Global companies with frontline employees scattered across numerous locations or facilities may find it difficult to create a sight line across geography. Yet feeling connected to their peers in other countries—and aligned with the overall vision and success of the company—can boost engagement and build collective pride. Here are five ways to help the world feel a little smaller for hourly employees.
There’s power in diversity of perspective and experience, and that’s one of the strengths of a global workforce. At the same time, we want to align employees across the world with a shared sense of purpose and values that guide their day-to-day work. To do that, help them see how their individual efforts support the company's global vision and its success.
If your leadership team, and possibly the communications team, are based in the U.S., it’s easy for internal communications to become US-centric. To unite employees around the world, you need to give visibility to the people, projects and news of other countries. For instance, if you have an employee publication, be sure to include a mix of content across geography.
Create visibility for hourly employees around the world and celebrate their contributions. That doesn't have to mean a professional photo or video shoot. We often shoot video remotely, and even use iPhone photography at times. What we lose in production values we gain in recognition for those individuals and human connections for employees across silos and location.
Find opportunities for people to work together across geography on issues that are important to your culture. If you have an employee publication, you might create an editorial board of employees in different countries. Or you might build global teams to collaborate on cultural issues like sustainability and DE&I, or on business challenges, like reducing the time spent in meetings.
For example, if frontline teams have worked with continuous improvement methods to solve a manufacturing issue, create visibility for their results. Not only does this celebrate the team that developed that solution and their contributions to the company's success, it also shares useful best practices. A solution that worked in one location might be helpful for another.
