As communicators, everything we do can be traced back to one thing: the desire to make human connection. At-work culture is, at its heart, a sense of connectedness across an organisation, the feeling of being valued, listened to, and a part of something greater.
That’s the ethos at the heart of the opening episode of Season 9 of The Internal Comms Podcast. Andy Goram, founder of Bizjuicer, joined Katie Macaulay to discuss how to create a culture with sticking power and how to squeeze all the good stuff out of your company culture.
Here are a few insightful gems about building from the inside-out from Andy and Katie’s conversation:
Lead with empathy, but not to a fault
A connected, human-first culture means supporting each other and giving advice, especially as leaders. “I think when you genuinely care about the people you are lucky enough to lead, then it’s your absolute duty to help them be the best that they can be,” Andy explains. “That means praising them when they do amazing things. But it also means having the tough conversations, calling them out.”
Happy colleagues bring in good business
“‘Happy employees equal happy customers equal happy shareholders’ is an old message, but one that should never be forgotten,” Andy claims. When rebranding the UK’s biggest retail bingo operator, Gala Bingo, he found the most telling indicator of colleague satisfaction came from customers. “If the employees weren’t happy, the customers knew, and they would rip you to shreds when you walked into the bingo hall.”
There’s so much more to a simple “Have a nice day!”
Working in hospitality in the US, Andy says he lifted the curtain on a common US parting shot. He told Katie: “Our impression over here of ‘Have a nice day’ was that it was just a programmatic response of someone who didn’t really mean it.” But Andy thinks the Americans have it right, using it as a way to really connect with customers. “The really cool thing is – this is an attempt to make a connection, right? And make a genuine connection.” Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from the optimists across the pond.
Listen to the full episode of Katie’s conversation with Andy
