By Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of Red Banyan, a global crisis PR firm, and author of The Cancel Culture Curse and Crisis Averted.
Establishing a company culture that promotes employee retention is something that requires thought, word and deed.
Business owners know finding good employees is challenging and keeping them on the payroll involves more than just a paycheck. Retention largely hinges on culture—the character and personality of your organization. It’s what makes your business different from all others. I believe creating a company culture that is tolerant, supportive and flexible will determine if your employees stay or go.
Good, bad or indifferent, company culture can make or break a business. Business owners who want to succeed must pay attention to detail and be determined to make changes if necessary. Culture is a company’s DNA.
A positive company culture is important because it can impact job satisfaction and happiness, attract talent and drive engagement. Leadership, management, best practices, company policies and employees themselves impact culture significantly.
Here are my tips on how leaders can begin building and improving their company culture.
Value learning.
To help with engagement and retention rates, organizations can establish strong learning cultures. Employees who want to develop their skills and thrive need environments where learning is valued.
One way to do this is to involve employees in the learning process and create a “lunch-and-learn” program with rotating opportunities for employees to share their expertise with colleagues. Such a program can be implemented on a monthly basis with employees offering up their knowledge and talent through sign-ups. Lunch-and-learns can easily be conducted on group video calls or in person, depending on your organization’s preference. My company, for example, created a lunch-and-learn program about two years ago. All learning modules are recorded and stored online so employees can watch them at their convenience if they are unable to attend the event in real time.
Address behavior that clashes with the company’s culture.
Bad behavior is never a good thing, but knowing what to do when the going gets tough makes this difficult path easier to navigate. Forward-thinking companies that want to keep employees coming back must understand communication is the key to success. Companies should proactively establish employee education programs that outline what constitutes misconduct and then demonstrate how to approach, recognize and deal with behaviors that do not mesh with company culture.
The way an organization manages internal turmoil is crucial to its future. According to Deloitte, companies should consider the four following factors when a misstep occurs:
• Timing: Businesses need to act quickly and transparently and find a timely, resolution-focused response. They should also aim to get the workplace back to business as usual to create the least disruption.
• Objectivity: Misconduct cases should be investigated through an independent and objective third party to preserve integrity.
• Safety: Companies should implement safeguards to protect employees, clients and the brand.
• Stakeholder impact: Ensure your business understands and is prepared to act on the consequences workplace misconduct has on all stakeholders.
Ask the right questions to find important answers.
Creating and maintaining a positive company culture means employers must ask tough questions to elicit answers that will make a difference. I believe compliance and enforcement-related issues are directly connected to employee empowerment and the establishment of a company culture where employees believe their voices are heard and their opinions matter. Company leaders who are unaware of how issues impact employees will not be able to identify and address issues as they arise.
To build a sustainable culture that retains existing employees and attracts new ones, leaders must pay attention to what employees want. A careful review of existing protocols that address internal problems should make it clear if changes need to be made.
At my company, we also ask employees about job satisfaction, learning opportunities, professional development tools and opportunities for advancement. Surveying employees with specific questions on these key issues will provide a clearer picture of areas that need improvement, if there are any, while also providing a barometer to measure job satisfaction. Surveys such as these also provide employees with a means to communicate areas that need improvement.
Expectations in the workplace are changing, and policies and social behaviors must satisfy a workforce that expects more.
Remember that culture starts at the top.
Company culture stems from a leader’s vision for the future, what they celebrate and recognize and how they interact with employees. A CEO who works side-by-side with employees and has an authentic open-door policy is laying the foundation for a company culture that is very different from that of an absentee CEO who defers all questions to underlings and is rarely accessible and seldom seen.
How an organization is managed also contributes to its culture. Employee empowerment is a vital element of company culture and one that can affect hierarchy, goals and controls. Workplace traditions such as “shout outs” for good work, daily “huddles” to keep apprised of projects, recruiting practices and work-life balance all make up a company’s culture.
Clarity of a company’s mission and clearly defined core values that inspire others also set the stage for a solid company culture.
Some work environments are collaborative, and some are competitive; some are remote, while others are in-person. Whatever the case, it is important that employers carefully evaluate prospective employees to make sure they are a good fit for the company’s culture and work situation.
Work environments are not one-size-fits-all, especially if you have created a unique company culture that sets you apart from the pack. Business leaders must consciously ask the right questions as they thoughtfully search for individuals who can not only do the work but also seamlessly adapt to the company’s culture and embrace its core values and mission.
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