Build corporate culture into ‘soft power’: consultant

Vietnamese businesses should re-evaluate their culture in a systematic way, turning it into "soft power" and a solid support to overcome difficulties, said Le Quang Vu, CEO of Blue C, a consultant agency in corporate culture, employee experience and internal communication.

How do you assess the current status of building corporate culture in Vietnam?

At present, Vietnamese businesses are starting to pay more attention to corporate culture, maybe because they have better awareness and understanding of it, realizing its importance after the recent difficult period they’ve been through.

However, there are many wrong approaches in building it, and these are adopted even by large companies.

Firstly, most businesses try to do it with a herd mentality. In addition, some have practiced in a non-continuous fashion.

Secondly, although enterprises have paid more attention to corporate culture, they have not yet devoted enough resources, including leaders’ time, budget and full-time personnel. Leaders’ support for and example-setting in practicing corporate culture remain limited.

It has been reported that several Vietnamese businesses have faced the headwinds and done a good job of building culture to retain employees amidst a wave of job-quitting. Can you explain the role of corporate culture in increasing employee engagement?

There is a theory about the level of employee engagement with an organization, which is the 3S (Say, Stay, Strive). "Say" means employees with high engagement will say good things about their business. "Stay" means they will stay with that organization for a long time. And "Strive" means they will strive to contribute to the development of the company.

Based on this, the first thing corporate culture does is to help create content and stories for employees to talk about the company, thereby increasing pride in the organization. That's "Say" part. Second, corporate culture will create a good working environment, close relationships, cohesion and love among members, making them want to work for the organization for a long time. That's "Stay".

When a business develops a good culture, it will help employees be themselves, offer opportunities to develop themselves and acknowledge their efforts appropriately and promptly. As a result, they will work with greater efficiency, bringing more value to the company. That’s the "Strive" aspect.

Thus, corporate culture helps increase employee engagement with the organization. It also helps the company find suitable personnel. When a business does a good job of building and spreading corporate culture, it will attract employees with values, life views and working style consistent with its culture.

Given two equivalent options in terms of job position and salary, culture becomes an advantage in attracting talent. On the other hand, culture is also "soft power" that helps retain talented people amidst more attractive salary offers.

On the other hand, the "soft power" of culture (especially in businesses with tens of thousands of employees) clearly facilitates governance, because for large organizations, just rules are not enough. Corporate culture is a necessary supplement for businesses to create more proactive, self-disciplined and effective employees.

Experts have also emphasized the role of corporate culture in promoting digital transformation of Vietnamese businesses. Would you agree?

Yes. A study by Capgemini, a global consulting company on digital transformation, found that among thousands of businesses around the world, 62% of leaders believe that culture-related issues are the biggest barriers to digital transformation. Vietnam is no exception. If we implement digital transformation without paying attention to digital culture, the possibility of failure is very high.

Digital culture has its own characteristics: always putting customers at the center; upholding the role of data and making data-based decisions; promoting innovation and creativity; flexibly adapting to market changes; and paying due importance to both internal and external cooperation.

Meanwhile, the nature of digital transformation is to change thinking and ways of organizing, operating and working to create new values on digital technology platforms. When we connect digital culture and its characteristics with digital transformation (changing thinking on technology platforms), it is easy to see the benefits that digital culture delivers.

First, it makes digital transformation faster with rapid adaptation, helping the organization become more flexible and make faster, more accurate decisions (thanks to upholding the role of data and making data-based decisions).

Second, digital culture, by putting customers at the center, will help businesses create new values that suit customer needs, providing a better experience for both customers and employees. When the employee experience is better, internal collaboration gets better, too.

Similarly, when a business flexibly adapts to external requirements, effectively exploits data, and utilizes internal resources well, these factors will interact and support each other. That is the role of digital culture. It supports the organization in transforming more quickly, flexibly and effectively.

For successful digital transformation, businesses need to invest seriously in digital culture.

Forecasts show that 2024 will be a difficult year economically. How will this affect the level of investment in digital culture and corporate culture in general?

To talk about the impact of economic difficulties on the level of investment in corporate culture, we must first consider how leaders perceive it. If leaders see corporate culture as the foundation for sustainable development of the organization, an effective governance tool or a long-term competitive advantage, it will be like an investment.

If leaders consider corporate culture merely as an internal activity or a campaign response to a request or a short-term problem, it becomes an expense. Whether we consider corporate culture an investment or an expense will determine the resources we devote to culture.

Then, in my opinion, difficulties are a driving force for development. A business without difficulties is easily stuck in one place and satisfied with what it has. When difficulties appear, we have pressure and motivation to move forward. And then, corporate culture will support solving the enterprise’s problems, helping it develop more sustainably. I think we should look and act on these lines.

What advice will you give to businesses on developing culture in 2024?

As I just said, difficulties are the best test for corporate culture. When everything is fine, it will be difficult for us to recognize the core value of corporate culture. When difficulties come, we will have the opportunity to assess what are really the core aspects to preserve, what cannot be eliminated, and what needs to be adjusted or supplemented to fit the next stage. At this time, difficulties are opportunities to realize core values.

In tough times, businesses should first re-evaluate their culture in a systematic way to see what are the core values and foundations of its corporate culture, thus turning it into soft power and a solid support to overcome difficulties.

I believe most Vietnamese businesses have great internal resources and potential. If we can unlock the key to corporate culture, build employees’ love for the company and unleash the potential of each person, the organization they love and their proud of it will grow.