Is it possible to strengthen your organizational culture during challenging times? This is how Prisma Medios de Pago made it.

Written by María Eugenia Raffaele

The abrupt changes experienced during 2020 led companies to modify the way they operated in order to adapt to the new normal. For many of them, having most of their employees performing daily tasks remotely represented a challenge they needed to tackle while simultaneously learning a new way of working. Not surprisingly, the context put the strength of worldwide organizational cultures to the test.

However, some companies already had a strong organizational culture before the arrival of COVID-19. This allowed them to design cultural plans that helped them to take care of their employees and achieve greater commitment and connection among them. Thus, they not only ensured the continuity of their businesses but also became stronger during the pandemic.

This is the case of Prisma Medios de Pago, Argentina’s leading technology company in payment methods.  During challenging times, they were able to successfully increase motivation and deepen the development of a digital culture based on recognition and feedback. Their secret? A well-defined cultural strategy that enhanced transformation and the use of technology to increase relationships among their team members.

Transformation as a brand

Prisma’s transformational journey has an essential component: they understood that an organizational culture becomes stronger when talents are at the center. Bearing this in mind, they decided to transform their training programs by implementing talent management training for 100% of their leaders. At the same time, the company supported these initiatives by strategically establishing bonds and affiliating with academic institutions and entrepreneurs to boost people’s professional development and attract new talent profiles. This is just a small fraction of the many actions they took to accomplish a true cultural “mindset” change.

How to turn a crisis into an opportunity?

Determined to continue their transformation, Prisma designed a cultural strategy to face emerging challenges. “The focus was to ensure the well-being of our people and their families first, and then adapt the processes and tools to continue providing unique experiences to our employees at homes,” recalls Mariana Rivas, Head of Culture & Communication.

This is how last year’s uncertain months were the ideal framework to reinvent their recognition program by relying on StarMeUp, a digital platform that helped them not only create a culture that promotes deep connections among colleagues, but also creates space to continue together and be motivated.

Promoting a strong digital culture thanks to technology

“We found that with the pandemic and the home office context, we had a great opportunity to enhance the culture of recognition. So the Wow! program was born, to highlight behaviors and attitudes that enhance our values.“, Says Florencia García, Employee Experience Analyst.

This new program was a result of the help provided by StarMeUp. As a digital platform that connects people and promotes daily behaviors among teams through recognition, it helped Prisma to reinforce everyday actions in the company. “StarMeUp allowed us to incorporate a digital tool to promote recognition in a virtual context,” says Florencia García.

Wow! focuses on Prisma’s value of effective communication. At the beginning of 2020, the Communication and Culture team began to outline a series of actions to promote a culture of recognition and, at the same time, highlight the behaviors and practices that reflected the transformation they were seeking.

As isolation preventive measures became more restrictive in March 2020,  Prisma implemented new strategies to stay connected and provide support to its collaborators. Accompanied by the StarMeUp Customer Success team, they worked on a Good Practices Approach and a plan that flowed naturally and consistently month after month.

Take it further

With the goal of requesting / providing weekly feedback on the horizon, they began to take mass communication actions through their internal channels, organized workshops on how to receive, send and write constructive feedback and even implemented a QR in each training so that facilitators received immediate feedback on their performance. The result? The development of a culture of feedback that accelerated even in times of pandemic.

Even the HR processes were transformed through the implementation of performance models that use StarMeUp inputs to create periodic reports that are sent to the leaders of each team. These reports include the rate of participation within the platform – such as the number of sent / received stars, the involvement of each area, a follow-up report on the evolution of these indicators throughout time, and data on their company daily dynamics. All of this provides end-to-end visibility and enables HR to ensure the success of every strategy they implement.

A stronger digital culture

The activity registered on the platform during the lockdown reached record levels of active users (who entered at least during that period) and participation sending recognition. Far from being just data, these numbers reflect that the high commitment employees feel towards Prisma and its culture, strengthened during critical times.

Relationships also increased during those months, showing that an organization can remain and even be closer and united in difficult times if it has a well-designed cultural plan and the right digital tools to carry it out.

During the lockdown, Prisma set out to promote a feedback culture that would help them follow their transformational roadmap, adding a communicational alignment channel that promoted professional growth through the monitoring of objectives and results.

The consistency of their actions over time has consolidated the habit of giving and receiving feedback, which leads us to affirm that Prisma’s goal of having a culture of ongoing feedback has been achieved.

The valuable experience of Prisma Medios de Pago

A strong cultural plan powered by the right technology can engage employees, excite them, and show them how important they are to the company, thus avoiding the potential disconnection with one another or with the company. “The  first step to build a strong digital culture is to turn our attention to the people who make up the organization and develop a growth-mindset – this is key to achieve our goals,” said Patricio Marzialetti, Head Of Talent & Culture.