Corporate communication departments often cite company culture, thinking it something that everyone feels.
They should give that a rest. We must be careful not to confuse company culture as it is expressed in the head office with a global corporate culture.
Despite the appeal of a unified corporate culture, national culture still matters more. When corporate asks people to behave in ways that are incongruent with their native culture, their requests seem unnatural and even more remote than usual.
One American HR manager once told me that when he was based in Spain, he found that people identified more as members of their union than as employees of the company. In their view, brands, names and logos come and go, but the union is forever. That sentiment may have been hard for management in the US to grasp, but for that industry in Spain, it would be stupid to ignore.
The pull of local micro cultures
Micro cultures have strong influence. Whether teams are small or large, whether they collaborate virtually or from the same location, whether they identify more strongly with sub-brands or industry verticals that are emphasized in their market – all of these can take away from the ‘one company, one culture’ message touted by corporate.
On questions of culture, a network of local communicators is in a much better position to gauge local sentiment and actual experience. Rather than just translating corporate words, localizing content shows employees that they’re valued. Localized content makes it easier to communicate the company’s aspirations. As one European business scholar told me, “adaptation is a form of respect.”
How can you build teams and processes to localize employee communications? That’s covered in my book, Localizing Employee Communications: A Handbook (XML Press/Content Wrangler 2020).
Photo credit: Peter Thomas via Unsplash
