Ask HN: How does your company get better?
In my company, many show little interest in improving the way we work. What processes have you seen bolster interest in such activities?
As for specifically improving the way you work, I've been in this exact problem before. A company I worked for knew that our software was lacking documentation, that we didn't have good processes in place for bringing new developers up to speed, and that some of our devops systems were really lacking. Leadership talked for 3 years about the existence of these problems. We discussed them in team meetings. Everyone knew they existed, but because there was always other work taking precedence nothing ever changed and what was broken remained broken.
If you want to make your company better and improve the way you work, start by allocating time to make your company better and improve the way you work. Whether that's an hour a day, a 2 day period every month, or a week every quarter, dedicate time specifically for internal improvements. Get the whole company involved. Mandate that other work doesn't get scheduled and take precedence, and that meetings not related to internal improvements don't interfere.
Once people see that you value internal improvements, and they see how much value those improvements can bring they'll likely be more willing to take ownership of them and invest in them as part of their routine.
With the little time we have for this work we've already achieved a lot but perhaps mostly on low hanging fruit. Many of the more substantial changes remain. People acknowledge the improvements it sadly doesn't seem to have driven any more engagement...