How to Improve Your Company Culture
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You know that your organization is a good place to work – you offer solid benefits, you pay your employees well over the industry average, and you even offer geographical and schedule flexibility.
So why is your turnover rate so high?
Your company culture might be to blame. Culture is an amorphous concept, one that not many people truly understand. It’s not something physical, it’s often not even measurable, so how do you know if your organization's culture is a good one? And if it’s not, how do you fix it?
Are you celebrating your employees’ successes?
Recognition is paramount to employee engagement and a good company culture. If your employees are working hard and your team or business is succeeding, you should celebrate it! Not only does it improve morale, but it can increase confidence for the employee(s) being recognized and drive them to greater success.
Properly recognizing your employees’ wins can lower turnover as well. After all, would YOU stay at a job where you felt underappreciated? Especially right now, where open positions elsewhere are readily available, and the grass can easily seem greener at the other organization.
Is your communication transparent?
A good company culture prioritizes transparent communication. If you trust your employees, being honest and transparent with them shouldn’t be an issue. Bonus.ly suggests asking “is it absolutely necessary to conceal this?" instead of " is it absolutely necessary to share this?”.
Share the challenges your organization is experiencing, instead of just the successes. Don’t attempt to gloss over or hide major issues that might arise. You have a responsibility to keep your employees updated. They have as much stake in the organization as you do, and transparent communication can increase loyalty and engagement.
Make formalized mentorship a key focus
Young or entry level employees often have questions that they don’t feel comfortable asking their supervisor or colleagues. It can be helpful and supportive to assign upper-level employees as mentors to younger staff, so they have a sounding board and formal mentorship to guide them in their career. As a bonus, having a formal mentor can increase employee retention by fostering loyalty in both the mentor and mentee. Huffpost says it best: “By providing personalized advice to a mentee, a mentor can help to ensure that employees will work through any frustrations or concerns they may have, help them build the skills they need for success, encouraging them to stay with the company and grow there for a longer period of time.”
STOP micromanaging
It used to be par for the course that a manager or supervisor would provide direct and detailed oversight on their direct reports, but times have changed. Employees want autonomy, not micromanagement.
Stepping back and giving employees space to make decisions, and more importantly, make mistakes, fosters confidence and provides learning experiences that can’t be duplicated in a classroom or training course.
How do you know if you are a micromanager? There are a few telltale signs.
Do you make your salaried employees account for every second of their workday?
Do your direct reports have to seek approval for every new task they take on?
Are you often taking projects away from your staff because you can do it “faster” or “better” yourself?
Are your employees required to Cc you on nearly every email they send?
This is just a sampling of bright red flags that may mean you are eroding your relationship with your staff by not giving them autonomy. Giving employees space to fail or succeed on their own builds trust both ways. You trust that they can handle whatever comes their way and maintain productivity, and they trust that they won’t be punished for the occasional misstep.
Prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives
DEIB stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. You may have also seen it as just DEI, which is perfectly acceptable as well. It means that not only do you have a diverse workplace in the sense of race, religion, sex, etc., but you also make sure all your employees have equitable access to resources, that they feel included in the team and organization, and that they belong.
A workplace that doesn’t value diversity, equity, inclusion, or foster belonging isn't a culture employees feel valued or safe being a part of. If you’d like to learn more about recruiting for DEIB, we have an informative article by Human Resources Director Samantha Rogers that you can read here.
Organizational culture is a topic that you can get an entire master's degree on, so we can’t cover all the details in one blog post. Suffice to say that these are just a few considerations to keep in mind, and that you should prioritize a positive, inclusive culture at all levels. If your company celebrates success while being transparent about challenges, prioritizes DEIB initiatives, provides formal mentorship opportunities, and gives your employees autonomy, you are definitely on the right track for a company culture that employees want to be a part of for the long term.
By Jessica Palmer