation alone is not enough. There is important work to be done to maintain a strong culture, especially in today's hybrid work environment.
Let's examine the 5 key elements needed to create an innovative and sustainable IT culture.
1) Communication
Communication is both very important and difficult for companies. Especially when we consider universal companies, it is inevitable that these structures, which have tens of thousands of employees in different parts of the world, have difficulties in communication. However, it is very important for IT leaders to be able to communicate with all teams, make statements about projects and targets when appropriate, and instill confidence in them.
2) Trust
One of the most important building blocks of a positive IT culture is, of course, a sense of trust. In order to create this, it is necessary to make sure that the employees understand their place and purpose in the company well, and to ensure that they adopt the mission and goals of the company. In addition, IT leaders should be able to understand the problems of the employees, the factors that put them under stress and their own business goals and a relationship of trust should be established in this way. Once everyone understands their role and feels that the IT leader is eager to help them, the resulting corporate culture will be much stronger.
3) Empathy
For IT leaders who have reached the end of their career journey and have climbed the ladder of success, it is not always easy to go back and remember the days when they just started. However, managers who cannot empathize with their employees, fail to be humble when necessary and listen to others, unfortunately, cannot be "leaders" in real terms.
If a leader wants his employees to collaborate with them and get the job done, it's essential in a hybrid work environment that employees' own spaces are respected. The leader should make them feel that he/she is not overpowering, but that he/she really wants to listen and understand the difficulties and needs of the employees. A good way to do this would be to train employees on the necessary topics. Being a leader who can be a part of the solution, instead of being a manager who only gives jobs to his employees and controls the results, will always contribute to the sustainability and robustness of the IT culture.
4) Flexibility
Every team in the company structure should be in harmony with the main goals and missions of the corporation in general. However, it is quite usual for the teams to have a functioning within themselves. That's why it's important to get feedback from each team to know what works and what doesn't. It may be impossible to communicate with all employees individually and understand what they are going through, but in this case it will be useful to stay in touch with the teams. Employees are always ready to show flexibility and change, and it is the responsibility of leaders to manage this correctly.
5) Accountability and Responsibility
This last item is really important for building a strong IT culture. How does real responsibility arise? If a leader manages to instill a sense of pride and purpose in his employees, then employees truly embrace their work and begin to take responsibility. In order for an employee to have a sense of responsibility, it is essential that the leader understands the whole work and objectives, and adopts the company and its culture.
Building a solid IT culture is more of a journey than a one-shot job. This journey begins with trust, empathy and humility. Another issue that we frequently underlined in this article was the importance of the responsibilities of IT managers. Bilginç IT Academy has been providing training to professionals who have filled IT management positions in industry-leading companies in different parts of the world so that they can be more successful in their duties. Be sure to check out our popular tutorials below! To get detailed information about the trainings, just click on them.
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