You might find yourself involuntarily rolling your eyes and air-quoting when you hear the term “company culture.” However, whether you like it or not, your company already has one.
What is company culture?
So, what exactly is company culture? It encompasses the collective elements that define your company’s human context, including workplace beliefs, core values, shared practices, and attitudes and behaviors.
As a leader, your personal beliefs surrounding honesty, trust, quality, respect, as well as your attitudes towards credit, ethics, authority (both internal and external), work practices, safety, employee engagement, and transparency play a pivotal role in shaping your company culture.
Why is company culture important?
Research shows that happy and engaged employees are 18% more productive than their less engaged counterparts (Gallup, 2013). Companies with a positive culture experience fewer safety incidents, fewer quality defects, increased customer loyalty, and lower employee turnover rates.
A company’s culture will evolve naturally, even if you do nothing. However, if left unattended, it may grow in a direction that differs from the vision you have for your business. Therefore, it is crucial to take control and guide the direction of your company culture.
Changing your company’s culture.
Once a company culture has taken root, changing it becomes challenging but not impossible. Here’s a step-by-step approach to guide you through the process:
- Identify the existing culture: Gain insight into the common values, behaviors, attitudes, and underlying principles within your organization. Don’t solely rely on your own perspective; engage with your employees to understand their perceptions. Consider using an external party, such as Staffr, to conduct a survey and gather unbiased feedback from your workforce.
- Identify misalignments: Evaluate where your company culture deviates from your mission, vision, and values. Compare the survey results with your understanding of the company’s purpose and identify the gaps between the desired state and the current reality.
- Determine the necessary changes: Pinpoint the specific aspects of your business practices that influence the attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and values you seek to change. Identify tangible changes you can implement that will, in turn, affect intangible aspects such as attitudes, values, and beliefs, ultimately influencing behaviors.
- Implement the change: Recognize that change cannot be forced upon employees; instead, it requires a thoughtful approach:
- a. Communicate the benefits: Clearly articulate the positive outcomes that will result from the change. Create anticipation, build enthusiasm, and explain how the change will enhance work for everyone.
- b. Secure buy-in: Gain support from key individuals and management. Involve them in the change process to foster ownership and increase the likelihood of their support and advocacy.
- c. Set an implementation date: Allow sufficient time for explaining and reinforcing the need for change before its actual implementation.
- d. Define success: Establish key metrics to measure the effectiveness of the change. Monitor progress and celebrate milestones and successes along the way.
- e. Communicate the plan: Explain to employees why the change is necessary. Build positive associations with the change and address any concerns or discomfort they may have. Communication is paramount at this stage.
- f. Encourage feedback: Create channels for feedback and address objections and concerns. Incorporate valid feedback into the plan, demonstrating a willingness to listen and adapt.
- g. Execute the plan: Continuously address fears and concerns, maintain regular communication, and reinforce the change process.
- Regularly review progress. Schedule milestones and celebrate successes. Once a change is made, it will take time to embed it. You need to remain vigilant in making sure the change is being displayed in worker’s jobs and that they aren’t falling into old habits.
Benefits of Improving your Company’s Culture.
There are a number of proven benefits when you improve your company’s culture.
- Employee recruitment and retention. If you provide a better value proposition to potential employees, you get a better calibre of applicants who, if employed, are likely to stay longer and provide more value to your company.
- Healthy team environment. With improved workflows and decision making, a clear culture unifies your teams.
- Customer satisfaction. Improvements to your company culture provide increased levels of customer satisfaction (due primarily to your improved workforce)
- Productivity gains. As stated earlier, engaged employees show a productivity level 18% higher than those who are less engaged.
- Profitability gains. All of the above factors work together to improve your profitability.
Company Culture – where do I start?
The first step is realising there is necessary change to be made. In reading this blog, I suspect you have already reached the conclusion that you need to change something in your business. From there, you need to start working through the process as outlined above, beginning with identifying your current company culture.
Staffr’s team of experienced HR consultants and practitioners can help you take those first steps and guide you through the entire process of managing changes to your business. Feel free to drop us a line on our contact us page or give us a call on 1300 318 459 to learn more.
