By Michael W. Hill, Mobius Vendor Partners Executive Consultant, Author of Measuring to Manage

It’s been said “an organization is only as strong as its work culture.” Your culture is the accumulation of the talents, skills, knowledge, work ethic, and health of its employees. As things become more competitive organizations must ask: what can be done to create a strong employee-thriving culture?

Daily stress, disengaged employees, mergers, accelerated growth, market changes can all contribute to changes in your culture. So, the culture you had last year may not be the culture you have today.

Successful organizations focus on their workforce, is your workforce helping you to create the culture that is needed for the organization’s growth? Along with employee engagement with your customers, employees need to be engaged, inspired, and connected to their coworkers. The organizations that can accomplish this end up with a culture in which the organization and the employees thrive.

Let’s look at some of the signs we see in organizations with bad cultures.

1. Confusing or nonexistent core values. When this happens, employees become confused and struggle to perform their jobs in the best way and to the performance level the organization needs. 

I was working with an organization helping them set performance standards for their employees when the HR director made this great suggestion. She said that everyone in the organization (including management) needed standards to perform too.

So, what do you do? You need to address the question: exactly what is expected of the employee and what is an acceptable level of performance. This needs to be in writing so there is no disagreement between the employee and supervisor.

To see if your message is clear, ask the employees. Get their input. They may have suggestions that you can use to improve both their performance and the organization.

1. How long are your employees staying with your organization? If employees are leaving after a short period and/or new employees are not staying very long you might have a culture problem. A similar issue here is: are you having trouble finding quality candidates to join your organization?

So, what can you do? When possible get back with the employee(s) and ask. Most of the time employees that have decided to leave will be very truthful with you as they leave.

1. If your employees don’t feel appreciated this can be detrimental to the organization’s culture. It’s nice to have awards and contests at work, but what counts most is a sincere thank you. 

So, what do you do? Turn employee recognition from a project into a culture. This takes a concerted effort by management. Management should always be on the lookout for something positive to say about each employee’s performance. The organizations that show employees that they appreciate them and value their contributions are the organizations that excel. 

Your comments must be timely and sincere. Appreciation is a fundamental human need. And like all needs we all have different desirable levels to meet our needs. Ask your employees how they want to be recognized. Some of your employees may want to be recognized more often than others, it’s up to you as their manager to fulfill that need. When you do you will see the employees’ job satisfaction level increase, and their productivity will increase.

You probably noticed that I point out with each “sign” that you need to ask your employees for their input. Some of what you “need” to know can only be answered by the employees themselves. Maybe a survey would help? You might be making some assumptions that are just not correct! Get your employees involved! Some of the “sign” of a culture issue may be affecting your employees more than you think and  they may currently be looking for employment elsewhere because they do not feel that the organizations culture is one in which they want to work. 

You may want our help. 

At Mobius’ Employee Experience – EX Consulting Employee Experience – Mobius Vendor Partners (mobiusvp.com) – we have the software to survey your employees so you can make the best decisions for your company and respond to your employees’ needs. Contact us to get started.

Mike’s book: Measuring to Manage is available on Amazon.