Maintaining company culture is set to be one of the biggest challenges for businesses and HR leaders in 2021, according to research*.

Over two fifths (43%) of HR leaders said keeping a strong company culture alive will be their biggest challenge in 2021, as their organisations continue to work virtually and develop new hybrid working arrangements.

“Company culture is absolutely key to employee motivation and business performance, so it’s not surprising that HR leaders are thinking about it. This year, many have focused on the fun stuff – virtual games, gifts and surprises – but this is only part of the picture and organisations need to see every employee interaction as an opportunity to forge new hybrid working cultures.

“Given hybrid working is here to stay, delivering a consistent digital experience for employees regardless of location should be top of the list. This will require HR to think more strategically about how to bring the physical and digital elements of the workplace together and look at how each employee touchpoint can help to capture, foster and embed organisational culture.” Comments Ivan Harding, CEO & Co-Founder at Applaud.

In addition to keeping the company culture alive, HR leaders noted a number of other key challenges they’ve experienced in shifting to a digital employee experience during the pandemic: not being able to notice when employees are struggling with their mental health as easily (31%), onboarding employees remotely (24%) and keeping up with a very high level of questions and requests (21%).

Research from Applaud*