As we get stuck into the new year, for many business owners, it’s a time to plan, reassess strategies and refresh goals. Clients often ask for our advice and there are usually common questions and issues that pop-up. We know that many of us are short on time too so we’ve decided to create a bite sized series of videos on our top tips, advice and HR how-to’s. In our first video, we share our top tips on how you can transform your workplace culture to achieve business goals.
How to transform your workplace culture to become more values centric
Why is creating a great workplace culture important?
According to Deloitte, over 50% of companies who responded to their annual global human capital trends survey for 2016 survey were currently attempting to change their culture in response to “shifting talent markets and increased competition”.
Reinvigorating workplace culture is a growing concern across the board from small business through to larger organisations whether it’s looking at transforming leadership to become more values led, aligning culture with strategy or ensuring your culture continues to evolve as your business grows.
Culture is a competitive advantage. It enables businesses to hire great talent and having a great culture will help attract the best and brightest. There is a clear link between higher employee engagement and higher performance in the workplace. having a strong culture also provides values to help guide employees for example when handling difficult and tricky situations.
A recent example is from one of our clients who has around 40 staff. Their challenge was how to create a values centric culture. Here are our top tips:
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Understand what your ‘secret sauce’ is and what values are already part of the DNA of your business. To do this you need to talk to and listen to your team. Co design the values with your people not for them. Don’t assume that there isn’t a culture in place. Just because it hasn’t been articulated or formalised, does not mean it doesn’t exist. People develop their own customs and behaviours within a team organically. |
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Articulate the values and let them soak. People want to talk about the business values and have their say. They need to understand what each of the values means for them and why specific values have been chosen. The easiest way for values to be adopted is for you to talk about them face to face and to keep that conversation going. |
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Any structural changes should also go hand in hand with cultural and behavioural change. During challenging times such as restructuring, you need to focus on reconnecting the team with each other and the business values. |
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Just do it and get started! Begin to embed the values into your operating rhythm beyond any transformational change project, too often this last step gets missed by businesses. |
All change takes time and you are never too small to get conscious about your culture .You need to be aware of your team culture no matter how small your business bearing in mind the link between culture, engagement and performance.
Want to know more? Talk to us, we’re here to help.
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