What does it take to build a positive company culture?
Disruption in the workforce has been going on for too long to write off as just a temporary thing. The hiring marketplace is changing, and workers are the ones with the power now. The Great Resignation was kicked off by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the reasons workers cite for retiring or changing jobs aren’t always related to remote work policies or vaccination requirements. Company culture is under a magnifying glass.
Times of crisis inspire people to take stock of their lives, and lately people are asking themselves, if I’m spending a third of my day at work, why should that be at a workplace that doesn’t make me feel valued?
We sat down with professionals from across the industry and asked them what they do to make their workplaces more supportive to workers, and how to build that kind of positive culture elsewhere. Yes, your fears are correct, raising salaries is part of it, but it’s not the only part.
“People are always like, what do young professionals value? Just being heard,” said Meg Ryan, an account executive at Emerald Document Imaging in New York. “A lot of people think company culture is just like, having puppies come into the office. But, I think it’s more just being heard if there’s an issue.”
Stacey Sujeebun, director of marketing communications at Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., agrees: “For business transformation to really be impacted, you need to inspire a culture that is innovative and allows positive communication throughout the organization. Not just top-down, but bottom-up too.”
Even as simple a step as “listen to your employees” can be hard for an organization to achieve if that hasn’t been the company culture up to this point. If employees don’t feel that their concerns will be heard, or worse, fear of retribution for speaking up, change won’t happen. Companies need to encourage upper-level management to model constructive responses to feedback, and find low-pressure, ideally anonymous, ways for employees to speak up.
“A lot of times, employee surveys are the best way to go,” said Lauren Winans, chief executive officer and principal consultant with Next Level Benefits, a company that helps organizations assess problems with their workplace cultures and fix them. She says the key is to survey the people who experience that culture at all levels, not just the top.
“Leadership sometimes has a rosier view of what the company is, how it’s operating, and how much employees like working there,” said Winans. “They’re not as in tune to the lower levels in the organization and how they’re perceiving the company.”
Josie Heskje, director strategic marketing, office equipment group, GreatAmerica Financial Services, said, “The real thing is how do things really get done in an organization? How do people treat each other? How do we treat our customers? The stories, the unwritten rules, the things that get noticed. It’s really how the organization reacts and responds to great news, as well as crisis.”
Employees acutely recognize the difference between real progress and band-aid fixes. If the same problems arise again and again, they can see that either someone’s not listening or someone’s not changing.
“So many organizations put the cart before the horse,” said Konica Minolta’s Sujeebun. “They say, ‘this is what we intend to do.’ You can say something, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true. It’s not just one touchpoint. You can’t just put your corporate strategy out there, and that’s it. It’s about having a roadmap and enabling people to feel that they can be part of that vision.”
Next Level’s Winans categorizes workplace culture reforms as either philosophical or tactical. While the philosophical side certainly has value, it is vital to focus on an organization’s mission and vision, and make sure the workplace culture matches that. Tactical changes provide the most immediate benefit to front-line workers.
“All your processes, practices, the way you treat employees, the benefits you offer them, the way you pay them, these are all different opportunities to flex the culture muscle,” she said. “Show them, ‘here’s who we are.'”
Tactical changes include initiatives such as hiring more workers so your existing staff can take their PTO and not be swamped with tasks when they come back. Others include evaluating compensation, perhaps recognizing when a worker is taking on more responsibility and moving them from hourly to salaried, or increasing wages across the board to stay competitive.
After decades of historically flat wages in the U.S., the labor shortage has finally prompted some long-overdue upward movement on income for workers outside the executive suite, and a wise company will bring wages back in line with productivity instead of potentially eroding its workplace culture and morale by insisting on paying workers less than they’re worth. Skilled workers were never as replaceable as stingy employers liked to pretend they were, and today’s labor market is no time to keep pretending otherwise.
And that goes for every department, not just sales, cautioned Emerald’s Ryan. “Sales gets a lot of recognition, but it really is a team effort. That’s what makes an organization successful. Not ‘everyone gets a trophy,’ but ‘we did this as a team and we won.’”
“It’s the difference between recognition and appreciation,” added GreatAmerica’s Heskje. “GreatAmerica has an annual awards show where we recognize our top talent, our outstanding achievers. It’s a wonderful event, and everyone looks forward to it.”
A workplace with a positive culture wouldn’t expect overnight success from its workers, so we can’t expect culture to change overnight either. What matters to employees is seeing their employer recognize what needs to change and making a visible, sustained effort to change it. Even if things seem dire, with staff departures and unsatisfied workers eyeing their own exits, transparently making efforts to change can count for a lot.
“If they know you’re working to improve culture, then they’re more likely to stick around to see what that looks like, as opposed to jumping ship,” said Next Level’s Winans. “There’s a generational perspective at play here. It’s a slower process for some companies to understand transparency. Employees can see which companies embrace change and which are more resistant.”
Failure is a key here too. “It’s important that we allow our teams to fail and learn from it,” said Konica Minolta’s Sujeebun. “What have you learned? What are you going to take away from this?”
Emerald’s Ryan emphasized the need to be open minded. “No matter where anyone is on the totem pole, culture is important to let everyone have a voice and feel like they’re actually being listened to,” she said. “I love those roundtable discussions that we have. We lay out our problems. Where does the communication drift? It’s a way to recognize when we’re doing a good thing but also face the problems.”
Once an employer accepts that the relationship between workplace and worker is a two-way street, it’s easier to understand how to keep employees happy. Employers need to simply put themselves in their employees’ shoes.
“People are asking, how do I find a calling, not just a job? They’re looking at what kind of environment is going to enable their success,” said GreatAmerica’s Heskje. “It’s really fun when you get to talk to one of our new hires, and they say, ‘I feel like I’ve come home.’ That’s where you get that win-win.”
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