SMARTER leaders are beginning to realize that organizational culture isn’t just a fad — it’s everything in business. It’s the most important factor in an organization’s success. Good things happen to organizations with a healthy culture. While it is important to have a good focus on measuring results, it has been observed that only short-term achievements are gained without the right culture in place.
For years, many medium- and large-sized organizations and companies have been conducting Employee Engagement surveys whose main function is to let some people feel that they’ve done something useful when they’ve done nothing at all. It’s insulting to stick a survey in an employee’s face and then use that data to tell the folks in the executive suite that those people in-charge of harnessing their human capital is on top of their jobs.
You don’t do a good job in human capital development by hitting a certain success rating on a survey. You do a good job by walking around, and talking with people and listening to them.
The key question that needs to be addressed to achieve a sustainable employee engagement is “Is this a good and healthy place to work?” (more than any employee engagement survey could do). The good news is, there are several indicators that can help get organizations moving towards a healthier culture.
Employee Referrals
Employees refer their friends to work with them when they like the environment. According to some Human Capital Development practitioners, if your employee referrals aren’t responsible for at least 25% of your new hires, then your culture is off. Your current employees are the best source of fast, pre-oriented and pre-vetted new hires, so if you’re posting job ads and hiring strangers instead of the friends and relatives of your own employees, you’re missing the ship in a big way.
Internal Transfers
Internal transfers are a good thing. The easier it is for employees to move freely about the organization, learning more and employing what they know to help the organization grow. If it’s hard to transfer internally, employees won’t try. They’ll stick around in a job they’ve outgrown and eventually leave the company altogether. Worse, they can stagnate and become the weakest link you dread. If you’re not transferring or promoting as many employees as you hire in from outside, your internal transfer system is keeping your greatest talent source locked in limbo.
Re-Hires
When an organization is healthy, people leave and their colleagues wish them well. Get used to throwing parties for people who are leaving – cake, balloons and all! If you believe that anyone who leaves you apart from a retiring employee is an enemy of the company, you are stuck in an ancient and destructive mindset.
Hotline Activity
You must have a confidential hotline that employees can use to report unethical or inappropriate behavior – because your employees won’t always feel comfortable going to HR or their manager’s boss to report something bad, like sexual harassment or theft. That will tell you about the concerns your employees have and make it easy for you to respond to them in newsletters and at Town Hall meetings. According to some estimates, nearly every one of the employers who has paid a bundle to a mistreated employee would have saved their money (and their culture) if they had had an effective ‘back channel’ hotline in place.
When you have a confidential hotline and it is busy, that’s not a bad thing. It means that employees are telling you what’s up! Over time, you will keep raising the trust level so that employees use the hotline less often and talk to their superiors more often.
Employee Assistance Program Usage
For companies with over 100 employees, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a must-have business tool. Your employees can get free, confidential advice on financial, legal and mental-health issues by calling the counselors at your EAP. That’s a fantastic pressure release valve for your organization, because everyone runs into issues now and then. The more active your EAP participation is, the better peace of mind you can have that your employees are getting help with their stickiest human issues, the same ones that would keep them from focusing on being at their best at work.
As a leader or a Human Capital Development person is to help boost EAP participation by reminding employees all the time that the company has provided this free, confidential service for them and their family members. The better your culture, the more easily people will jump in!
Office Scene After Hours
Half an hour after the end of business hours, the office scene should be pretty empty. If it isn’t, your line leaders are riding your employees too hard to stick around. Let’s be honest, there is no more productivity after five p.m. for most people. A business day in today’s high-powered environment is a full-out eight-hour sprint.
Get your employees away from their desks, out the door and off to their other adventures! Great leaders know that a full office at seven p.m. is a sign of a dysfunctional organization. That doesn’t only rob your employees and their families of their precious downtime. Its robbing your customers and shareholders, too.
Speaking Engagements
An organization’s employees are hands-down the best evangelists for your brand. When dozens of people from an organization out on the conference and event circuit spreading the gospel, an organization builds a community of followers and fans that will take it to a higher level of brand awareness. When a manager doesn’t let employees get out from behind the desk to speak at conferences because s/he thinks it’s a distraction from their “real” job, the organization has a very confused perspective about branding and the viral nature of powerful messages.
Encourage and train employees (at least those who are interested) in public speaking, and let them loose to send your message across the world the organization operates in! Your PR chief would sure love to keep a roster of several dozen thought leaders (at any level – not just executives) from your company who can show up to galvanize an audience on a panel or in a keynote presentation.
Employee-Referred Sales
Employees are the best source of new sales leads for your company. Train them to understand what the ideal client looks like, and how to bring an inquiry to your sales department. As in employee referrals, where people will stop referring their friends if your recruiting process ignores and insults your employees’ referred applicants, when employees bring you sales leads, and these are ignored, expect the flow of new sales leads to stop.
Employees’ sales leads should be handled like high-priority prospects. If employees aren’t bringing you the right kinds of leads, then take the time to educate them. If an organization’s employees aren’t responsible for at least 10% of your new business each year, then you’re under-utilizing a powerful channel for new business.
Employee Churn
People leave employers for all sorts of reasons, and if you treat them well on the way out a number of those who you’d hate to go may just come back. Some tenured practitioners say that if voluntary turnover is over 7% per year, it’s time to stop and find out why. People who are thriving at work, learning something new every day and feeling like part of a team don’t job-hunt.
Don’t fool yourself about culture. Many can pretend it doesn’t matter as long as they like, while talent flees and customers leave to work with your competitors. Be real about what’s working and what isn’t. Start making an impact on your organization’s culture and bottom line!